The hero's journey
By Bernard Chanliau, Wednesday 05 April, 2006
The Business of Life/Executive Coaching
(by Anna King/Bernard Chanliau)
Anna King talks to executive coach Bernard Chanliau about why so many men are choosing to explore life/business coaching to help them through professional and life challenges:
“From my own coaching experience, it is about helping men through life's deep transitions whether personal or at work. Coaching is about regaining a vision and excitement about life...”
Bernard Chanliau is a director of XenerGie Consulting Ltd. He is a certified executive coach from the Lore International Institute, member of the International Coach Federation (ICF), a licensed Master NLP Practitioner and holds a MA, HRM, NCI with a research thesis on coaching and the impact on leadership effectiveness. Eighteen years of corporate experience, spanning seven countries has provided him with an in-depth understanding of diversity, cross-cultural differences, and the ability to drive change.
Coaching is rapidly becoming the first choice for many people that want to develop, learn new skills, find personal success, and/or manage the challenges that life inevitably presents. In particular, coaching in Ireland is becoming one of the most sought after support systems for men.
According to Bernard, this is partly due to the non-threatening approach of coaching and the fact that men, by their nature often prefer to come about the answers to their problems themselves. “Coaching is not about fixing people. Coaching facilitates answers from the individual, rather than prescribes or dictates some kind of response. Coaching is reactive, flexible and enabling which appeals to a guys sense of doing things.”
While it has been common practice throughout Europe and the US for the last decade, coaching has really only become popular in Ireland in the past five years. What is interesting, however, is that the type of men interested in this form of self-help ranges from executives looking for assistance in their leadership development, to guys in challenging relationships.
However, Bernard is adamant that men’s life coaching is not therapy. “From my own coaching experience, it is about helping men through life's deep transitions whether personal or at work. Coaching is about regaining a vision and excitement about life; it is about helping men live their lives with purpose and with passion. It is also about achieving a work life balance.”
Bernard has worked with men needing guidance through burn out, redundancy, career, leadership transition, new promotion and paralysing situations, such as suffering the devastation of losing children through divorce. “Men are generally not very good at showing their feelings and sometimes hide their inner pain from both themselves and their loved ones,” says Bernard.
“Sometimes things are left until it is too late or until hardship hits a marriage or business venture. Men are prone to all sorts of denial until their backs are against a wall. They may turn to drink, sex, gambling, or work to hide their fears but the reality is that they cannot continue on this path forever. Eventually, the image crumbles and the pieces have to be picked up,” he says.
When either personal or business meltdown hits, men often do not know whom to turn to. They can feel vulnerable to ridicule or they may find themselves in a situation where they are extremely unhappy but fear making a change in case this is perceived as a failure. Coaching can assist people in many ways, but there are three areas that men find effective: it can help break negative cycles and prevent reaching a point of catastrophe; it can facilitate the removal of the barriers that are hampering growth or success; or it can, if necessary, help heal a disaster and work towards a new and possibly brighter future.
Bernard believes that coaching as a process works for guys. “This is because as men we often feel that we need to be in control. Coaching never takes control away from the individual. It helps people make decisions and take actions that are meaningful to the person rather than doing what others admire or think is right.”
Coaching is also popular because men feel safe within their masculinity. “Men often need to know that they are not going to become weak or emasculated by going though an emotional learning experience. Many men I have worked with have felt so much stronger after our sessions and have gone away with a much brighter and confident view of the future,” he says.
Bernard calls this process the hero’s journey. “This is one of the oldest stories in the world and it tells the tale of a quest for treasure that is hard to find and involves going through various initiations before arriving at the place where the treasure is buried. For my clients the treasure often represents a clearer picture of what it is that is in the way of them truly being happy in their lives.”