As a coach, you should know what drives your client. With this knowledge, you can help your client see their situation with improved clarity. We all see the world through our personal set of lenses that come from our experience, our personality, and our allegiances. Our clients are typically unaware that they see the world only from their own unique perspective.

This is even more important in team coaching. Our lives are filled with politically charged topics that not only create disagreement but also ill feelings. Teams do not move well together when individual members feel hurt by the seeming lack of understanding of others. When the coach evokes awareness about the existence of multiple perspectives, the team can process issues much easier.

I had a recent experience that demonstrates how a person can process an uncomfortable topic and the ill feelings that go with it. There was no coach in this situation, but I could have acted as my own coach to have processed the experience better. You will also see the dynamics of various worldviews not fully understood by others.

Once a week, I meet with three friends, and we ultimately ask, “What is God saying to me and what am I going to do about it?” It is usually hard to get to that ultimate question. So, we share what is going on in our lives to see where God might be speaking.

Before this meeting, I was accidentally exposed to COVID. Two days after a Sunday lunch, one of our group tested positive. I immediately began to quarantine, which caused me to feel some sort of pain inside. It was not physical pain, but an irritation, a frustration, which I could not exactly describe. It was this pain that I brought to my friends to see what God might be saying to me.

My first friend is in a position where he has had to make difficult decisions about how his church should respond to the pandemic. Should they cancel church? Should they require masks? He has taken a moderate position, and most of his decisions have made at least some people unhappy.

In response to my experience, he spoke about how taking action to keep people from getting the virus might be worse for people than the separation they are enduring. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.

If we had just been discussing the topic of how we should respond to COVID, I might not have been so bothered by his response. Instead, I was focused on the grief that my recent quarantine had caused. His comments stirred up this grief, and I am embarrassed to say I responded with unkind words.

My second friend has been so frustrated by the relational separation caused by the pandemic that he has considered just going out and getting infected so he can get back to freely meeting with others. He has refrained from taking such an action, but he continues to be severely frustrated. His heart is to take the risk of complications upon himself so that he can be available to serve others.

Within our group, he wondered how we could be more supportive of those displaced by the issue.

He was speaking as a humble servant of the displaced, but I was feeling more displaced than humble. In fact, my displacement was creating a barrier to humble service. This was part of my grief, that I was losing my opportunity to serve.

The good news is that I said no unkind words this time. I held my tongue.

My third friend shared some insightful observations about the difficulties of responding to COVID without suggesting any resolutions to the issue.

His words evoked some new awareness in me. There was a pattern to my friends’ responses. They were speaking out of their worldview, which a coach can understand through various means. For me, I was seeing their responses through the nine personality types of the Enneagram.

My first friend whose COVID responses had made some people unhappy is an Enneagram Nine – the Adaptive Peacemaker. According to the Integrative 9 website:

“Enneagram Nines are motivated by a need to be settled and in harmony with the world and, as a result, being accommodating and accepting will be important to them. They strive for a peaceful existence and appreciate stability, preferring to avoid conflict.”

He prefers harmony over bold action. I usually prefer bold action over harmony. No wonder his words were discordant with my heart. We have different worldviews.

My second friend who suggested we figure out how to be humble servants is probably an Enneagram Six – The Loyal Sceptic. The Integrative 9 website says:

“Enneagram Sixes value security and belonging, as this style stems from the motivational need to be safe and prepared. As a result, loyalty and trust are important to Sixes, who strive to be responsible and prepared at all times.”

His worldview is the importance of safety and belonging for himself and for others. His heart is to preserve community. This is a beautiful worldview, but in this case, it provoked the pain caused by my broken community.

My third friend who made observations without suggesting a resolution is likely an Enneagram Five – The Quiet Specialist. We learn from the Integrative 9 website that:

“Enneagram Fives have the motivational need to know and understand. Fives value making sense of the world around them and, as a result, objectivity and knowledge are important to them.”

His worldview demands that we make careful observations to collect more information. His words made me look for a pattern in the data. This is because I, too, am an Enneagram Five. This is what evoked my awareness that there might be a pattern to our responses.

“Fives strive for independence, appreciate privacy and tend to conserve their resources to ensure future independence.”

The upset emotion that I was feeling was because quarantine threatened my independence and my access to resources. I felt relief as I finally understood my discomfort. My heart was broken because I could not meet the needs of others who had been displaced as long as I was under quarantine.

To answer the question, “What was God saying?” perhaps God was sharing His own broken heart and what drove Him to send His own son into a world of displaced people. The next question for me is, “What am I going to do about it?”

My example is not from a coaching experience, but it shows that an awareness of worldviews can make the process of discovery more productive and less divisive. When you as a coach can make observations that speak to the source of our opinions, then we are in a much better position to understand the opinions of others and to navigate the way forward with less pain and difficulty.

There are many ways we can understand worldview – through strengths, drive, personality, contribution, and many more. The idea is for the coach to not become attached to the problem or to the outcomes. A coach helps the client see their situation beyond their own understanding. When that happens, the way forward usually becomes clearer.