The Self in Relation to Others

What is a ‘Relationship’?

One of the areas for coaching that clients often come with, is how to work in relationship with other people.

Mostly that’s literally at work — usually the case for my leadership clients, and sometimes it spills over into the personal, the love relationship in our lives, children, colleagues, or others in many directions.

Sometimes it’s specific, a ‘difficult’ member of staff for example, a (seemingly) problematic teenager; and sometimes it’s general-a changed, or expanded leadership role and a client who wants to understand how to do it to the best of his or her abilities.

Whatever the context, one of the places we look is always the same,

What is the nature of the self in relation to others?

Because, when we understand what we are looking at and what it’s made of, then it’s much easier to know how to work with that to create what we want.

The Self Versus ‘Other’

My leadership clients have usually been on some kind of course or programme, or at least heard talk of the idea of understanding someone else’s perspective. Sometimes it’s been about listening, sometimes it’s emotional intelligence, sometimes they’ve been taught models of the personal and the work…