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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 10, No. 5
Publication Date: May 25, 2023
DOI:10.14738/assrj.105.14770.
Forbes, R. L. (2023). Leadership Coaching and the Myth of the Rational Client. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal,
10(5).312-317.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Leadership Coaching and the Myth of the Rational Client
Raymond L. Forbes
Franklin University, 201 South Grant Avenue,
Columbus, OH 43215 USA
ABSTRACT
This paper will address the issue of whether or not the clients of leadership coaches
think and act in completely rational ways. It explores the question using a lens
derived from the fields of Behavioral Economics and the Brain Sciences. Beginning
with a look at the origins of the idea of rationality, this work proceeds to consider
what’s really at issue, why it matters, and the possible trap posed by assuming
strong client rationality. The paper concludes by posing options for resolution of
the rationality myth by exploring the concepts of heuristics, bias, anchoring and
priming. The paper concludes with suggestions for what leadership coaches can
actually do to improve their work with clients and a short summary of the main
ideas.
Keywords: leadership coaching, economics, behavioral economics, myth, rationality
INTRODUCTION
What does it mean to be rational? Rationalism, as an approach to understanding human
behavior, is believed to have begun in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth-century
Europe. This particular epoch is often referred to by historians as the “Enlightenment.”
Rationalism is a viewpoint that regards reason as the primary source and test of knowledge. It
holds that reality has a basic logical structure that consists of truths that the human intellect
can grasp directly. Rationalism was developed primarily as a reaction to the prevailing
religious-based prescriptions of the era. This “Age of Reason” prominently featured the works
of such eminent figures as Spinoza, Leibniz, Descartes, and Hume [1].
Influenced by the physics of Sir Isaac Newton, early economic thinkers consciously attempted
to model their economic system on Newton’s rational-scientific approach to understanding the
natural world [2]. Like the trajectory of the various balls struck by the cue ball in an opening
shot of billiards, one could accurately determine their paths if aware of the angles, surfaces and
forces at play. To the rationalists, fixed laws that govern human behavior, similar to Newton’s
three laws of motion, were there to be uncovered. Important to this economic theory,
individuals were seen as completely rational, logically-consistent beings who acted in their own
best interests.
Therefore, given enough information and a knowledge of the relevant laws, individual behavior
could be predicted. To this rational way of thinking, an economic system could be viewed as an
arrangement whereby individual humans were the functional equivalent of atoms. In this
system people behaved rationally, obeyed fixed laws, made their decisions in isolation, and
acted in ways to optimize their own fixed preferences. The economists’ principal focus was on
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Forbes, R. L. (2023). Leadership Coaching and the Myth of the Rational Client. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 10(5).312-317.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.105.14770
identifying the operating assumptions and creating mathematical equations to resolve the
workings of the various parts of the system. [3].
The fundamental maxims of the traditional economists infer the rationality of the fiscal
decision-maker. These imperatives both govern and predict choice. Critical canons included the
availability of complete information; that preferences are stable across choice alternatives; that
preferences are consistent across alternatives; that calculations can be made to compute the
relative value of each alternative; and individuals always acted in ways to maximize their
expected value. In other words, applying the theories of traditional economists to leadership
coaching, clients would be seen to be highly rational.
In contrast to the thinking of conventional economists, the basic tenets of the traditional
approach have been challenged by a new breed of behavioral economist. [4], [5] and [6],
Combining insights from the behavioral and brain sciences with economic thinking, behavioral
economists have attempted to broadly base their field on direct observations and controlled
experiments of how people actually think and behave when they make decisions in the real
world.
Representative of the behavioral economists’ confrontation of the traditionalists is the body of
work of the 1978 Nobel Prize winner in Economics, the scientist, economist and cognitive
psychologist, Herbert Simon. Simon disputed many of the fundamental arguments relating to
the rationality of decision-makers. In particular, Simon [7] found that rationality was, indeed,
limited. On the basis of his research, Simon asserted that all relevant information to a decision
is never known prior to choosing. Simon’s enquiry also demonstrated that all applicable
choices are never known or completely evaluated before a choice is made. Additionally. Simon
found that decision-makers have neither the capacity, knowledge or skills to determine the
relative value of the choice. Following Simon’s groundbreaking work, four other Behavioral
Economists have also won the prestigious Nobel Prize for Economics including: Gary Becker in
1992, Daniel Kahneman in 2002, Robert Schiller in 2013, and Richard Thaler in 2017,
WHAT’S AT ISSUE
Central to the ongoing debate in the field is the issue of the perceived pure rationality of the
decision-maker. (The coaching client) as advocated by traditional economic theory. When
confronted with a choice situation, do clients actually act in a completely rational manner as
suggested by the main-stream economists? Can coaches actually enable their clients to become
better decision-makers? Is complete human rationality a myth or a reality?
WHY IT MATTERS
Since much of what leadership coaches do is an attempt to enhance the effectiveness of the
judgment-making processes of both their clients and themselves, assumptions about client
rationality appear to directly or indirectly impact decision-making activity. Insights from
behavioral economics, including limits on rationality, seem to be a particularly promising
avenue for improving the coach-client relationship.
At the core of effective leadership coaching is the very human relationship of trust between the
coach and the client. Trust is built on mutual respect, enhanced or degraded on the basis of
experience together. It is often seen to have two components; character and competence [8].
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Character refers to the moral and mental characteristics of a person. Competence concerns the
ability to do something well. Negative assumptions about competence and character can act to
poison the trust relationship and could possibly act as something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The coach typically enters the client relationship with an anticipation that his or her primary
role is to support and challenge the client to achieve positive outcomes. The coach hopes the
client will tell the truth, will listen and will bring up what is foremost in mind. The coach also
usually assumes that the client will carry out any requested coaching assignments. In return,
the client may expect a high degree of skill and competence in the coach, an appropriate level
of professional training, relevant experience, degrees of empathy and keeping confidentiality.
THE RATIONALITY TRAP
Underlying the dynamics of the leadership coach-client relationship is a set of conscious and
unconscious assumptions that influence what will happen in coaching sessions. These
assumptions may relate to: how the world works, how the client relates to the world, why
people act as they do, and why things work the way that they do [9]. Potentially, one the most
pernicious assumptions concerns the myth of rationality. This is the belief that when
confronted with a choice situation, clients will always choose to act in a logical, well thought- out, manner. Additionally, rationality suggests that clients will usually behave in ways that will
maximize their own personal utility or benefit,
Daniel Kahneman [10] has identified two basic modes or ways in which the brain appears to
operate.
System One is a “hot” system of processing information. Rooted in the unconscious, it is simple,
intuitive, evolutionarily ancient, and non-verbal. It is also, fast-acting, effortless and automatic.
System Two is a “cool “mode. It is deliberate, slower-acting, cognitive, complex and self- controlled. Additionally, System Two requires conscious effort to access, is logical in operation,
constrained by working memory capacity and very energy intensive to operate. It is potentially
helpful for coaches to recognize that their clients typically operate out of System One primarily
because it is quicker, easier, simpler and more energy-efficient for their brains to use.
USEFUL OPTIONS FROM BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS
The extensive body of pragmatic decision-making research of behavioral economists
Kahneman and Tversky [12] also contains several conclusions of possible interest to
Leadership Coaches. These practical research-based deductions appear to directly impact the
process of client decision-making. This is of particular note to coaches since often a great deal
of time and effort in coaching sessions is devoted to understanding and improving the quality
and effectiveness of the client’s decision-making of particular interest to coaches are the roles
of heuristics, biases, anchoring and priming. Heuristics are the simple, shorthand decision rules
used by System One to automatically guide the decision-making process. Anchoring relates to
a tendency to rely heavily on the first piece of information received when making a decision,
Bias concerns an inclination or prejudice, often unconscious, for or against someone or
something. Priming is an effect in unconscious memory during which prior exposure to one
thing effects the response to a later one.
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Forbes, R. L. (2023). Leadership Coaching and the Myth of the Rational Client. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 10(5).312-317.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.105.14770
Heuristics
Sometimes called “rules of thumb,” heuristics are generally of two types: representativeness
and availability [13]. Representativeness is the belief that a random sample drawn from even a
small population should represent the whole population. Availability is the tendency for things
that come to mind quickly or easily to be judged to occur more frequently and with a higher
probability of being correct than those less accessible. An example of a leadership coaching
heuristic might be, “So, you see your superior’s recent behavior as representative of most
managers in the whole company?”
Bias
Many different types of bias have been identified in everyday use [14]. Typically biases operate
automatically below the level of conscious awareness to influence behavior. Coaching examples
are: younger people are just not as responsible; an ivy league education is more valuable that
that from a public school; and taller executives make better CEOs.
Anchoring
The anchoring effect occurs when an individual's decisions are influenced by a particular
previous reference point [15]. A coaching example of anchoring is, “So, you decided to change
your whole marketing plan based on your major competitors last year’s sales performance?”
Priming
Priming is the idea that prior exposure to one stimulus effects the response to a following one
[16]. The effect automatically occurs in our unconscious memory, influencing judgment and
choices without conscious guidance or intention. Coaching example: following a discussion
about the challenges of working with older subordinates, the client walks more slowly away at
the conclusion of the coaching session.
WHAT CAN COACHES REALLY DO
Based on a selective review of the Behavioral Economics and Brain Sciences research, here is a
sampling of what Leadership Coaches might more effectively do to more effectively work with
the rationality of their clients as they find them:
• Identify typical client heuristics and biases. Discuss with the client the possible impact
on their own behavior and that of others when using a particular heuristic or bias.
• Recognize and point out the anchors that the client may be using to assess his or her
performance. Ask the client to reflect on whether or not they are serving desired
coaching outcomes.
• Acknowledge and support the client’s need to experience a better quality of self-esteem,
to feel good about themselves as well as to believe they are honorable, likeable, and
appreciated as individuals.
• Judiciously use nudges to get movement in the right direction. Nudging [17] is a means
to improve the likelihood that an individual will make a particular choice or act in a more
predictable way. It alters the environment such that automatic thinking choices are
activated without forbidding any options or changing any economic incentives. A
coaching example is, for the client to consider themselves as automatically opting in to
completing post-session assignments by the next session or directly stating why they
choose not to.
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• Use small positive verbal emotional rewards to handle fears of failure or
disappointment. Praise the client for incremental progress toward successful goal
achievement.
• Connect with the ambitions of the client. Help them to clarify their personal goals and
aspirations. Without betraying confidentiality, tell short stories as primes to associate
instances where leadership coaching clients overcame adversity and reached
challenging personal developmental goals.
SUMMARY
This paper has investigated the myth of the rationality of the leadership coaching client. It has
also explored the potential influence of both traditional and Behavioral Economics on the field
of coaching. Additionally, it has looked at how Leadership Coaches might be more successful by
being aware of relevant findings from the fields of the Brain Sciences and Behavioral
Economics. Specifically, the paper has visited how the concepts of heuristics, biases, anchoring
and priming might be impacting coaching practices. Several examples for utilizing them in the
client relationship were provided.
It seems clear from the available current evidence that the fully rational client is a myth. Human
beings are influenced by both their accessible overt consciousness, their hidden covert
unconsciousness, as well as the interactions between the two systems. Perhaps the closest
leadership coaches can come to rationality closure was voiced by Herbert Simon’s concept of
“bounded rationality.” This is the notion that actual human behavior departs from the perfect
rationality proposed by the classical economists. It is a condition where the decision maker
attempts to satisfice rather than optimize choice; accepting good enough rather than the best
possible solution. In practice, leadership coaching clients often prove themselves to be neither
puppets to be manipulated nor gullibly easy marks.
As sentient-beings’ clients may at times act unpredictably, emotionally, and irrationally.
Coaching clients seem to respond best to the coach adapting to the level of rationality that their
clients exhibit. This may involve the coach using active-listening, affording clients verbal
respect, treating them as aware adults, and providing support in the accomplishment of their
self-improvement goals.
Ultimately, given the vastly different perspectives of the traditional and behavioral economists,
the reputed first and second laws of economics appear to apply when considering the notion of
client rationality. The First Law is, “For every economist there exists an equal and opposite
economist.” The Second Law says “They’re both wrong.” The credibility of economists aside, in
actual practice, leadership coaching clients seem to come in all flavors and descriptions as well
as having differing degrees of rationality as do the coaches themselves.
References
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Forbes, R. L. (2023). Leadership Coaching and the Myth of the Rational Client. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 10(5).312-317.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.105.14770
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