If you wanted to be a coach to save people, you should have been an ER doctor instead.
The White Knight
The visual of a white knight stretches through pop culture. From the image of a knight on a horse rushing in to protect a beautiful princess, to the internet buzzword where someone unwarrantedly insets themselves in an argument so as to defend someone who never needed defending.
Unfortunately, some coaches try to fill the role of this white knight with their desire to save, rescue, or merely help their clients.
So what's in it for the white knight coach? How much do the ‘victims’ they’re there to save really benefit from their coaching? Or are they merely trying to satisfy their savior complex?
Unfortunately the reality is, a savior’s complex rarely saves anyone. So how do we recognize signs of ‘white knighting’ in coaching? If we wanted to be a coach to help people, does this mean we can’t actually help? Is it really so bad to want to help people? This complex topic is tackled by Jen Long (ACC), Jerome LeDuff (MCPC), Anthony Lopez (MCPC), Brooke Adair Walters (ACC), Lisa Finck (MCC) and Ryan Doig (MCLC) of CLCI Live. Catch the video to see their take on this conversation! Like the line from Irving Berlin’s White Christmas goes, “it's kind of dangerous putting those knights up on white horses. They're likely to slip off, you know.”
Why Coaches White Knight
A white knight is commonly defined as “one that comes to the rescue of another.” It’s not unnatural to desire the role of a hero. Famous psychoanalysts like Carl Jung even places this role as an archetype, or a constant for people across all cultures. But some fantasy figures should stay in fiction. In everyday life, people with a savior complex can do more harm than good, ranging from simply being viewed as annoying, to actively contributing to or creating another’s sense of learned helplessness and dependency.
We can get a sense of validation from saving people. Maybe we want to because our empathy hurts seeing them in a painful situation and we feel we have a solution for their problem. Maybe we want to because if we, their savior, are helpful in their life, then we are important to it: they need us and cannot leave us. Or perhaps the validation is a reward in and of itself, and the confidence boost we get from every victim ‘saved’ gives us more pride to bask in. As the white knight who swooped in and saved the day, after all, it’s us who deserves all the credit. A white knight might not like the answer they’d give after reflecting on the question: “What do I get from saving this person?” But that’s exactly why self reflection is so important.
It’s better to focus on being our own knight, rather than being somebody else’s hero. It’s better to focus on our accomplishments instead of trying to find easy fixes for someone else to get a ‘victory. Does this mean we can’t ever help someone else? Absolutely not! But note the wording there. Self reflection leads to self awareness. Being self aware in instances where people need help is hardly a harm. But helping is not the same as saving.
It’s not about having the spotlight as a hero. It’s about being a person. And people can connect with other people: an idealized image won’t.
No Salvation in the Savior Complex
How useful is it going to be to bring a white knight complex into a coaching session? That comes down to differentiating between saving a client and supporting them. And as tempting as the former idea might be, it’s not only not what a coach is there for, it’s not helpful in the long run. That can be a hard pill to swallow for those of us who fall into the mindset of helping others by fixing their problems. The problems are gone! Why wouldn’t that be considered helpful?
Having a white knight might mean having a scapegoat to point to for some (when things go wrong), and an authority to depend on for others. Neither of which is useful. Even if we don’t buy that they’re a ‘savior’, their attitude can be discouraging. Some anecdotes paint a clear picture of people whose accomplishments go attributed to the “contributions and supervision” of the “savior”, rather than their own resilience and hard work.
As tempting as it might be to give the “answers” we think we see, it’s better to resist. Think about a business coach telling a new life coach what to do to start their own business up, rather than listening and letting this new coach brainstorm what they want. The right answer for one person isn’t automatically the best solution for another.
For those white knights who genuinely just want to save people from going through pain, there’s another important idiom to remember: you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. White knights might hand out quick fixes, but that’s all they are: quick fixes. They’re not long lasting. They’re not meaningful solutions. They don’t help anyone grow more aware of themselves, their goals, and what their next approaches could be.
Mistakes are how we learn what works and what doesn’t. Being supported while we try different methods and find our best solution for a problem we are facing is going to have far more long lasting benefits for us compared to having someone else take all of the control and credit with an impersonalized, quick “fix”.
The white knight often does more harm than they do help. In fact, the more we try to fix all the problems of another, the more likely it is we are actually nudging them into learned helplessness. Savior complexes have no place in the coaching session.
Retiring Our White Knight
Psychologist Mark Travers offers three useful methods to begin shaking off a savior complex: active listening, waiting instead of stepping in, and holding in the urge to help people until asked. This is most application in intimate and familial relationships. Many clients that come to a life coach are doing so to ask for help.; you do, just not by giving fixes through advice and orders.
Active listening is a key part of coaching. It’s also incredibly important for those trying to avoid white knighting. As Travers puts it: don’t be afraid of silence. What a familiar sentiment for a coach adhering to ICF values. By letting the silence sit and actively listening to another, we move past the internal pressure to say our solutions. Instead of thinking about what fixes we can give once they’re done talking (and how much listening are we doing in that scenario, really), we’re treating them as someone more than just a case to solve and a victim to save.
Thank you,
Jen Long (ACC), Jerome LeDuff (MCPC), Anthony Lopez (MCPC), Brooke Adair Walters (ACC), Lisa Finck (MCC) and Ryan Doig (MCLC)!
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