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Reflections on a coaching life
Of all the roles in the British Armed Forces, what is the role of the military chaplain? In this podcast, I continue my conversation with doctor Chris Mackle, who, as part of his work with the British Army, coaches people in the chaplaincy role. The role is multifaceted and nuanced. And in this conversation we explore the relationship between chaplains, senior officers, and other supervised spiritual support service personnel. We explore the different pressures a chaplain works under, To what extent is their role, career, or a vocation?
Geoff:Chris also shares his own approach to working with other people of the Christian faith. If you also work in a sector where you have to wrestle with tensions between vocation and career, or you're just interested in getting deeper insights into our armed forces, listen to this follow-up to my previous conversation with Chris about coaching in the forces. We we talked about working with army officers up to very senior level. In terms of work working with the armed forces, you've also worked with chaplains. Can you tell us what that was all about?
Chris:Well, again, I've never been in in a professional role in any kind of Christian organization. These men and women who are chaplains within the military or the navy or the air force are, first of all, Christians. They've come out of some Christian background, Anglicans, Methodists, Baptists. They will have all had theological training of some kind, and they will have all previously been in some parish role. These are requisites.
Chris:So so they've they've they've got the theological training, the knowledge, they've got parish experience, and and and then they've been led to go into to to the armed forces as a chaplain. And as such that they are in the officer side of things that is that they do have an officer rank, a minimum of a captain, major, lieutenant colonel going up that there is a chaplain general. The person in charge is described as the chaplain general. The role of a chaplain, we tend to see them with things like the mem you know, the the commemoration, the November 11 type things where where chap there's a chaplain out there or when when they're say re when they're burying some soldier personnel, whatever, they they see them in that that role. But most chaplains are actually heavily engaged really that their main role in life is pastoral.
Chris:So they're based on an army base usually and they've been there for two two and a half years. So in two and a half years they're building a relationship on that base with the army personnel. Their role is defined so you know so one chaplain leave another chaplain arrives So that, you know, that you don't have a long term residency with with a group of soldier personnel. You have two two and a half years. So you've you've gotta be good at building relationships.
Chris:It's a very important role because if you think about it, you're working with people as we've mentioned previously, people who sometimes have to take life, for example, or have to act in situations which are quite dangerous. And you want these people to behave in ways that reflect the values of our society, which is that we're a law abiding society with a set of values which are not those we see say exhibited by sadly Russian troops in Ukraine. You know we want our troops to behave differently even under the pressures of war fighting to behave in ways that are morally responsible. So the work that the chaplains do in terms of maintaining those values communicating those values but also the vital roles that they play in maintaining morale and resilience and so on, in the serving personnel but also in their families. Men and women have a vital role to play which I think is largely pastoral.
Geoff:That's a great description of the role of a chaplain in the context of the forces. I'm interested in what your role is with them. Typically people in pastoral ministry they might have a senior pastor or an archdeacon or a bishop or someone who provides them support. They might have a spiritual director. What is it about being a coach that enables you to bring something that they're not getting by way of support elsewhere?
Chris:Well I'm not sure if you can I mean there are a number of coaches working with these chaplains, I'm not the only coach? Some coaches that are working with them will not be Christian. That's what what I do offer is an is a is an understanding or perspective of someone who is who is not a a full time professional Christian serving person, but is a layperson with a of decades working in Christian context. So I guess I can offer that to them. Again, all of these men and women do a DISC evaluation.
Chris:So it's helping them to understand who they are and how they can use who they are with emotional intelligence and some of them face quite challenging situations you know that they the units with which they're working particularly the special forces units these units are under a great deal of pressure you know they're required to do things which are quite difficult and challenging emotionally and mentally which can have long term effects. Know it's known that being in the forces coming out can be quite a difficult transition. If you've been in the special unit coming out can be more difficult because of the kind of things you've done which have tend to be compressed whilst you are serving but once you're not serving anymore and you've left that environment then it's quite challenging or can be quite challenging to you know, down the down, maybe a year or two down the road as these things re emerge.
Geoff:And what what kind of issues do chaplains discuss with you?
Chris:Well, adoption of customers for me, you know, individual cases they're dealing with on their base, But is it is how I mean, on one case, it was a a person that wanted to start running and say alpha. So how how could he go about that? Or how could he create more effectively the bridge between what he was trying to be as as a Christian pastor with his servings, you know, how could he build more effective bridges with his servings serving personnel? So again, you know, as as a person who's not a professional Christian, if I could use that expression, but a lay Christian, it was, you know, in terms of how how I'd find it effective for for a person in a in a role of of pastor building relationships with me or with other lay people and vice versa.
Geoff:Okay, so for people listening who aren't familiar, I'll put a link, Alpha, an interactive course for people exploring the Christian faith.
Chris:Yes.
Geoff:When you're talking about building relationships, obviously if you are any kind of senior officer in the forces part of your work is pastoral. What's the difference between the pastoral work say of a senior officer and the pastoral work of a chaplain?
Chris:Well the chaplains are available, if I can tell you know I mean obviously they have some time off but many of them are so motivated that their mobile number is available right? If you're the commanding officer of a regiment or a battalion, you wouldn't expect to get the phone call first of all about somebody who was in deep emotional trouble or lost a loved one, that kind of thing. The chaplain would expect to get that call pretty quickly.
Geoff:Sure.
Chris:I mean as far as I know all regiments units and so on will have somebody performing what they call a welfare officer role so that they're part of this thing as well you know so that obviously in particular situations or particular units you will get some situation which is ongoing that is there is say a death or a marital problem or whatever it is some welfare problem which will involve concerted action between the chaplain, the welfare officer, the company commander or the battalion commander. Will be, if it's as serious as that, there will be a concerted action to deal with the situation.
Geoff:OK
Chris:again, it comes back to whatever role you're performing, whether it's as a commanding officer, whether it's as a chaplain, or whether it's you as a as a business leader in in the secular world, it's who you are as a person and how you use who you are as a person effectively. Statistic comes to mind, which I think it was it was, the Carnegie Institute. There's statistics that I found found from them. And they they've done some kind of this is some number of years ago, done some survey amongst their graduates worldwide. And what they found was in terms of business people who've gone through their system and been long term successful, 85% of their business success was down to their ability to communicate, relate, influence and negotiate.
Chris:Only 15% was down to their technical ability. In other words, it doesn't mean that technical competence is not important. Want engineers who are technically competent, We want accountants who are technically competent, lawyers who are technically competent. But the cutting edge of how effective you can be long term is down to your ability to relate, communicate, influence, negotiate. If you're if you're toxic as a person, a lot of the good that you might what might be able to achieve is blunted by the fact that everyone gets fed up with you out of the world.
Chris:They're either frightened of you, get fed up with you, wanna leave you, you know, they're not engaged with you, they're voting with their feet, these kind of things. So, you know, it is so counterproductive.
Geoff:Well, if you're if you're coming from a, say, a parish situation where your role is fairly clear, you know who you're working with. I mean there obviously there's always complexities in those kinds of relationships. You move into a different organizational context like the armed forces and you've got your job as a chaplain, you've got the individual forces members that you work with, but also you're part of this broader organisation. How much of your coaching involves helping the chaplain to understand the organisational context and where they fit into that network of relationships that they're part of?
Chris:I think I would say that most chaplains understand how they fit into the army structure. You know, it's part of their training as chaplains. You know? And on the whole, most chaplains I've come across have a good relationship with their commanding officer. Yes.
Chris:They do. Because that's key. And that means some commanding officers on the other side, some of the command one or two commanding officers that coach, not not many, but one or two clearly have a dim view either of the chaplain that they're landed with or of chaplains in general. Right? Yep.
Chris:The reason that the I mean, the it's very clear the reason that the army has chaplains is because of the pastoral support. You know, it's it's a pastoral role that they have. The amount of standard pre I mean, if you take a parish a pastor of whatever brand of Christianity in a parish, a large part of their role tends to be what they do on a Sunday, and they may lead other things during the week and so on. For for many of these base chaplains, the chaplains on a standard army base, there's not much that they do on a Sunday normally. It's mainly during the week pastoral work.
Chris:I mean there are differences. Sandhurst for example the big military college is different. Sandhurst has on its base a church building and in that church building there are services every weekend so a part of your role if you're a chaplain at Sandhurst is to lead services on a Sunday. But many bases do not have on a Sunday a service, right? They don't as far as can tell.
Chris:I mean some do but many don't. Or if they do that work is quite often done by what they call a scripture reader. There is a lay organization which although it's a non military organization but there are scripture readers who work on a some army basis. These men and women are there. The difference between them and the chaplain is that they are that tend to be there long term.
Chris:They work within the army chaplaincy service, but they're not an army chaplain. And it's it tends to be these people as well I can tell who who will be the people who will be there on a Sunday. A typical base maybe has somewhere between five hundred and seven hundred, 800 army personnel on it, but many of them are not there at the weekends. You know, they're somewhere else. But where where you have a what they call a garrison, you may have five or 7,000 personnel on a large base.
Chris:They may well have a garrison church, and they may well therefore have Sunday services. But often, these may be taken by the chaplain, but more likely taken by the the army scripture reader as well as I can tell. This is just my this may be atypical, but just my perception of what I picked up from talk to these folks over a period number of years.
Geoff:Okay. So I've just got a couple of, couple of final final questions. So when I've coached people who work doing different roles but in the same organization,
Chris:it can
Geoff:sometimes be quite interesting to see how people from different roles see the same situation but in a different way. So from your work with senior officers and with chaplains, how much of those different perspectives have you found helpful in perhaps encouraging each of those roles to understand either each other better or taking the different perspectives they have as a way of helping them understand more completely or in a more rounded fashion some of the common issues that they face?
Chris:Well I think to do that effectively or truly effectively you'd need to coach both the commanding officer and his or her chaplain. Simultaneously almost. And I've never done that. The chaplains I've coached have been all over The United Kingdom. Well, actually one recently in Europe.
Chris:And I've never coached a combination of a commanding officer and a chaplain. What I would say is that the chaplain I have coached have, as far as I can tell, had a good relationship with their commanding officer and have worked very closely with their commanding officer. And in fact, their commanding officers rely upon them as a source of wisdom and support in difficult situations. It's not a technical military response to getting. It's somebody who understands the military environment because they work in it as well, but they're giving it from a spiritual dimension or from a a more moral perspective or a more understanding of humankind perspective.
Geoff:Because that more spiritual dimension might come more explicitly into that conversation with the chaplain, just my final question was around how you might approach those conversations differently to the way you might approach them with a senior officer with a different starting agenda?
Chris:In neither case, while I'm walking with a chaplain or a commanding officer, do I, as it were, explicitly approach it from the fact I'm a Christian? In both contexts, I actually approach the situation from who I am, who obviously is a Christian, deeply influenced by my Christian faith and experience. I mean, some some of the commanding officers, I almost sense from what they're telling me are Christians, but I never asked never raised that issue with them.
Geoff:Okay, sounds like very rewarding work. Do you have a preference when it comes to these different roles? Do you prefer working with a senior officer or a chaplain or are they just different things
Chris:They're that are different for the following reasons. I have a great interest in European affairs and policy and how it develops and and and how, you know, fighting the risk of war fighting and and the risk of appeasement and and you know where do you push non appeasement? All of these I I find that I've always found that very interesting as a person. So I do have that side too but then obviously talking with the chaplains and working with the chaplains it's all the challenge of being a Christian in a non Christian organisation or being a Christian in society. It's the same challenges of exerting a Christian influence, a Christian leadership role in a non Christian organisation.
Chris:But one other thing which I didn't really want to mention in the podcast is the following: when the chaplains get what they call a chemistry call, the army officers get allocated to you and you get allocated to them as it were, that's it. With the chaplains, they get what they call a chemistry call. So in other words, they get names of two, at least two, maybe three coaches who they have an introductory chat with and then they decide who they want to go with as a coach. Now from that chemistry call, I can almost tell which chaplains will want to work with me and which won't because they detect that that I come from a certain Christian evangelical position, and maybe they don't. I mean, some of the chaplains I've come across that I've never actually worked with, to them it's just a job.
Chris:It's a well paid job. It's wearing a Christian badge but as Christian jobs go it's actually quite a well paid job with quite a lot of status.
Geoff:So even even within that role there are people who've got different emphases or different priorities?
Chris:And there is also the fact that career army is very much a career driven thing and so is the chaplaincy. In other words, it's like this two to two and a half year cycle you get reported on and you're meant to progress. The problem is that know if you are where God's calling you for you is to be a pastoral worker and you say well no actually I don't want that move to that post because that may be you know because what they say well you're you're a captain now or a major now if you want to make this step up to being lieutenant colonel in at two moves time or whatever it is, you've got to do this and do that. And I've come across people who've said, no, actually, I don't want to be the senior chaplain because I don't want to be a senior chaplain. I just want to be a chaplain doing pastoral work.
Chris:That means that you're going to get bypassed for these career steps. It also may mean that subsequently you're going to come under the leadership of somebody who doesn't share your view of your calling or sometimes in fact I was recently talking to somebody who's slightly in that position. There's a human side of you that says well you know why I'm not being given this up because again as part of the military thing they get lots of training courses and all sorts of things and some of these chaplains are put onto a course which is for army leaders of the future but they've got to do this. If they want to go up the chain of command in the chaplaincy service they have to do this particular course but if you don't indicate that you're career driven in terms of progressing you won't get on this course.
Geoff:So you've got the challenge there with someone who has a sense of vocation, sense of calling for which there is some kind of mismatch with the way people may get allocated jobs or responsibility in the organization they find themselves. That kind of thing can happen in other kinds of work. Is there any particular way you would handle that with a chaplain? How would that conversation go?
Chris:Well, the stock in round of support in the minute, you know, and the support in the I mean I mean, another factor is that I I go beyond well, I suppose I'm in I'm in a privileged position in the sense I don't need to do this. I'm doing it because I enjoy doing it, and I will go beyond the bounds. I mean, I'm I'm still working with chaplains that I originally coached under the program got paid for doing. I'm still working with them, you know, on a just an off fee basis because I enjoy doing it, and it's they're finding it helpful.
Geoff:Okay.
Chris:And it's, you know, it's just getting them to see that their value, well, particular case, their value was not dependent on what some army superior chaplains who were thought of them or of what they wanted to do and pushed them you know they hadn't got access to this course or whatever it was down to what they were achieving in this pastoral role and that they are very effective as a pastoral worker.
Geoff:So where that happens you've started working with someone as part of a program, then you've carried on working with them beyond the program. How's the the relationship between you and the chaplain changed as a result?
Chris:No. No. It's self sustained. Mean, it's a more it's a more normal I mean, to me, the army commanding officer and to some extent, the chaplaincy role is artificial coaching. I mean, you know, most coaching is done because the person wants it.
Chris:I'm not saying these guys don't want it, but, you know, it's it's it's, you know, it's it's it's a more normal client coach relationship that is I feel I need coaching in this particular area. I want to and I I'm looking for coaches. I want I have to come to this. I want to work with you, and I'll work with you for for a period of time, and you'll work through stuff. Whereas with the army, they're they're told that that that they will provide coaching, and this is the program.
Chris:And that's that's the end of the program. When when when you've done this thing, that's another tick in your box. Yeah. Like, that's just why I provide that detail. I tell I sent you that detailed anonymous readout.
Chris:The reason I do I mean, you wouldn't normally do that with a common coaching client, I don't think. Because to me, when I was doing my when I was did my coach training, it was all about, you know, the the client's gotta take charge. The client's gotta make their own notes. Client's gotta write their own goals out and and all this stuff. And and and I realized with these guys, they're very busy.
Chris:They've they've enjoyed it, and that they've benefited from that hour, an hour and a half they spent with me, but then they're back on the in the base wherever they are and so on and so forth. They just crowded out, which is why I write up these detailed notes. Because I know I'm gonna see them again for quite a period of time. So I need some kind of record, my written record in more detail because I'm not seeing you again in a fortnight's time. It could be several months time because that's the way the program works.
Chris:I mean you could call in question the value of the program as it's organised but that's the way it is.
Geoff:I'll do that sometimes with some clients because if I'm going to make notes anyway, obviously I'll adapt them slightly. If it's going to help my client keep engaged, give them stuff they can work on, and then they can fully focus on the conversation they're having with me instead of thinking about I need to make notes I'm going to take away. That yeah I can see with some clients that could be hugely valuable.
Chris:And laterally I mean I've got myself engaged because now all of these lieutenant colonels of the army has decided that there's gonna be a one eighty review for them for the the right officers of this rank. As far as this coaching process, there's also one eighty. It's it's different in the sense that that the one eighty that that that's done under this program is anonymous and so on and so forth. But I I've got two two commanding officers now. I've I've helped them and and and written up the notes and stuff on hour one eighty and related it to the disc and everything else, and they've used it with their brigadier.
Chris:You know, it's gone up the way. Even got even got an email from one particular brigadier thanking me very gracefully. So there you go.
Geoff:Very good and what's the difference between a 180 and a three sixty?
Chris:Half of the other. I mean 180 is some of your team, other words your subordinates responding to you that they're given a series of questions. How does your commanding officer do this or do this or what they do different or whatever, whatever? And and they respond to that.
Geoff:Okay.
Chris:So the the the in our one eighty, the commanding officer does not know who has done it. It's gone through it's gone through not only their adjutant say who an adjutant is asked to send out between eight and twelve of these survey forms to eight to 12 people in the team. Usually they are they'll be officers I would think, they'll be sort of members of the senior leadership team or whatever to reflect on how the officers how the command officers are doing.
Geoff:OK
Chris:Whereas the army version which is not necessarily anonymous like ours, I don't know. But that's you know, and this chemistry thing that we mentioned is a very detailed level. I've been involved. There's one or two of those as well reflecting on that. But it was our our commanding officer because he he he was in command of a training battalion so these are the guys and girls that train soldiers joining the army people joining the army they train them in Catterick and he had a commanding officer sorry he had a company commanding officer who came up very badly in the chemistry call chemistry and survey.
Chris:The chemistry survey goes to everyone and it's very wide ranging, all sorts of things, know, could be picking up on things like harassment, sexual behavior, you know, all sorts of stuff can come out in this chemistry thing, very detailed. And commander he had a company commander who was a real problem. Part of the problem was this company commander was actually junior to this guy when this guy was a junior lieutenant this guy was senior to him. Now obviously their career progression has been different speeds. Yep.
Chris:So there's all sorts of things in there. Like, I'm still a company commander. This guy's a lieutenant command colonel now. Will I make the jump and that kind of thing? It's it's all sorts of problematic.
Chris:So I gave him some strategy, or we discussed some strategies for dealing with that. Given the chemistry call, you know, did you directly approach this guy, or what do you do? Well, what what the strategy we came up with was he got his commanders together in general, both of them, and they went through the climate report, and then they agreed standards that were expected. And then this guy then had a one to one with all the company commanders as to how their how they felt their performance measured up against this and what they could do about different about it.
Geoff:Okay.
Chris:As opposed to picking on an individual.
Geoff:Yep. Yep. Yeah. Very wise.
Chris:I thought that was more productive. And so there we go.
Geoff:There we go. Thank you very much. Thank you to our listeners for tuning in. For now, goodbye and go well.