A coaching expert states that coaching needs a regular spring clean if it is to maintain the clean space of naivety
John Blakey
Every spring, I look out of my window and see that some weeds have taken hold on our patio. I wander down to the wooded area at the foot of our garden and notice that the bramble thorns are sprouting with fresh vigour and intent. I peer into our borders and glimpse bind weed wrapping itself selfishly around a healthy stem.

Spurred into action, I embark upon a meticulous programme involving many hours of effort, and one or two chemical substances, to push back nature’s creeping tide and restore the garden to its original vision and design. Likewise, as a coach, each year I realise that my ego tries to reassert itself and penetrate my coaching presence.

I have a coaching session where it is whispering to me that “I know best” and should offer some advice or “gentle suggestion”. I work with an intimidating leader who tempts me to compete on an intellectual plane. I approach a new client with preconceived judgments which then become self-fulfilling in my presence.

I slowly forget that it is impossible for me, with my limited and delusory field of perception, to know anything about anyone that can approach the real truth. As my experience and expertise grows, I risk losing the naivety and purity that characterised my first ego-less steps into the coaching world. Without investing in continual self-development and discipline, this is the slippery slope on which I am poised. Worse, I live in a world that tempts my ego at every turn.

It challenges my faith in the human spirit and seeks to shower me with the propaganda of fear, separation and limiting beliefs. Like tending to my garden, I embark on a programme to weaken the will of my ego and reinstate the original vision and purpose behind my desire to coach. Some may call this a programme of continuous professional development and, yes, it does include aspects of this, such as additional training, coach mentoring and voluntary involvement with the wider profession.

But, more than this, it involves me reaffirming the space in which I express and renew my spirit through tai chi, Ashtanga yoga and the writing of poetry. These are my own personal means for plugging in and re-connecting to that energy that first led me to coaching and remains at my core, that connects spontaneously out of love and allows me to blossom unknowingly as an innocent child.

As it is for each coach, so it is for the collective profession. As coaching matures and engages the mainstream world, we will be faced with ever more challenges and ever more varieties of weeds that will invade the clean space we are attempting to uphold. The ego is clever. It will mutate and morph into whatever sound, sight or taste that it feels is necessary to trip us up, maintain its power and preserve its kingdom.

Yet we know, deep down, that this leadership movement called coaching was always more than a tactic for performance improvement: it is a wholesale paradigm shift for which human consciousness is ready and waiting. We cannot understand or speculate on the outcome from our current perspective.

That is why it is so important for each one of us to design our personal ways for plugging in, again and again, refreshing and reconnecting our energy so that we remain available to serve the future potential rather than picking over the decadent remains of an unfulfilling past. In this way, the evolution of human consciousness waits for us to prove our credentials. Is it you? If not you, then who? Is it the coaching profession? If not coaching, then which profession? Which profession could it possibly be?

John Blakey is co-founder of leadership transformation consultancy 121partners (www.121partners.com) and a member of the UK Internation Coach Federation Board. He is also a tai chi master and has contributed spiritual poetry to a number of books and publications.

Volume 3, Issue 4