What are we really coaching people for?

I’ve been in conversation this week with Mike Warwick on DO Radio’s 'Where To Next?', exploring some of the deeper questions emerging in coaching, leadership and organisational life.

At the heart of the conversation was a question I believe the coaching profession increasingly needs to face:

What does it mean to help people “succeed” within systems that themselves may need reimagining?

For a long time, coaching has often been aligned with ideas of performance, productivity and individual achievement. But in a world shaped by ecological crisis, social fragmentation and growing uncertainty, those ideas no longer feel sufficient on their own.

We explored the possibility that coaching now has the opportunity - perhaps even the responsibility - to become something wider and more humane:

• A space for reflection
• For meaning
• For ethical inquiry
• For rethinking how we want to live and work together

The conversation ranged across ecosystemic thinking, the “trance of dissatisfaction” created by consumer culture, the Ethics of Care, Indigenous perspectives on stewardship, and the importance of listening deeply in a world increasingly shaped by noise, speed and certainty.

As I said during the interview: “Listening well is an ethical act.”

Many of these themes also sit at the heart of Spirit at Work - our transpersonal leadership coaching programme for coaches and leaders who want to work with greater depth, imagination and contribution in complex times.

If these are conversations you’re already having privately — and wish more people were having openly — you’d be very welcome both to listen in, and to explore the programme further.