“Great coaching is not really about coaching skills, competencies or even proficiencies. It’s about being a great person. Great people make great coaches.” – Thomas Leonard, founder of personal professional coaching
Wow, i wonder what the certified coaches, coaching schools and coaching businesses will make of the above quote.
And since this is my blog, i’ll come right out and say that i agree with Thomas. There are coaches out there who have not done enough personal development work themselves; and having them as coaches has a different flavor from having a coach who is a “great person”.
What is a “great person”? That is a conversation that might lead us down rabbit holes if we choose to be positional about it. But, to me, a great person is someone who has integrity, generosity of spirit, and takes responsibility for his/her thoughts, feelings and actions. A great person is someone who continually stands in possibility.
It would have worked, of course, if we could ask Thomas what he meant. But since his death in 2004, the coaching landscape has evolved, and to be honest, i’m not sure what i think of where we are today.
There is much hype — there are many folks calling themselves coaches even though they have not gone through any coach training, or experienced working with a coach themselves. There are many who draw conclusions from sports coaching and think that what we do is give people advice as to how to live their lives and/or run their businesses.
None of these developments help the evolution of the coaching profession, except to give it some visibility.
There are also many coaches who have been trained, who abide by the ethics of the International Coach Federation (for instance), who are doing good work, and making a positive impact on their clients, communities and world at large. And the potential and possibilities for positive change remain in every corner of the globe.
It is useful to remember that coaching exists because of the imperfections of other systems like consulting and training. Consultants and trainers realized that their clients and students were not following through with the new information they had paid for, learned and obtained. They realized that a kind of partnership where trainer and learner would meet regularly and tackle the obstacles that got in the way of making change would work. This, naturally, evolved into coaching. It was not because of one person, such as Thomas Leonard, although he was a significant catalyst. It was a perfect storm of several factors, and i’m sure someone somewhere has studied coaching’s history and published something somewhere…
For now, Thomas, i really wonder what you would think if you were with us today. Would you like what you see…?
