Twice this week, I have seen someone write that coaching and therapy are different. And that coaches must take great care not to drift into therapy. True, they are different. But in many ways, it’s a false distinction and there are many ways in which coaching…
‘Try as I might, I am unable to obscure, marginalise or shadow myself … like an annoying jack-in-the-box gone wrong, I do not disappear from sight, even momentarily’ . This wonderful quote from Venitha Pillay is often with me as I coach, facilitate and consult with…
There’s nothing quite like feeling ‘got’. Friday night last week. And not a normal start to a weekend. At a weekend workshop, I was in a closed eye visualisation exploring how I experience the world through the four Jungian archetypes of Magician, Lover, Warrior and Sovereign. The…
I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership culture recently. And you know that I’m interested in the idea of how leadership practices can be more loving. Well, I read How to Love by Thich Naht Hanh, a book ostensibly about our close relationships but one…
Work as Love in Action 3: am I choosing to be generous? In leadership development, I often work with binaries, with different ends of a spectrum in order to explore something, maybe creating a false polarity to make a point. Are you a strategic or…
I’ve written in a previous blog how the need for space feels so pressing for leaders. And that a common coaching goal is to help leaders find where that space might be created. In some painful weeks of parallel process, I’ve been struggling with a similar issue….
When we lead, we often think that we have to show our best self to the world. That we need to present a bright and shiny version of ourselves in the belief that that’s what people want to see. We have a culture of perfectionism…
In OD or coaching, there’s often a call for us to bring something into the system that’s missing. We need to notice what’s not there and sometimes be that something. To be the difference that makes the difference. Which got me wondering about my own…
You know that achieving the coaching goals you set don’t really matter, when: a question stops your client in her tracks to the extent that she can’t speak and her eyes can’t leave yours as she’s gripped by the possibilities in the answer you have…
