More and more, we understand that our greatest challenges – individually and collectively – are not the technical and scientific ones.
They are challenges of collaboration and communication.
They are challenges of compassion and expanding our capacity to hear and befriend across differences.
And they are challenges of stewarding the self – of working skillfully with our fears, resentments, confusions, beliefs, and biases.
Pioneering thinker on leadership and business, Peter Drucker wrote, “The 20th century was the era of management. The 21st century is the era of self-management.”
In truth, I think every era needs to be an era of skillful self-management. But at this particular historical moment, the systems we have built with our impressive technological and scientific skills have created problems that require self-management skills to solve. We need widespread human development of skills for working wisely with our fears, conditioning, biases, longings, and aspirations.
The quality of our lives – and of our society – will depend on how we work with the potential and the limitations in ourselves.
Coaching is a critical part of that work – uncovering possibilities and digging into challenges within us. It is about changing our outer reality from the inside out.
It is a way of being with someone that we can use in a wide range of moments such as
- helping a mentee clarify their goals
- helping a team member unleash their best
- helping a student bring forward their ideas or manage their stress
- helping a child discover their own inner resourcefulness
- helping a colleague move past a resentment into compassion
- helping a client explore new ideas or overcome resistance to change
…and so much more.
I’m passionate about coaching – the kind that happens in a dedicated session between coach and client. But I’m more passionate about “a coaching approach” – bringing coaching skills and mindsets into how we relate at work and at home – to better support one another, and to unleash the potential in all of us.
In your own life, and in your work with others, may you grow the skills of the heart, of listening and collaboration, and of care.
I would love to share more with you about the power of coaching, in my newest course, The Coaching Way: Using a Coaching Approach to Help Others Thrive. You can visit here to learn all about the course.
