Many people in the coaching profession put Thomas Leonard on a pedestal and revere his expertise.
I’m sorry but I don’t.
He is widely considered to be the grandfather of coaching, but many coaches don’t realise that the skills in coaching were evident in many commercial enterprises demonstrated by great leaders in place long before Thomas Leonard was speaking about them.
Leonard commented that:
“The coach doesn’t do the work – the client does the work.”
I wonder how many coaches would recognise that in fact he was wrong….
The quote should have been:
“The coach doesn’t do the work – and the client doesn’t do the work either!”
My belief – from personal experience – is that many coaches meet with clients that in fact don’t take action on what they agree at a coaching session.
This probably is not a great way to build a coaching practice, as if you leave the action to the client, the client pays you but no change occurs, they certainly won’t refer you and are possibly going to be unhappy about your services.
It can’t be too inspiring for the coach either that their client does not make progress.
So is coaching and the non directional style of coaching doomed? My guess is yes and I predict that the coaching as booming at the moment will over the next 5 years be relaced by people looking for business mentors – people who actually have answers.
In fact what we are really looking at are inspirational leaders, just as in any commercial organisation, people who hold their clients accountable for delivering action.
