Author: Gareth Couch
Leadership
Coachable Moments…
Not every conversation needs to become a coaching conversation. I probably ought to start there, because once people become interested in coaching — particularly leaders who are learning to use coaching skills — there can be an understandable temptation to coach absolutely everything. Someone asks a relatively straightforward question and suddenly they’re being invited to […]
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Leadership
Coaching. It’s not exactly what you think…
A photograph of me recently prompted an interesting question: What exactly is coaching? I’m in a forest, working with a group of coaches. No training room and certainly none of the imagery we tend to associate with coaching: two people sitting opposite each other in carefully positioned chairs, one leaning forward attentively while the other apparently […]
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Coaching Supervision
Mentor Coaching
What happens when the coach doesn’t know?
There is a moment in coaching that I suspect most coaches know rather well. The client stops talking. Perhaps they have said something unexpected, perhaps the conversation has suddenly gone somewhere you hadn’t anticipated, or perhaps the beautifully formed question that was waiting patiently in your head has become completely irrelevant. Whatever has happened, you […]
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Thinking Out Loud
When coaching isn’t the answer
It’s been a while since I shared anything or wrote anything — or worked, for that matter. Three months in fact. There’s been a period of absence from social media and a period of absence more generally. There was a reason for that. I went through several days of complete and total darkness. I was […]
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Leadership
When leadership is shared, what happens between you matters
We still have a remarkably persistent image of leadership as something exercised by one person. There is the CEO, the director, the head of department, the team leader. One role, one name, one person ultimately responsible. Even the language we use tends to reinforce the idea that leadership eventually arrives at the top of a […]
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Coaching
A walk in the park…
Learning to trust ourselves can sometimes be one of our deepest challenges. How do we know that we have done enough in order to trust ourselves? And who do we look towards so that we can trust everything is OK?
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Thinking Out Loud
What if fear doesn’t have to go away?
Fear of rejection and I go back a long way. Years ago, I worked in direct sales for a tailoring company. On paper, there was an enormous amount to like about the job: a great boss, considerable freedom, interesting clients and a lifestyle that suited me rather well. There was just one rather significant problem. […]
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Leadership
You don’t have to start as you mean to go on
There’s something rather seductive about a fresh start. A new year, a new job, a new role, a Monday morning, even tomorrow if today has already gone slightly off the rails. We seem to like moments that give us permission to draw a line underneath what came before and announce that from now on, things will […]
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Coaching
How do you know if a coach is right for you?
How do you know if a coach is right for you? Finding the right coach can be daunting. Perhaps even more so today than when I first wrote about this several years ago. There are thousands of coaches, countless approaches, an increasingly bewildering collection of qualifications and credentials, and enough websites promising transformation to make […]
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