One of the most common questions we receive from people considering our Professional Coach Certification Program is: where does coaching come from?
The his-Story that Gets Told
The interpersonal coaching industry (sometimes called “life coaching” or “leadership coaching”) as we know it today became formalized by a North American financial planner called Thomas Leonard. He founded the International Coaching Federation (ICF), an accrediting body and global coach network that is still seen as the gold standard for coaching education accreditation.
Leonard’s approach was building on the human potential movement that was becoming popularized in the United States in the 1960’s. In the decades that followed, there was a growing emphasis on personal and professional development that grew “soft skills” such as communication, leadership, and intercultural awareness. Leonard was also deeply influenced by the Socratic Method (believed to have originated in 5th century Greece).
It’s important to note that coaching, and growing workplace trends that linked personal and professional development, were grounded in capitalist values of maximizing worker productivity and maximizing understanding of consumers in order to enhance sales. All of us are shaped by our identities and experiences. Thomas Leonard’s approach to coaching were inevitably shaped by his background as a white, male, North American financial planner— these factors have inevitably molded the mainstream coaching industry, including the International Coaching Federation, around the values that were a part of the systems and communities he was a part of.
A Critical Look at the Dominant Narrative
At Global Focus Coaching, we’re skeptical of the narrative that holds up Thomas Leonard as the father of modern coaching. While Leonard played a key role in the formalization and growing popularity of the coaching profession in North America and Europe, we don’t buy that the story of coaching starts with him. In our coach certification program, we reground the history of coaching by teaching that coaching has many cultural origins. When we attribute coaching’s origins and choose to only center Whiteness and westernness, we leave out countless other important contributors to the conversation.
The first thing we feel is important to recognize is that many popular philosophical and psychological concepts from the human potential movement were co-opted from Eastern philosophies without attribution to the lineages where they originate (a trend that is still especially prevalent with mindfulness practices taken from Buddhist traditions). Many concepts in Western psychology do not belong only to the North American and Western European academic traditions (although those traditions have historically hoarded the power and legitimacy associated with that knowledge).
We also need to honor and acknowledge that many foundational practices in interpersonal coaching have been used for centuries in indigenous cultural traditions around the world. Just look at the indigenous Native American and African roots of restorative justice practices— a powerful example of what group coaching can look like. In Native American communities, mentoring from elders is “closely integrated into Native culture—considered key to strengthening communities and helping develop leaders” and many are working to decolonize Eurocentric approaches to mentorship in Indigenous communities.
Christian Elongué, a skills development consultant in Ghana, writes that “Mentoring is a universal practice present in almost every culture. In Africa, mentoring is mostly informal than formal.” While Elongué advocates for formalizing mentoring culture on the continent, we would also argue for a need to reform the way the coaching profession talks about informal coaching, group coaching, and mentoring. Why should the many coaching traditions around the world have to assimilate to White and western cultural expectations in order to be considered legitimate?
What are the curricular implications of acknowledging coaching’s many origins?
When we piloted our signature coaching program, Coaching for Complexity, for the first time, we did so with a cohort that included participants from Senegal, India, Canada, the United States, Poland, and Austria.
The feedback that we received from participants in places that have been historically underrepresented or ignored in the coaching industry is: “this doesn’t apply to my context.”
So many things that are typically taught in an ICF-accredited, Level 2 coach certification are built in a way that centers dominant culture European and North American experiences. The way we approach establishing written coaching agreements. How conflicts of interests are defined in the coaching relationship. The heavy emphasis on individual coaching over group coaching. The common and problematic pretense of objectivity on the side of the coach.
What does it look like to teach coaching skills in a way that leaves room for multiple ways of being and knowing? What can we learn when we amplify voices that have been excluded or undermined in the conversation? How do we help the coaching industry grow beyond the gentrification and bureaucratic gatekeeping that has become the norm with organizations like the International Coaching Federation? These are the questions that we continue to grapple with as we refine our curriculum so that it is culturally responsive and relevant to participants from communities around the world.