The role of coaching in an era of division

On my way into the office today I was almost knocked off my bike by a display of road rage that presumably had escalated from a minor traffic disagreement to a deeply concerning exhibition of the worst of human behaviour. Two people, no doubt both perfectly decent people in other contexts, transformed into bitter enemies over something that means nothing in the grand scheme of things. We saw something similar in the unprecedented Oval Office moment last week featuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, US President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

The fallout from that moment is much more significant than the argument caught on camera. I'm aware that my position in London makes me biased on this (if you have a brain, you have bias), but even still I find it hard to look at what's happening on the political stage through rose-tinted spectacles. The withdrawal of all US support in Ukraine, alongside the Europe-wide move to take budgets away from foreign aid in favour of defence spending, and in particular the slashing of USAID, will without doubt lead to millions of lives being lost.

These concerns aren't as simple as moral failure. They're not even just a disagreement based on political views. They provide a provocative illustration of the systemic complexity that faces the modern leader. With influence comes competing values, a plethora of perspectives and sometimes unclear and conflicting responsibilities. As coaches, our challenge lies firstly in not judging these leaders, who are surely doing what they think is best based on their own knowledge, experience and worldview, and then in acting as an appropriate catalyst. If we do our job right, our clients can develop the integrative capacities required to lead in a way that extends beyond the immediate, to consider multi-generational and more abstract (yet significant) impact.

The problem

A strength in the world of coaching that's important to hold onto is the acknowledgement of the legitimacy of diverse perspectives. There are genuine concerns about fiscal responsibility and identity politics, to name only a couple, that resonated enough with the US population to win an election. And each of us - and each of our clients - bring our own priorities and values that offer a valuable vantage point that carries with it metaphorical blinkers like the analogy of the blind people trying to describe an elephant based only on what they can feel.

The challenge we need to wrestle with is not that leaders' intentions. Given their understanding and priorities it's reasonable to assume that they genuinely believe they are pursuing the best course of action. The real difficulty for us lies in the fact that our current leadership paradigms have arguably been shaped more by the development of technology than by philosophies and ethics that have stood the test of time. The result - perhaps a side-effect, perhaps a feature - is polarisation, with each perspective becoming increasingly entrenched and disconnected from others.

And the consequences of this leadership fragmentation are profound. Often, the simple actions of a single leader in an organisation have a ripple effect that extends across their team(s), out into the organisation, into the lives of suppliers, customers, other stakeholders, and their families and friends. The simple decision to "save money" through Elon Musk's DOGE programme is inextricably linked to the withdrawal of life-saving medicine on the other side of the world, putting more pressure on economies that the US quite likely relies on, not to mention the global ability for resilience to weather transnational challenges like climate change, pandemic prevention and technological governance and innovation. We're all connected.

It's easy to caricature this with the idea that capitalism is a "death cult". In its most selfish and isolationist iteration, that's probably true enough. But it's an unhelpful oversimplification that overlooks the fact that capitalism seems to be the most effective, sustainable, pragmatic and scalable idea that humans have come up with. Instead, we need to recognise that the conceptual frameworks through which leadership is understood and practiced carry with them assumptions that are untrue and limiting.

A solution

As coaches, we occupy a unique position in this landscape. We're something different from a decision maker, and we're more than a passive observer. We're cheerleaders and challengers for leaders navigating volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous realities, with far-reaching implications. The role that we play can support leaders in transcending unconscious limitations in favour of a perspective of integration, through setting ourselves three ambitious objectives.

1. Expand perspectives

It's common nowadays to hear people across every sector complaining that they need to do more with less. They turn up to work, react to the mountain of stuff that's thrown at them and cross their fingers that nothing breaks. In our coaching we help leaders expand their perspective beyond the immediate concerns of the day, month or quarter to consider the longest term and broadest systemic implications of decisions and actions.

Specifically, we can:

• Use multiple time horizons to examine decisions, exploring the immediate consequences through to how it might shape a narrative around the role they played in this organisation through to multi-generational impacts. "If everything is connected, what might this eventually mean for your grandchildren?"
• Bring as broad a range of stakeholders (metaphorically) into the coaching conversation, including in particular those typically marginalised in decision-making processes. "If Mark's wife were listening in on this conversation, what would she want you to do?"

2. Enrich awareness

Coaching ultimately comes down to increasing awareness, but it's easy to fall into the trap of only seeing this through the rational, "left-brained" lens. So much of what leaders need to deal with is spent in paradox and apparent contradiction. For example, innovation carries risk because we're stepping into the unknown, and not innovating carries risk because someone else will likely disrupt us. The leader that needs to make calls about R&D budgets must do so in the knowledge that they can't know what they're doing.

We can show empathy and provide a space for our clients to simply vocalise their 'not knowing', which they might not feel able to do in other contexts. And we can support their enhanced understanding of their own emotions and physiology to enable them to be fully present when needing to make those calls.

3. Envision legacies

I was asked yesterday about what role leaders should play in taking ethical stances, in light of historical perspectives that we would now see as inappropriate. That can feel hard to do, but certain leadership traits haven't gone out of fashion yet so I think it's worth consistently returning to them:

• Wisdom is a great thing to pursue, and at its core we find the truth that the more we understand, the more we realise how little we truly understand. The best leaders are those who cannot stop asking questions, and we can role model that by showing curiosity, which in turn will increase our clients' awareness of their own unconscious assumptions.
• Integrity can feel difficult to pin down at times but we all know it when we see it. Groupthink and restrictions of organisational processes that can sometimes feel like the tail wagging the dog get in the way of leaders doing the right thing, but they know it when it's happening.
• Bravery is a characteristic that comes up a lot in my own coaching practice. It can feel very hard to ask the silly question or try something new, but learning that we can overcome our inbuilt desire for comfort is a valuable gift we can offer our clients.
• Finally, and perhaps the trait that underpins all the others, we have kindness. The leaders that are the most inspiring in the history textbooks are those who achieved something extraordinary in terms of transforming lives for the better. And the coaching room is a wonderful place in which we can support clients in developing an understanding of their own values and the impacts of their decisions, that I've found leads to increased commitment to leaving a legacy of kindness.

Next steps

The world is facing challenges, and is changing faster than we can keep on top of. The solution isn't simple because the problem is complex, changing shape and avoiding definition. But we can support clients in wrestling with it. When leaders engage with these challenges with humility, nuance and care the world will benefit.

This feels a bit idealistic but at its heart it's rooted in pragmatism. In our interconnected world, when we don't engage with these thoughts we risk undermining the very systems we depend on. How exciting that as coaches we genuinely get to contribute meaningfully to addressing the most pressing collective challenges of our time.