16th September 2018 Aubyn Howard ‘The unexamined life is not worth living…’ Socrates as reported by Plato Why are personal and professional development inseparable in coaching? Within psychosynthesis coaching, we view the coach’s ability to practice a psychospiritual approach as a function of their own level of personal development, psycho-spiritual training Read more…
10 January 2017 When running courses on coaching, we are frequently asked questions about the relationship, boundaries and differences between therapy or counselling and coaching. This topic is fraught with difficulty and complexity and is prone to trite or superficial treatment, so I want to have a go at shedding Read more…
17 May 2017 Change has been an enduring preoccupation of organisational development practitioners, certainly since I got involved in OD in the early 90’s. You might say that achieving successful intentional transformative change, whether at individual or collective levels, is the holy grail of our profession – desirable, mysterious, elusive, Read more…
On a recent coaching course workshop, one of our students shared with surprise, their realisation that they had been engaging in personal development for many years through the lens or filter of their survival self, rather than their healthy or authentic self. At the time, I thought this was an Read more…
Alchemy is making a comeback. Cast into the shadows by the enlightenment and modern science, the notion of alchemy, albeit in a metaphorical sense in relationship to human consciousness and will, is seemingly becoming relevant again. Definition: al·che·my alkəmē/ noun: alchemy the medieval forerunner of chemistry, based on the Read more…
22nd January 2017 What are the emergent challenges that leaders need most help with from their coaches? I’m going to highlight two big themes here, which increasingly arise in both my own coaching practice and the coaching courses we are running at PCL – and which have resonance in the Read more…
4th October 2016 Back in March I celebrated the completion of our first PGCPLC programme, with the following: Many thanks to each of our co-pioneers for trusting us enough to embark on this journey of learning and discovery (to see some of the feedback look here). Together we have given Read more…
11th August 2016 In my last post (14 July) I recommended Charles Handy’s recently published ‘Second Curve’ (2014). Below is a review that I wrote of this book, with some thoughts for leadership coaches added at the end. Review In ‘The Second Curve’ Charles Handy (doyen of management thinking for Read more…
14th July 2016 A few months back at an APECS evening event, a discussion arose about whether Executive Coaching was still the best description of what members of APECS did, or whether Leadership Coaching might be a more dynamic moniker going forwards. The discussion revealed an interesting split in views; Read more…
3 July 2016 In early June, we (myself, Paul Elliott and Maggie Hacker) attended the Psychosynthesis International Conference in Sicily, at which we ran a well-attended workshop on Psychosynthesis as a leadership coaching psychology. You can find a copy of our slides here (although they might need some explanation!). This Read more…