Becomingness: a critical element of coaching and mentoring

It’s called status inflation and it starts when kids are in their early teens (or before). They want to appear just that bit more mature than they are. You would think adult coaches would have grown out of this instinct. But we seem the same phenomenon in relation to executive coaching. It seems that any coach, whatever their experience or capability tags the word executive in front of their descriptor. As a result, the term executive coach has been steadily devalued in recent years.

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You’re an executive coach. Really?

It’s called status inflation and it starts when kids are in their early teens (or before). They want to appear just that bit more mature than they are. You would think adult coaches would have grown out of this instinct. But we seem the same phenomenon in relation to executive coaching. It seems that any coach, whatever their experience or capability tags the word executive in front of their descriptor. As a result, the term executive coach has been steadily devalued in recent years.

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Time for a radical rethink of middle management?

Is middle management as we know it obsolete? There are more and more signs that this might indeed be the case. Among them: Taking middle management out of the picture is not a solution for large organisations. It would slow things down even more for top management to immerse itself in the day to day, (more…)

International Women’s Day 2025

A few days ago, a newspaper item caught my eye. For the first time, young men entering the UK employment market were on average earning less than young women. I wondered: “Does this mean we are finally achieving a rebalancing of the gender pay gap?” Sadly, it’s a reflection of failures in education and social (more…)

Psychological safety and neurodivergence

The relationship between performance at work and psychological safety is well-established. High performance requires people (both as individuals and collectively) to be periodically in “flow”. That’s hard to achieve when our thoughts are distracted by fear of, for example, saying the wrong thing, or by the need to maintain a mask that protects us from...

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Making hybrid working work

One of the first things we learned when a company I chaired in the mid-1990s moved to a hybrid model of working was that people have very different perspectives and needs. For some, being in the office most of the time was important to their identity, social engagement and sense of efficacy. At the other...

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Making change happen

This simple formula helps someone plan how to bring about a change in an aspect of their life. It’s firmly rooted in positive psychology, because it explores only the positive things they can do. It involves three questions: © David Clutterbuck 2024

The leader as lonely dragon: a parable of imposter syndrome

Once there was a dragon king, who lived in a cave on top of his vast treasure trove of knowledge and experience. Very little light penetrated the cave. Every day, the people in his kingdom would come to him to ask what they should do in their daily lives. For each of them, he would...

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What makes genius teams tick?

Every now and then, we meet teams that are extraordinarily creative and productive. A recent article on Harvard Business Review’s Insider website presents an interesting perspective from psychologist Merete Wedell-Wedellsborg, at IMD business school in Switzerland. Two of the three differentiating factors she identifies are fairly predictable: It’s the third item that is most noteworthy (more…)

The expectation exchange

Friction within teams or between individuals often results from a mismatch of expectations. An expectation change is a simple way to create clarity, from which positive change can emerge. Each person writes down then shares, in respect of each colleague: It requires a certain level of psychological safety to work well. In an environment where...

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