The Terrain of Personal and Life Coaching

Sometimes we are helping leaders consider what vision is, or how to delegate, or what differentiates between the strategic and the merely good-to-do.  Sometimes that vision is about how an organization could expand services throughout new continents; sometimes the vision is about how a leader sees his or her own impact expanding.  Sometimes we ask questions about what could be essential to delegate in order to develop others and organizational reach; sometimes we ask questions about what people don’t find joy in doing.

That’s the thing about fractals:  because they are patterns that repeat at different scales, you can follow them in and you can follow them out.  Individuals and organizations are variations on a fractal theme.  (Our work wouldn’t be interesting enough if the patterns were always replicated perfectly…)  Where we begin—focusing on the individual, or focusing on the organization, serving as Life/Personal Coaches or Executive/Organizational Coaches—may not be one of the more relevant distinctions of our work.

In this issue, we’ll begin at the level of the individual, focusing on Life/Personal Coaching.

First, one of us joined with David Skibbins to write about the “Ten Trends in Life/Personal Coaching.”  (In our next issue, we’ll have the article from Carol Goldsmith that inspired the thinking behind this issue, “Ten Trends in Organizational Coaching. “)

From our partner choice magazine, with the generous support of Garry Schleifer, we have reprinted two great articles. The first, by Ann Betz, concerns “How Coaching Changes the Coach.” The second article, by Ronnie Brabon, is about “Wearing Two Hats: The Key to Whole Coach Mastery.”

From the archives of the International Journal of Coaching in Organizations (special thanks to John Lazar, as usual), we have a great piece on adult development theory in coaching by Pam McLean, “A Developmental Perspective in Coaching”.

We are glad to have a great addition to the Bookshelf, written by two of our colleagues (Edmundo Currie and Shinta Togatorop) from Indonesia. They are reviewing Matt Driver’s Coaching Positively.

We hope you find these perspectives on the terrain of personal and life coaching to be of interest and informative.  We will be offering various perspectives on the terrain of organizational and executive coaching in our next issue. Stay tuned . . .

Bill Carrier

Bill Bergquist

Co-Editors