Introduction
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My initial idea, in what now seems another age just prior to the pandemic, was to explore the potential role for coaching in political leadership. Like many of us, I was alarmed that we have entered a world where politics is increasingly regarded as broken and where liberal democratic values are under attack.
With rising authoritarianism globally mirrored by increasing polarisation in the West, uncompromising views have become more entrenched since the financial crisis. These developments have been exacerbated by the shouty echo chambers of social media, which are the antithesis of civilised debate.
My basic goal was to examine whether and how coaching could help overcome the lack of listening and the closing of minds in the public domain. Having coached a couple of politicians overseas, I felt that the growing influence of coaching in the corporate world suggested that it could be successfully adapted for the political world.
Impact of the pandemic
The pausing of the Juan Coto Award process, when the first lockdown struck, provided the opportunity for me to reflect on my ideas. My thinking has now moved on significantly. This is partly because I have done much more reading round the subject and partly due to the influence of the pandemic. Although I believe ever more strongly that coaching needs to play a role in politics, I gradually realised that there is a wider and more fundamental challenge for coaching, of which politics is an important subset. The disaster that the 2020 pandemic has inflicted on lives and livelihoods, and the damage this could do to our already frayed social fabric, puts a premium on finding ways to improve public conversations.
The challenge can perhaps best be encapsulated by a 2009 quote from E O Wilson, a sociobiologist and Emeritus Harvard Professor. He said, “The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Palaeolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and God-like technology.”