Ram Ramanathan

Ram Ramanathan: Decolonisation & democratisation of coaching

Session on 25 November 2020 07:30 UTC - View on timetable

Session

These are my personal opinions, which I share with my partners and colleagues at Coacharya. Warning: these may not appeal to everyone.

We see coaching and coach training to be elitist and transactional, seen primarily as a profession driven by monetary consideration by 80% of coaches, whose byline on LinkedIn would be that they are transformative leadership coaches whose clients are all CEOs.

We believe that coaching ought to be a vocation in service of others, a spiritual journey that is in the ethos of Rogers client centric, congruent and empathetic with unconditional positive regard, and with humane ethics that cater to ecosystemic wellbeing. We believe that coaches can still make a living out of such an approach.

We see the process of training coaches to be directive, vertical and hierarchical. The word we would use is that it is a colonial approach by the ruler to the ruled. We would like to see this change to a horizontal, respectful approach that considers experience more than academic training as a prerequisite.

We see coaching being controlled by academic rigor to favour the intellectual, governed by professional ethics of privacy and confidentiality that are legalistic. We believe in ‘barefoot coaches’, that everyone innately is a coach, healer and leader and all they need is guidance to discover themselves. We would see coaching to be democratic, available to all and affordable.

We seek your presence with an open mind, open heart and open will to suggest how we together can do all this. I have no answers, merely questions.

Learning outcomes

• Awaken them to an alternative realit
• Making them Aware of what they can be responsible for
• Have them Arise to take accountability in Action.

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