When we step back and observe leaders today, several challenges quickly become apparent. Firstly, leaders are under more and more pressure, due to not only having to deliver profitable growth but also to be seen to have a positive impact on society, by employees, customers, pressure groups, shareholders and regulators.

Secondly, we notice that several leaders are running companies created in response to opportunities in the 20th Century and which, in many cases, are becoming irrelevant and problematic in the face of 21st-century challenges. Including, for example, climate change, excessive consumption of animal protein, plastic and other natural resources, and tougher regulations. This leaves them with such challenges as stranded assets, limited growth and profit opportunities, and an increased sense that their products and services are ‘running out of road’. And it’s not just leaders running these ‘old’ industries who are challenged. Companies founded on the promise and reality of digital technology are also coming under increased pressure. This is due to the dysfunctional impact of artificial intelligence in social media, poor employee relationships, terms and conditions in online retail companies, and trust regarding the use of consumer data all aspects that are proving difficult to navigate. There is also an increasing sense that the way that they have treated their employees is unsustainable: the mental health of employees, attracting talent, and exposing and implementing a purpose that embodies positive social impact are all challenges here. Gaps between rich and poor, diversity and inclusion are no longer considered factors that can be ignored in many boardroom discussions. What we might consider the rehumanising of the corporation is underway.

Coaches need to be unattached to any outcomes, and thus be fully present with their clients in a place of stillness

The third observation is that these challenges all lead to an incredibly pressured schedule, lack of sleep, and difficulties with concentration all at a time when leaders should be making decisions that can have a profound impact on thousands of employees, customers, shareholders and the planet.

It is within this context that coaching 21st Century leaders takes place. The model presented in Figure 1 describes an approach that can be taken in this context. This model has been created by integrating several different pieces of literature, referred to later as each section is presented. It is also based on the experiences of the author when coaching CEOs and senior leaders from a diverse set of industries and countries. The model consists of two dimensions and a series of aspects regarding the approach underpinning them.

The first dimension in the model is ‘being’ and ‘doing’. This dichotomy is not new and is described eloquently by the Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh (Hanh, 1991) as ‘in the West, we are very goal orientated. We know where we want to go, and we are very directed in getting there. This may be useful, but often we forget to enjoy ourselves going along the route. There is a word in Buddhism that means weightlessness or aimlessness. The idea is that you do not put something in front of you and run after it because everything is already here in yourself’.

This is also apparent through the words of Ian McGilcrest in his groundbreaking book, The Master and His Emissary (McGilchrist, 2009), where he states that ‘the inner structure of our intellect reflects the structure of our universe’ and that the power struggle occurring in the brain reflects that present in society. He speaks of the need to integrate the worlds of the ‘known, fixed, static, isolated, decontextualised, explicit, disembodied, general in nature and ultimately lifeless, with the individual, changing, evolving, interconnected, implicate, incarnate, living beings within the context of the lived world; never fully graspable and always imperfectly known’. It is often the job of a coach to help clients to be present to what is already there at an individual and organizational level, by stepping back from a place of ‘doing’ to a place of ‘being’.

The second dimension is the space that includes the inner reflective work of leadership at one extreme and 21st-century challenges at the other. As I will describe later in this article, clients undergoing coaching often need to discuss events that happened to them during their formative years and which may have left a legacy of affected self-belief and behaviours. In the same session, they will have to think about how they believe their industry needs to be reinvented to address the challenge of climate change, for example. As a coach, being able to work across this spectrum is critical when working with 21st Century leaders.

Another aspect that the model presented in Figure 1 describes is the approach that should be taken to coach the types of leaders facing the challenges outlined at the beginning of this essay. This approach starts with the coaches, who could easily be affected by transference in terms of an excessive focus on ‘doing’ due to the challenges described above. Therefore, they must be in a place of deep stillness themselves if they are to be of real service to the leaders. The spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle (Tolle, 2011) writes that ‘when you lose touch with stillness, you lose touch with yourself’ and ‘when you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in this world’. He also talks about this stillness being a place that prevents us from ‘pronouncing judgement on someone and confusing their conditioned mind patterns with who they are’, furthering our ‘false identity that becomes a prison not only for the other person [client] but also yourself’.

From this place of presence, which is at the heart of the model, coaches can listen deeply to what clients say (and don’t say). This is about listening to what they state that they are struggling with and what they need to achieve. It is also about listening to their hopes and dreams, fears and concerns, histories and potential futures.

Voices from others are important too, including those from direct reports, line managers, board members, shareholders, customers, NGOs and regulators. Simply repeating back to clients what these other voices say can be one of the most powerful coaching interventions to create a reflective environment for them. This is a critical part of formulating and understanding the challenge and opportunity upon which the coaching will focus. The book Co-Active Coaching describes this in wonderful detail (Kimsey-House, Kimsey-House, Sandahl & Whitworth, 2018).

What we might consider the rehumanising of the corporation is underway

To some degree, it is difficult to find a client for whom there is no need to show compassion for the suffering they have experienced historically or are experiencing presently. What often happens is that, as people experience compassion towards them, they change. They, in turn, become more present, compassionate and insightful into the needs of others. If successful executive coaching is ultimately focused on working with senior leaders to make better decisions in the context of the paradoxes described at the beginning of this essay, then compassion must be a critical aspect upon which it should focus. Many traditions talk about compassion, but that which comes from the Vipassana meditation approach can be very helpful (Hart, 2004).

These approaches allow for a much deeper and more precise understanding of the context that a client is facing. This can be at the level of self, team or organization. Increasingly, the context is also about challenges in the wider system of which the organization is a part, such as the industry, or geography. The journey of transformation can often be seen through the shift that a leader makes away from reacting to situations by ‘learning societal rules and how to play them to meet expectations’. The leader is then able to move towards asking questions such as ‘Who am I, what do I stand for and how can I make my life and leadership a creative expression of what matters most?’ (Anderson & Adams, 2016).

When coaching a client, it does not take long for the performance challenges and opportunities that they are facing to be discussed. Coaching plays a key role in the identification and removal of the impediments to high performance, through putting a focus on maximising the leader’s potential and impact (Whitmore, 2017). This is frequently where the ‘rubber hits the road’ in terms of the impact that coaching can make. It is the decisions that senior leaders ultimately make that define how they lead. Through creating a space for reflection, understanding and action planning, leaders can address the mindsets and activities responsible for sub-optimal performance. This approach is described in detail in the book Leading from the Emerging Future (Scharmer & Kaufer, 2013).

When discussing performance challenges, what is frequently noticed is that risks or megatrends, previously described as 21st-century challenges, are very present in many of the conversations. These are creating instability that senior executives need to address, which the World Economic Forum’s Annual Risk Report describes in considerable detail (World Economic Forum, 2020) and creates the need to hold space for transformation, which can be how the client leads, in terms of their self-beliefs, behaviours and decisions to stop or start doing certain strategic activities. We can understand this to be an emergence of the actual or higher self of the person being coached and a renewed focus on understanding and implementing the purpose of the organization (White, 2016).

The final aspect of coaching brings us back to the place where we started. If coaches are in a place of being, then they must be unattached to outcomes. As hard as this may be, it is important to recognise that it is not their responsibility as a coach to decide what a client should do or to make judgements about who they are.

In summary, as important as the decisions that clients make are, the paradox that coaches face is that to do this work, they need to be unattached to any outcomes, and thus be fully present with their clients in a place of stillness. This article has brought together several disparate ideas to create a model for coaching CEOs and senior leaders when these people are at the forefront of transforming their businesses. This transformation is simultaneously focused on profitable growth, addressing 21st-century challenges and the leadership development that is needed to make this happen. The model is a framework that can help shape how coaches work with these individuals and the organisations they lead. From ‘compassion' to 21st-century challenges such as ‘climate change' and ‘being' and ‘doing' it has shown that these are not separate concepts but collide in the lives of the leaders and the coaching work that is done with them.