Why Coaching Needs to Change

Edgy Ideas podcast: Guest Prof Tatiana Bachkirova talks to Dr Simon Western about why coaching needs to develop more critical approaches as it becomes a mature profession

Professor Tatiana Bachkirova took part in the ‘Edgy Ideas’ podcast with Dr Simon Western on the topic ‘Why coaching needs to change’. Simon Western is a leadership scholar and practitioner who is widely known and respected for his two seminal books: Leadership: A critical text and Coaching and Mentoring: A critical text. He is currently Adjunct Professor at the University College Dublin and the CEO of Analytic-Network Coaching.

The International Centre for Coaching and Mentoring Studies has a long-standing collaboration with Dr Western. He was a keynote speaker at the Oxford Brookes Coaching and Mentoring Research Conference in 2015 and contributed to the SAGE Handbook of Coaching (2017), edited by Prof Bachkirova and colleagues.

The invitation to the ‘Edgy Ideas’ podcast by Dr Western came as a result of Prof Bachkirova’s publications and presentations that challenge some of the currently dominant views in the field of coaching and which advocate the importance of critical thinking in relation to these views. The topics of this dialogue include a critique of the rise of ‘popularism’ in coaching and consideration of the aims of coaching in meeting some of the contemporary challenges for both organisations and the wider world.

Listen to the podcast here: