Watching the blue cursor flicker across cell G34 of a spreadsheet that supposedly defines the soul of a leader is a sterile kind of torture. I am sitting in a climate-controlled boardroom with 14 executives who are trying to decide if ‘Coaching Mindset’ belongs under the ‘Strategic Thinking’ header or if it should stand alone as a ‘People Transformation’ pillar. They treat the word like a magnetic poetry tile, sliding it across the white surface of their corporate strategy, hoping it will eventually stick somewhere that looks professional. It is the modern obsession: every job description, from junior developer to chief financial officer, now demands ‘coaching skills’ as if they were a standard software package you could simply install during onboarding.

But as I watch the cursor blink, I realize nobody in the room can actually describe what a coach does. They know what a coach *produces*-engagement, retention, ‘synergy’-but the actual mechanics of the discipline are missing. We have imported the label because it sounds softer than ‘management’ and more modern than ‘mentorship,’ yet we have left the actual rigor of the practice at the border. We want the transformation without the vulnerability, and the results without the 444 hours of practice it takes to actually hold space for another human being’s growth.

Ivan M.-C., a subtitle timing specialist I worked with years ago, understood this gap between the label and the craft better than anyone. […] Coaching is exactly the same kind of precision work. It is not just ‘talking to people.’ It is the timing of the silence, the weight of the question, and the discipline to stay out of the way.

– Ivan M.-C. (The Architect of Timing)

The Paradox of Relational Language

I find myself becoming increasingly frustrated with this flattening. We are currently living through a period where relational language is being used to mask a lack of relational literacy. We use words like ‘vulnerability’ and ’empathy’ as if they were tactical maneuvers rather than internal states. It is a strange contradiction to sit here and criticize the corporate dilution of these terms while simultaneously accepting a paycheck to help them refine their ‘coaching frameworks.’

I am part of the machine I’m rolling my eyes at. I spent three hours this morning testing all the 14 pens on my desk-checking the weight of the ink, the scratch of the nib, the way the blue shade shifts as it dries-mostly to avoid looking at the 64-page leadership manual I’m supposed to be editing. Some of the pens were too blunt, much like the way managers are taught to ‘coach’ by following a rigid four-step script that makes them sound like an automated phone tree. ‘How does that make you feel?’ they ask, not because they want to know, but because step two of the model requires a feeling-based inquiry.

The Craft of True Practice

When we treat coaching as a vague add-on to a job description, we do a disservice to the actual discipline. Real coaching is a rigorous, often uncomfortable process of unlearning. It is about the 134 subtle cues you pick up in a conversation that tell you the person isn’t actually talking about their project deadline, but about their fear of irrelevance. If you haven’t been trained to see those cues, the word ‘coaching’ on your LinkedIn profile is just a fashion statement. We are asking people to perform a high-level psychological and developmental craft without giving them the tools, the time, or the permission to fail at it.

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Coaching is the ghost of the mentor we didn’t have time to be.

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This is why I find the work being done at

Empowermind.dk so necessary in this landscape. They approach coaching not as a trendy leadership ‘flavor,’ but as a disciplined skill set that requires actual study and practice. There is a profound difference between a manager who ‘uses coaching techniques’ and a practitioner who understands the neurological and emotional architecture of change. One is a person using a tool they found in a junk drawer; the other is a craftsman who knows how the wood will grain before the chisel even touches it. Without that level of depth, we are just teaching people to be ‘nicer’ managers while calling it something revolutionary to justify the HR budget.

The Invisible Practice

Ivan M.-C. used to say that if a subtitle is perfect, you don’t even notice you’re reading it. You just feel the story. Coaching should be the same. When it is practiced as a discipline, it is invisible. It isn’t a ‘session’ or a ‘competency’; it is a way of being that facilitates the other person’s clarity. But we are currently obsessed with making it visible. We want it in the spreadsheets. We want to measure the 44 percent increase in ‘coach-like conversations’ across the department. We are measuring the noise and calling it music.

The Vacuum of Definition

This lack of definition creates a vacuum where expectations are constantly inflated. If every manager is a coach, then why is everyone still so burned out? If every leadership framework is ‘coach-centric,’ why do we still feel like cogs in a 4-year plan? The answer is that we have adopted the relational language without the relational literacy. We are like people who buy expensive running shoes and wonder why we aren’t faster, ignoring the 104 miles of training required to make the shoes meaningful.

What would happen if we stopped calling everything ‘coaching’ for a year? What if we went back to calling management ‘management’ and reserved the term ‘coach’ for those who have actually committed to the 244 hours of supervised practice required to understand the human psyche? We might find that the pressure drops. Managers might feel less like they are failing at being therapists, and employees might stop feeling like they are being ‘processed’ by a script. The discipline survives only when the definition is guarded. When a word means everything, it eventually means nothing, and we are dangerously close to that point with coaching. It has become a corporate safety blanket-something to wrap around ourselves so we don’t have to face the fact that we have forgotten how to simply speak to one another without an objective.

I look back at the screen. The executives have finally decided. ‘Coaching Mindset’ will be moved to a sub-bullet under ‘Organizational Health.’ They are satisfied. They have checked the box. I pick up my favorite pen-the 4th one from the left-and write a single word in the margin of my notes: ‘Why?’ Nobody asks that question in these meetings. They are too busy defining the ‘How’ of a practice they don’t yet understand. We are all just timing the subtitles for a movie we haven’t actually watched yet, hoping that if the words appear at exactly the right moment, nobody will notice we’ve lost the plot.