Political Coaching

Political Coaching

Political coaching is helping people with their political skills, knowledge, or applications.

Who needs political coaching?

Anyone or anything that is impacted by the political world and would like to maximize themselves within it.

With any coaching, the goal is set by the player and the coach – but mainly the player. Example – it’s one thing to learn how to play golf and hopefully break 100. It’s quite another to shoot under 80. But even the best golfers in the world meet daily with their coaches. Same goes for most, if not all, professional sports.

Why don’t politicians meet daily with coaches?

Some do. And here’s where coaches are different than consultants, especially with politics.

It’s about personal investment in the total wellbeing of the client. Coaching connects head and heart to performance. Coaching looks at the before, the now, and the after.

Coaching is leading a client through their own application of the basics, set in the every changing, every demanding world of the politics, and achieving their dream results. And that begins with the simple question:

What do you want out of politics? What would be the most awesome thing ever in your time in politics?

The role of a political coach, can be seen as a personal, professional and political activity. The work challenges at each of these levels, evoking thoughts, feelings and behaviours which are likely to have some meaning in the peer relationship. The understanding for how politics plays out in individuals, groups and broader systems of government is a key resource in the coaching relationship. Reflective conversations between colleagues and in supervision, can often bring out new meanings, supporting the complexity of the work for the political leader and their coach.

In our view there are five things to effectively coach political leaders:

Time – they have crushing work schedules

The Glass House – there are unique challenges to life in the public eye

Payment and Ethics

Power – they have the power to impact a lot of lives

Coach and Citizen – coaching is about the person, not the politics

There are plenty more considerations when it comes to coaching political leaders, such as staff management, family, and the potential collaboration between coaches and consultants. However, the most important thing to know is that when coaching, clients are just people.

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