Coaching, capitalism, and class: rethinking who gets to grow
Coaching as a modality has often left me conflicted. On one hand, I find it deeply moving - the act of holding space for another person’s unfolding, helping them reconnect to their sense of agency, feels meaningful and important. On the other hand, I struggle with the word itself. Coaching carries baggage. Mainstream models of coaching have been infused with capitalist thinking - focused on productivity, optimisation and individual responsibility - and often feel misaligned with the values I wish to practise in the world.
Privilege, class and access
I also can’t ignore the privilege that often sits beneath the simple act of receiving coaching. To have the time, energy, and mental space to sit with yourself, reflect on your habits, explore your patterns, and intentionally plan for growth is not something everyone can do. It requires a kind of freedom from immediate survival pressures - financial stability, secure housing, flexible working hours, access to networks of care, etc. For people juggling multiple jobs, caregiving responsibilities, or systemic barriers, structured coaching can feel impossible.
The ability to engage in self-actualisation, to actively work on oneself, has become a marker of privilege and class. It’s not merely about motivation or desire; it’s about having the structural conditions that make consistent personal growth possible. Coaching often presumes an availability of time and resources that many people simply don’t have.
But, I also hold out hope and curiosity around the potential of this modality to adapt. Could coaching take different forms? Could sessions be shorter, delivered in groups, online, or integrated into workplaces or community centres? Could it be adapted for people who are neurodivergent, less verbal, or time-poor? How can we create a coaching practice that doesn’t just serve the middle-class, but actively helps working-class people access a sense of potential, life satisfaction, and achievement of their goals?
So, what is coaching?
Coaching comes in many forms and the style will differ between coaches but will often include: having a conversation, holding someone accountable, and cheering someone on toward a goal. From transformational coaching, (which focuses on deep shifts in perspective and identity), to mindset coaching (which helps reframe beliefs and habits), to skills-or performance-based coaching (which targets specific abilities or outcomes) - there are a variety of forms with slightly different approaches but all of them, are rooted in supporting growth and potential.
In practice, a first coaching session might start with curiosity and listening - exploring what matters to the client, where they feel stuck, and what potential they see in themselves. Over an 8–12 week period, the coach and coachee work together to clarify goals, test experiments, reflect on patterns, and celebrate growth. Unlike therapy, (which often addresses past trauma or emotional healing) coaching focuses on the future, agency, and actionable steps. And unlike a teacher, it’s not about instructing or skill mastery. It’s relational, exploratory, and tailored to the person’s pace. Changes might include clearer priorities, increased confidence, stronger self-awareness, and a sense of momentum toward goals that matter.
Coaching has been understood through a variety of different models such as the GROW model (Goal, Reality, Options, Way Forward) or Carl Rogers’ person-centred approach, which centres empathy, authenticity, and unconditional positive regard. But for me, coaching is the simple act of being with - of listening with curiosity, guiding when needed, and letting go when it’s time. It’s not about fixing or shaping people into something better, but rather helping them remember who they already are. I believe (as many coaches do) that everyone has the potential and wisdom they already need within them. Coaching, in this sense, is simply the process of helping someone connect to the what already lies within - holding space for thoughts to be untangled, lostness and doubts to be tended to, and tiny awakenings to arise. For me, it’s a process of co-discovery rather than improvement.
The problem with the mainstream coaching narrative
What I struggle with is the ideological soil that mainstream coaching grows from. Most coaching models are built on the assumptions of individualism - self-reliance, self-responsibility, self-ownership. While these ideas can be empowering, they’re also the same values that uphold capitalist systems. They over-emphasise the individual’s control and underplay the power of context - class, race, trauma, health, access. When we internalise this, we begin to pathologise our exhaustion, our lack of motivation and, our grief - as if they’re personal failings rather than symptoms of a wider, broken system.
Without a systemic lens, coaching can easily become capitalist self-optimisation - a tool to make people more productive, resilient, and efficient in systems that may harm them. Stripped of context, many coaching sessions could be read as endorsements of overwork, hyper-independence, and the idea that more output equals more value.
5 Ways mainstream coaching upholds capitalism
Goal obsession: Success is often measured through linear progress. More output, more clarity, more achievement - mirroring capitalist metrics of growth and profit
Individual responsibility: The burden of change sits squarely on the person, rather than examining the structural barriers shaping their lives
Productivity disguised as purpose: Coaching frequently reframes burnout as a mindset issue, encouraging people to ‘reclaim their focus’ instead of question why they’re so depleted
Commodification of care: Emotional labour becomes a service to buy rather than a shared human practice
Endless optimisation: There’s always a ‘next level’ to reach (a subtle reinforcement that who you are now isn’t enough)
The future of coaching
Given all of this, I do believe coaching can evolve beyond these limitations, but it requires rethinking how it is delivered and whom it serves. Could coaching become a tool that nurtures collective imagination and belonging, rather than solely individual optimisation? Could it be accessible to working-class, time-poor, neurodivergent, or less verbal people? How can sessions flex to meet different needs without losing depth or relational connection? These questions anchor my practice and vision for coaching as a force for justice and human flourishing.
A coaching conversation could become a relational space - one where both coach and coachee arrive as full humans, transparent in their humanness and curiosity. The coach’s role, then, is not to lead from authority but to walk alongside and to mirror potential, while honouring the speed at which someone is evolving. This kind of coaching is slower. It trusts emergence. It holds both the hope of transformation and the acceptance of what is.
What if coaching wasn’t about ‘fixing’ individuals but about nurturing collective imagination and belonging? If we can shift the mainstream coaching approach to intentionally support a more diverse range of people - particularly those from working-class backgrounds - coaching can become a tool for empowerment rather than optimisation. It’s about giving people the agency and freedom to explore their potential, while also recognising the wisdom that comes from navigating systemic barriers firsthand.
When coaching supports those who have lived with scarcity, inequity, and marginalisation, it doesn’t just benefit the individual: it expands our collective capacity to imagine better worlds, to challenge inequitable structures, and to contribute insights and creativity that only emerge from lived experience. With this approach, coaching becomes not a luxury or a privilege, but a way of fostering transformative potential that ripples outward, supporting communities and systems as much as the individual within them.
