Words Matter

I just watched the Louis Theroux's new Netflix documentary ‘Inside the Manosphere’ and it genuinely unsettled me. The online world of male influencers building empires on misogyny, dominance and financial aspiration is deeply uncomfortable viewing but alongside everything else that alarmed me, one thing stood out.

These men call themselves ‘coaches’.

They are also influencers, content creators and motivational speakers. They wear all of those labels freely. But ‘coach’ is the one that troubles me because it borrows from a professional discipline with a serious purpose. It implies trust, expertise, a commitment to someone else's growth and a framework that puts business and client at the centre, which is exactly why they have adopted it.

What I watched was a transactional pipeline designed to extract money from young men while selling them a rigid, prescribed identity. The word ‘coach’ was doing a lot of work to make that look legitimate.

Professional coaching, especially in a business context, is about unlocking capability. It challenges thinking, builds leaders, strengthens teams and creates the conditions for people and organisations to perform at their best. It is rigorous, accountable and grounded in genuine expertise. What I watched was none of those things.

Calling it ‘coaching’ is an appropriation of something that has real and measurable value and when that word gets attached to content that is harmful and extractive, it erodes trust in the profession for everyone.

In the professional world trust is everything. It is what gives coaching its power to change how businesses think, lead and grow. It drives value and enables businesses and the people within them to have the tools to understand and manage their potential.

Words matter. Especially the ones we build professions on.