Robert Hargrove

Make sure your coachee has big ambitions

I am often asked by people in our Masterful Coaching Certification program, “How do you tell if someone is a good candidate for coaching?” This is a great question, as picking the wrong person to coach can lead to a very frustrating experience. Start with the right mindset: the coach must choose the people they work with based on a set of selection criteria vs. the other way around.

One of the things I look for in selecting coachees is someone with a big ambition, both personal and organizational. If a person has no ambition except to retire in a couple of years and be a high school teacher or curio shop owner, they are probably not the right person.

First I look for someone who has a big ambition for themselves personally. For example, even though we may not think of them that way, our greatest presidents—Washington, Lincoln, FDR—were all highly ambitious.

Washington had a special military uniform made for himself that made him look like a great decorated general, even when he was only off fighting Indians in the Virginia militia.

Lincoln wanted to become President because he wanted to prove to himself that someone from dirt poverty could reach the top. In China, Mao Tse Tung did just about every ruthless thing you can imagine to get to the top.

Having said, that it’s important that the person not only have a big personal ambition, but that these are wedded to strong organizational ambitions consistent with fundamental human values. Mao Tse Tung wanted to take China from being a backward feudal country to a world power.

If the person’s outsized personal ambition dwarfs their organization ambition, you wind up with a dictator like Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, or Adolf Hitler. I would advise early in the coaching relationship (or even before it starts) to just ask people: What is your biggest personal ambition? What is your biggest organizational ambition? The answers should tell you a lot.