Coaching Rising, the coaches’ podcast, released its 200th episode. The host, Joel Monk, commented on one of my previous entries: “Coach Industrial Complex.”
In the entry, I critiqued elements of an oversaturated coaching field and ended with an optimistic perspective: coaches are really friends of virtue in training. The phrase “friendships of virtue” comes from Aristotle, who views it as the rarest form of friendship. Here is his friendship taxonomy:
Friendships of pleasure: Based on the mutual enjoyment of each other's company.
Friendships of utility: Based on the mutual advantages gained from the relationship.
Friendships of virtue: Based on the mutual orientation toward what is good.
In sociology, there is a similar distinction between types of friendships: “communal friends,” which correspond to friendships of pleasure, and “agentic friends,” which correspond to friendships of utility. Communal friends orient toward prosocial emotions and belonging, while agentic friends orient toward shared goals and accomplishment.
The purpose of communal friends is “communitas,” a regenerative relational state where individuals experience a sense of oneness. A failure mode is “enmeshment,” a degenerative relational state where personal boundaries are so diffused that people lose their individuality.
The purpose of agentic friends is “synergy,” a flow relationship in which individuals achieve greater accomplishments together than they could alone. A failure mode is “exploitation,” a coercive relationship in which collective trust completely breaks down.
Communal and agentic friends are needed, but without virtue, enmeshment and exploitation are assured. Virtuous friends can be seen as the synthesis position between the communal thesis and the agentic antithesis. When two or more friends orient toward the good, they will commune around what is good and be agentic toward the good.
The above definitions help us understand the different types of friends, but what is friendship in the first place? I like the Online Etymology Dictionary definition: “one attached to another by feelings of personal regard and preference.” Once you aim to be moved only by what is good, you’ll only have personal regard toward others who do as well, and your preference is to spend your time with them in both communal and agentic settings.
Most who follow my work over the years have a similar relational hunger: we desire to be communal and agentic with people oriented toward the good. When I last spoke to Joel, we discussed how modern “space holders” like coaches and therapists are placeholders for agentic and communal friends aiming to be virtuous.
What makes a good coach is not only helping someone become accomplished through agentic support, and what makes a good therapist is not only helping someone become healed through communal support. While being accomplished and healed is obviously valuable, these aims become foolish like everything else without virtue. Such foolishness occurs when space holders are too eager to make their practice legible to current market dynamics out of fear or greed.
Yes, we know, virtue does not sell, yet. However, this does not mean we myopically exist within modernity’s constructs or capital's tendency toward fragmentation. No. We can hold space in a way that gives obvious value and trains for virtue. A coach like Joel is not just an effective coach but a good one. He knows that what he is doing is not just making his clients more accomplished but also training himself to become a friend of virtue.
If you’d like me to hold space for you in my philosophy practice, which is oriented toward virtuous friendships, message me by pressing reply or emailing me at thestoa at protonmail dot com.
Joel and I will be engaging in a conversation at The Stoa about the virtuous potential of the coaching industry, followed by a group conversation. We are inviting active coaches or aspiring coaches to attend:
Coaches as Friends of Virtue w/ Joel Monk and Peter Limberg. July 18th @ 11 AM ET. Contact Joel or Peter to RSVP.