Cultural Competence as the Core Coaching Competency for the Future - Ashana Crichton

Active listening is a core coaching competency that ensures we pay attention to and acknowledge the values, beliefs and ‘norms’ of our clients. By listening, we can play back, highlight and/or challenge cues to empower fresh insight. As coach, we often remain neutral, holding a mirror up in partnership. However, is this skill enough for a sustainable future?

AI (artificial intelligence), The Automated Coach, chatbots... language and its relationship to the future of coaching has evolved. Although this development initially remained vague, what does the arrival of ChatGPT now mean for coaching? Are robots really going to steal our jobs? Can technology ever replace human interaction?

With this in mind, we will explore how cultural competence might become the new core coaching competency in our ever-changing world. Cultural competence – the ability to be sensitive to cross-cultural differences and to adapt to other cultural environments – is how we demonstrate our humanity and empathy, it’s how we make another person know they matter, and it’s how we continue to make an impact with person-to-person coaching.

Ashana is an International Coaching Federation (ICF) certified professional coach, a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) facilitator, and founder of Arc Growth. She works with mid-career professionals, helping them increase personal awareness, create environments of shared belonging, and navigate real and perceived career-limiting challenges.

She has a wealth of professional experience, with over 15 years working in creative advertising agencies – five years based in the USA (Boston). Ashana also has cross-sector executive coaching and leadership development programme facilitation experience. She helps individuals internalise concepts so they feel confident creating and engaging in an equitable workplace environment.

Ashana started coach training to add to her leadership capabilities and found how powerful it can be to coach without an agenda. Her independent practice has received a Diversity and Inclusion Certificate from Cornell University. She has worked with senior leaders from companies including Amex, Google, Facebook and Salesforce and has facilitated DEI sessions for organisations such as Converse, MITRE and Raytheon. She has also recently provided inclusion coaching for coaches, to help raise awareness of how bias can show up in coaching conversations.

Ashana is curious above all else; whether coaching or facilitating conversations about race and gender, she has a person-centred approach that holds the lived experience of the individual as key. Leveraging informative and confrontative intervention approaches helps her to unlock meaningful behaviour change and inspire an inclusive future for all.

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