Ontological Coaching: The Practice of Being
Leadership is never just about strategy. It’s about presence. It’s about relationships. It’s about how we show up in the moments that matter—when the stakes are high, when complexity is unavoidable, when the path forward requires something beyond expertise.
Ontological coaching—the practice of coaching through the lens of being—asks us to move beyond technical solutions and into the realm of deep transformation. It is not about skills alone. It is about who we are as we lead, teach, create, and shape the world around us.
This is the kind of coaching I offer: work that moves beneath the surface, that challenges leaders to step into the depth of their practice, that refuses easy answers in favor of something more profound.
Leadership as an Ontological Practice
Ontology is the study of being. It asks: What is real? What is essential? As a coaching framework, it brings us back to the foundation of leadership—not as a role, but as a way of being in the world.
Do we see leadership as a position, or as an evolving practice?
Do we cultivate environments where learning is transactional, or where people are in continuous, generative inquiry?
Do we believe transformation happens through compliance, or through a commitment to deeper presence and purpose?
Ontological coaching is not about fixing behaviors. It’s about shifting how we exist in our work, how we navigate complexity, how we cultivate trust, and how we create the conditions where real impact can unfold.
The Role of Love in Leadership
In 2014 I led a US Department of Education Grant through Alameda County Office of Education. In working with teachers, I established a framework for our set of coaches to embark on. It was simple. I explained to funders and education leaders that our coaching model was “love.” Love is about integrity. It is about the unseen but deeply felt dimensions of leadership: what we center, what we cultivate, and what we make possible through our presence.
Love—when applied rigorously—is a methodology, not a sentiment. It is the choice to build organizations and communities where people thrive, not just function. It is the ability to name what is real, hold space for disruption and possibility, and move with clarity through uncertainty.
The coaching I offer does not hand leaders a checklist of solutions. It asks them to step into inquiry. Who are you in this work? What are you truly committed to? How do you move in alignment with your deepest values—not just in theory, but in action?
This is not surface-level leadership training. It is work that requires vulnerability, disruption, and a willingness to rethink deeply held assumptions.
Critical Connections, Not Critical Mass
Grace Lee Boggs reminds us:
“We never know how our small activities will affect others through the invisible fabric of our connectedness. In this exquisitely connected world, it’s never a question of ‘critical mass.’ It’s always about critical connections.”
Leadership is not about amassing influence. It is about creating the conditions for deep, meaningful shifts—ones that are relational, ones that are lasting.
The impact of ontological coaching does not come from a model imposed from above. It happens in the ways people shift internally, in how they move through complexity with greater clarity and intention, in how they build environments where transformation is not forced, but inevitable.
This kind of leadership is not about scale. It is about depth. It is about investing in ways of being that make transformation sustainable.
Leading as an Act of World-Building
Leaders, at their core, are world-builders. Whether in education, the arts, politics, or movement work, the choices we make shape the conditions for what is possible.
Ontological coaching supports leaders in stepping fully into that creative role—not through control, but through presence. Not through exertion, but through clarity.
I’ve seen it happen over and over again:
The executive who shifts from reactive decision-making to a deeply intentional presence that transforms their organization’s culture.
The educator who moves from rigid, transactional teaching into relational, liberatory learning spaces.
The creative leader who stops following external expectations and begins making the work that only they can make.
This is what ontological coaching makes possible. A reorientation toward what matters most. A practice of leading from a place of clarity, integrity, and imagination.
This Work is Not Neutral
This kind of coaching is not neutral. It requires a fundamental choice—to lead with depth, to move beyond surface solutions, to engage with complexity instead of avoiding it.
It asks us to show up. To reimagine. To commit to something deeper than technical fixes.
It asks us to choose love—not as an abstraction, but as a discipline.
Because leadership is not just about managing systems. It is about shaping the world.
And the world we shape begins with who we choose to be.
