Where Were All the Coaches When the Banks Went Down?

This is the first post in the series about books that made me the coach I am today.

During the maelstrom tariff concerns this month I’ve had the privilege of working intensively with leaders as they navigate how to communicate in response to the current global uncertainty. The questions have varied—about risk, resilience, fairness, and strategic direction—but a common thread has emerged: how to communicate with integrity when the stakes are high and clarity is elusive.

In these moments, I find myself returning to a provocative book by John Blakey: Where Were All the Coaches When the Banks Went Down? It was published after the 2008 financial crisis—when I was still working in banking myself. That title alone posed a haunting question. While financial institutions faltered, trust eroded, and entire economies teetered, where were the coaches who might have helped leaders reflect, course-correct, or challenge the prevailing culture?

Blakey’s central thesis was this: coaches must not be content to simply enhance performance or polish behaviour. We have a responsibility to challenge character, to evoke conscience, and to serve not just the leader in front of us—but the system they influence.

As a banker turned coach, I know how powerful and insular those executive environments can be. The pressures to deliver, to conform, to remain silent. And I now understand more deeply the value of a coach who is willing to disrupt that silence—not with judgment, but with courage and compassion. What Blakey calls “coaching with backbone and heart.”

Fifteen years on, the lesson still resonates. The crisis may look different today, but the call is the same: to be a partner who helps leaders not just say the right thing, but stand for the right thing. Not just manage risk, but lead with values. Not just protect the institution, but serve the people who place their trust in it.

What I’ve seen this month is heartening. Leaders reaching out, not just for comms support, but for real-time thinking partnership. Asking not only what should I say? but what do I believe? and how do I say it in a way that earns trust?

This is the work. And it’s why I believe John Blakey’s message is as urgent now as it was then. We are not here to smooth things over. We are here to help leaders stand taller—especially when the world is watching.