When Engineers Discover the Human Factor

Gregg Thompson thought he had it all figured out. Fresh out of school with top marks in industrial engineering, he joined an aluminum smelter convinced that technical excellence was all that mattered. His studies were impeccable. His calculations were perfect. There was just one problem: every single project failed.

“The workers went out of their way to make sure my studies failed,” Gregg recalls with remarkable honesty. “I gave them no credence, no worth in my work. I was so focused on the engineering that I ignored them—or worse, treated them poorly.”

That humbling moment changed everything. The brilliant young engineer discovered what would become his life’s work: the human element is not just important in organizations—it’s everything.

The Journey from Systems to Souls

Fast forward through years of transformation, and Gregg Thompson has become one of the world’s most respected executive coaches and leadership developers. As founder and former president of Bluepoint Leadership, he has worked with Fortune 500 companies, Stanford Medicine, and Microsoft, shaping thousands of leaders across the globe.

But ask him about being a “master coach,” and he’ll immediately correct you.

“There’s no such thing as a master coach,” he insists. “It’s the same with outstanding leaders. There are just ordinary men and women who get up every morning trying to be that. It’s a lifelong endeavor.”

This humility isn’t false modesty—it’s the foundation of his coaching philosophy. In our wide-ranging conversation for the ADGES Leadership Journey podcast, Gregg shared insights that challenge conventional wisdom about leadership development, coaching, and what it takes to truly help another human being grow.

The Courage to Walk Away Empty

When I asked Gregg about the qualities that differentiate exceptional coaches, he didn’t mention certifications or techniques. Instead, he talked about courage.

“It’s often not my client’s reluctance to explore something difficult—it’s mine,” he admitted.

“We’re coaching very senior people. We don’t want to look dumb or irrelevant. But recognizing that we as coaches are often the limiting factor? That’s critical.”

Real coaching requires what Gregg calls “walking away empty”—the willingness to risk the relationship, to ask the uncomfortable question, to challenge the comfortable narrative. It means putting the client’s growth ahead of your own need to look good or maintain harmony.

“You need to have enough courage to recognize that over the course of your career, you will be fired as a coach,” he said matter-of-factly. “I have been. Maybe it was the wrong time, maybe I could have done something different. But I hope I’ve learned to always do my best in that moment for the client.”

The second quality he emphasized might sound simple, but it’s profoundly difficult: selflessness.

“It’s not about you. It’s not a friendship. In that coaching moment, it’s all about the other person,” Gregg explained. “And I can tell you, it’s very difficult for us to give up everything—including our ego—for an hour. Make it all about the other person and not about us.”

The One Question That Changes Everything

Throughout his career working with struggling executives, Gregg has discovered a simple intervention that consistently produces remarkable results. When faced with a leader who has damaged relationships or isn’t getting honest feedback, he suggests they sit down with six to eight people and ask one question:

“What can I do to become a better leader for you?”

Full stop. No explanations. No context. No defensiveness.

“The benefit is not just the feedback they get—they usually already know they’re abrasive or poor at relationships,” Gregg explained. “But they engage in a conversation about their personal relationship. The question itself dramatically improves the relationship if they just calm their normal defensiveness and listen.”

It’s not a 360-degree assessment. It’s not a survey. It’s a human being asking another human being for help. And that vulnerability, that genuine inquiry, changes everything.

Culture Is Downstream from Conversation

When our conversation turned to organizational culture, Gregg offered a definition I found compelling: “Culture is how we think, how we act, and how we interact.”

But here’s his key insight: culture doesn’t change through mission statements or town halls. It changes one conversation at a time.

“Leadership manifests itself one conversation at a time,” he said. “If you want to change a culture, you need to change the conversation. If you envision a company where the standard is a coach-like conversation—not the exception—you’re going to have a coach-like culture.”

This means the work of developing coaching skills can’t just happen at middle management levels. It needs to start at the very top, becoming part of the DNA of the organization. When senior leaders model curiosity, genuine listening, and commitment to others’ growth, it cascades throughout the entire organization.

The AI Challenge and the Irreplaceable Human

No conversation about leadership today can avoid artificial intelligence. Gregg is remarkably candid about both its capabilities and its limitations.

“I’ve used AI to do some coaching for me,” he admitted. “Candidly and disappointingly, it was pretty good work. But I always knew it was not another human there. As high quality as its responses were, they didn’t come from a place of soul, from a place of heart, from a place of really caring about me in that moment.”

But Gregg sees a deeper challenge ahead. As AI eliminates entry-level and mid-level roles—precisely the positions where young people develop the experience and judgment needed for senior leadership—organizations will face a crisis of discernment.

“The capacity to be discerning is learned over years and years through experience and reflection,” he explained. “If we don’t have young people growing through an organization, when they get to senior leadership, they won’t have had the experience required to develop the discernment to be good coaches.”

He’s observed this firsthand training thousands of leaders. When he delivers coaching workshops to younger people, the results are far less impactful than with senior leaders. “They’re sponges for the workshop, they try really hard, but they haven’t lived life long enough to develop the deep perception and judgment required of a coach.”

Earning the Right to Coach

Perhaps the most important concept Gregg shared is one that can’t be taught in any certification program: earning the right to coach.

“It’s not something we get to decide,” he said. “It’s whether other people look at us and see somebody they trust, somebody who wants the very best for them. It would be hard not to accept someone as your coach if you knew in your heart that person wanted the very best for you, saw things in you that you couldn’t see in yourself, and every conversation left you better in some way.”

You earn that right through intention, action, values, and virtue—particularly compassion, courage, humility, and deep caring. And here’s the thing: it can’t be faked.

“When we interact with people, we get a pretty good idea right away whether it’s all about them or all about us,” Gregg observed. “One hallmark of a coaching culture is when people don’t just compete—they delight in each other’s success.”

Freestyle Coaching: The Art of Discernment

After decades of practice, Gregg has developed what he calls “freestyle coaching”—an approach that acknowledges there is no one formula for helping another human being grow.

The model rests on three foundations:

• The Coach’s Commitment: Noble intention (everything for the other person), full engagement (bringing all you’ve got), and presence (being fully there and aware).
• The Dialogue: The coach mate owns the agenda; the coach owns the process. This means being constantly discerning about two things: the pathway (what journey is most helpful right now?) and the action (what should I say or not say in this moment?).
• The Outcomes: Both tangible (insight, behavior change, solutions) and intangible (increased capability, shifted attitude, sense of power that comes from having options).

“Discernment is a deep sense of judgment and perception of what is true in the moment,” Gregg explained. “It helps us ask the question or make the statement that is in the best interest of the person we’re coaching.”

And here’s the beautiful paradox: you can’t learn discernment from a book or a workshop. You develop it through years of practice, reflection, and genuine commitment to serving others.

“I’m a better coach today than I was five years ago,” Gregg said. “I was better five years ago than ten years ago. Thanks to the generosity of my clients, I’ve developed a sense of perception and judgment that is far superior to what I had when I was young. But honestly? I’ve got a long way to go yet.”

The Master Who Claims No Mastery

As our conversation drew to a close, I reflected on why Gregg Thompson has had such a profound impact on my own journey and the journeys of thousands of others. It’s not because he claims to have all the answers. It’s because he shows up fully, courageously, and selflessly in service of others’ growth.

He teaches that real coaching isn’t about following a model or checklist. It’s about developing the wisdom to know what another human being needs in a given moment—and having the courage to offer it, even when it’s uncomfortable.

For leaders seeking to develop a coaching culture, the message is clear: it starts with you. Not with a program or an initiative, but with your willingness to be present, to ask rather than tell, to see potential in others that they can’t yet see in themselves, and to delight in their success rather than your own.

And perhaps most importantly, to recognize that you’ll never fully arrive. The journey of becoming a better leader, a better coach, a better human being—it never ends. You just get up each morning and try again.

That’s not the path of a master. That’s the path of someone committed to mastery. And that makes all the difference.

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Dr. Nattavut Kulnides is Founder and CEO of ADGES, a premier executive coaching and leadership development consultancy in Thailand. The Leadership Journey podcast explores the transformative moments and insights that shape exceptional leaders.

Gregg Thompson is founder and CEO of Bluepoint Leadership and co-host of The Edge of Leadership podcast, which examines what makes leadership development truly effective.