The short answer? No. It would be very odd for a company to invest in managers as a way of removing them. Coaching is rarely a threat, but it is the latest trend in corporate training. Five years ago it was all Performance Management and Balanced Scorecards, now it’s coaching and leadership.

In principle coaching is a great idea. In practice it has pitfalls. For coaching to work, it needs to dovetail with management. Your manager should assess your performance and then establish clear goals for development. That means, when you meet your coach you can set a clear agenda, and use the coach to help you develop in a way that will measurably benefit you and your company.

If that’s not done, you find yourself sitting in front of a coach with neither of you knowing quite why you’re there. That’s frustrating as hell for both of you. And ultimately won’t deliver much for you.

Some companies have a tendency to treat coaching as a substitute for - rather than adjunct to - management. They have a sense that they want their staff to be generally better, so they’ll hand them to a coach who will incubate them like little eggs and return them fully fledged to their company. That never works.

You should sit down with your boss, set clear goals for your development and then treat the personal coach like you’d treat a sports coach; tell them what you can do, what you can’t and what you need help with.

Eoghan McDermott is Director of Careers, The Communication Clinic . www.communicationsclinic.ie