Is it your fault if someone you’re coaching resigns?

I wonder how many Agile Coaches have been told by a senior manager (as I have) that it’s their fault if someone they are coaching resigns. As if an Agile Coach is a therapist whose job it is to make people happy no matter how bad the organisation or their managers are.

I think this is a massive misunderstanding of what an Agile Coach does. An Agile Coach is not a friendly HR person who goes around having lovely chats with people working in a bad environment to keep them from leaving. An Agile Coach CHALLENGES the organisation to redesign the system people are working in so that they can more effectively develop valuable products and services. And when people have autonomy, mastery and purpose, they love it and stay. Perhaps this is why Im seeing managers hire lovely people without much Agile experience in Agile Coaching roles recently. Have you had this experience as an Agile Coach?

We are having a good discussion about it on Linkedin if you want to join in