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From Theory to Practice—in Search of Theoretical Approaches Leading to Informed Coaching Practices
Abstract
In order to define CoachingCoaching, we first examined what CoachingCoaching is and what it is not. Then, we compared CoachingCoaching with other types of interventionsTypes of intervention. We also considered the different types of CoachingTypes of coaching. Being aware of all the challenges that CoachingCoaching must deal with, it is also our aim in this chapter to stress those approachesApproaches that are most relevant to orienting best practicesPractice, particularly in the organisational context.
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Purpose:
The primary aim of this paper is to conduct a thorough and systematic review of the empirical and practitioner research on executive, leadership and business coaching to assess the current empirical evidence for the effectiveness of coaching and the mechanisms underlying it.
Background:
Organisations are increasingly using business coaching as an intervention to improve the productivity and performance of their senior personnel. A consequence of this increased application is the demand for empirical data to understand the process by which it operates and its demonstrable efficacy in achieving pre-set goals.
Method:
This paper is a systematic review of the academic and practitioner literature pertaining to the effectiveness of business and executive coaching as a developmental intervention for organisations. It focuses on published articles, conference papers and theses that cover business, leadership or executive coaching within organisations over the last 10 years.
Conclusions:
The main findings show that coaching is an effective tool that benefits organisations and a number of underlying facets contribute to this effectiveness. However, there is deficiency and scope for further investigation in key aspects of the academic research and we identify several areas that need further research and practitioner attention. .
Whereas coaching is very popular as a management tool, research on coaching effectiveness is lagging behind. Moreover, the studies on coaching that are currently available have focused on a large variety of processes and outcome measures and generally lack a firm theoretical foundation. With the meta-analysis presented in this article, we aim to shed light on the effectiveness of coaching within an organizational context. We address the question whether coaching has an effect on five both theoretically and practically relevant individual-level outcome categories: performance/skills, well-being, coping, work attitudes, and goal-directed self-regulation. The results show that coaching has significant positive effects on all outcomes with effect sizes ranging from g = 0.43 (coping) to g = 0.74 (goal-directed self-regulation). These findings indicate that coaching is, overall, an effective intervention in organizations.
Coaching has established itself as a key component of employee learning and development. Yet, despite the prevalence and impact of coaching in organisations, there has been a lack of theory regarding the processes through which coaching behaviours influence outcomes for coachees (i.e. motivation, performance and wellbeing). As such, in the current review, we integrate theory from the emerging humanistic coaching literature with self-determination theory to explicate a process model of how different types of coaching practices (autonomy-, competency- and relatedness-supportive behaviours) that are integral to humanistic coaching influence employee outcomes through the attainment of psychological needs (autonomy, competence and relatedness). The proposed model has practical implications to enhance the success of coaching relationships, in addition to creating a stronger theoretical foundation upon which humanistic coaching research and practice can draw.
We propose that I/O psychologists who coach executives have overlooked psychotherapy outcome research as a source of information and ideas that can be used to improve our executive coaching practices. This research, based on thousands of studies and many meta-analyses, has converged on the conclusion that four ''active ingredients'' account for most of the variance in psychotherapy outcomes. We describe how this literature has identified four primary ''active ingredients'' that account for most of the variance in psychotherapy outcomes: 1) Client/extratherapeutic factors (40%), 2) The relationship or alliance (30%), 3) Placebo or hope (15%), and 4) Theory and technique (15%). Working on the assumption that psychotherapy and executive coaching are sufficiently similar to justify generalization from one domain to the other, we describe these four active ingredients at length and explore how they may be at work in the executive coaching process. We also suggest that I/O psychologists have training and experience that allows us to leverage some of these active ingredients in our executive coaching (e.g., understanding of client individual differences related to coaching outcomes). But we also have areas of weakness (e.g., building a strong working relationship with an individual client) that may need to be bolstered with additional training and development experiences.
Despite the ubiquity of executive coaching interventions in business organizations, there is little uniformity in the practices (e.g., assessment tools, scientific or philosophical approaches, activities, goals, and outcome evaluation methods) of executive coaches. Addressing the ongoing debate about the role of psychology in executive coaching, we compare the practices of psychologist and nonpsychologist coaches, as well as the practices of coaches from various psychological disciplines (e.g., counseling, clinical, and industrial/organizational). Results of surveys completed by 428 coaches (256 nonpsychologists, 172 psychologists) revealed as many differences between psychologists of differing disciplines as were found between psychologist and nonpsychologist coaches. Moreover, differences between psychologists and nonpsychologists were generally small (average d= .26). Our survey also revealed some differences in the key competencies identified by psychologist and nonpsychologist coaches.
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the differential effects of problem-focused and solution-focused coaching questions by means of a literature overview and results of an exploratory pilot study.
Design/methodology/approach – In a problem-focused coaching session 39 participants complete a range of measures assessing self-efficacy, their understanding of a problem, positive and negative affect, and goal approach. They then respond to a number of problem-focused coaching questions, and then complete a second set of measures. The 35 participants in a solution-focused session complete a mirror image of the problem-focused condition, responding to solution-focused coaching questions, including the “Miracle Question”.
Findings – Both the problem-focused and the solution-focused conditions are effective at enhancing goal approach. However, the solution-focused group experience significantly greater increases in goal approach compared with the problem-focused group. Problem-focused questions reduce negative affect and increase self-efficacy but do not increase understanding of the nature of the problem or enhance positive affect. The solution-focused approach increases positive affect, decreases negative affect, increases self-efficacy as well as increasing participants' insight and understanding of the nature of the problem.
Practical implications – Solution-focused coaching questions appear to be more effective than problem-focused questions. Although real-life coaching conversations are not solely solution-focused or solely problem-focused, coaches should aim for a solution-focused theme in their coaching work, if they wish to conduct effective goal-focused coaching sessions that develop a depth of understanding, build self-efficacy, reduce negative affect, increase positive affect and support the process of goal attainment.
Originality/value – This is the first study to explore this issue.
Objectives: This study sought to identify the key behaviours used by executive coaches that were perceived by coachees to have the most favourable impact on their experience and progress.
Design: The study used a semi-structured interview design within a qualitative approach.
Methods: Grounded theory was employed to analyse the transcripts and to build a series of descriptive and conceptual codes.
Results: The results from this small-scale study suggest that coachees seek not only particular behaviours but also certain personal attributes in a coach. Key behaviours and attributes identified were common sense confidentiality, being collaborative, setting take-away tasks, balancing challenge and support, stimulating problem-solving, effective communication, staying focused, containing emotions, helping develop alternative perspectives, use of a variety of focusing tools and techniques and use of self as a tool.
Conclusions: The study makes some tentative practical recommendations for those involved in coaching practice and coach training.
A science of positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions promises to improve quality of life and prevent the pathologies that arise when life is barren and meaningless. The exclusive focus on pathology that has dominated so much of our discipline results in a model of the human being lacking the positive features that make life worth living. Hope, wisdom, creativity, future mindedness, courage, spirituality, responsibility, and perseverance are ignored or explained as transformations of more authentic negative impulses. The 15 articles in this millennial issue of the American Psychologist discuss such issues as what enables happiness, the effects of autonomy and self-regulation, how optimism and hope affect health, what constitutes wisdom, and how talent and creativity come to fruition. The authors outline a framework for a science of positive psychology, point to gaps in our knowledge, and predict that the next century will see a science and profession that will come to understand and build the factors that allow individuals, communities, and societies to flourish.
Although coaching programs are becoming increasingly widespread across the world, in some countries this practice has only been introduced in recent years. To better understand the coaching context in one such country, Portugal, and to identify future trends and directions, a survey was carried out among 255 coaches via social media, using the snowball approach. We aimed to uncover the predominant background of coaches and whether this is associated with features of their practice, most notably their theoretical positions and the use of any tools or instruments. We also explored aspects related to the coachees’ most recurrent needs for coaching, and the positive and negative effects that coaches observe more frequently. The results of this descriptive study reveal, among other things, that there is room for more theory‐driven methodologies that can be replicated and standardized and, therefore, ultimately contribute to coaching professionalization.
We examined whether a supervisor's coaching leadership style predicts the perception of organizational politics in performance appraisal (OPPA) reported by the collaborators. Additionally, we drew on social cognition and motivational life-span development theories to hypothesize age-related differences in perceived OPPA and its link with the coaching leadership style. Using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) on a sample of 576 employees and 112 leaders, we found that coaching leaders are perceived as less manipulative in their performance ratings, especially by older employees. This article includes a discussion of the implications these results have for performance management of an age-diverse workforce.
This study presents a meta-analysis synthesizing the existing research on the effectiveness of workplace coaching. We exclusively explore workplace coaching provided by internal or external coaches and therefore exclude cases of manager–subordinate and peer coaching. We propose a framework of potential outcomes from coaching in organizations, which we examine meta-analytically (k = 17). Our analyses indicated that coaching had positive effects on organizational outcomes overall (δ = 0.36), and on specific forms of outcome criteria (skill-based δ = 0.28; affective δ = 0.51; individual-level results δ = 1.24). We also examined moderation by a number of coaching practice factors (use of multisource feedback; type of coach; coaching format; longevity of coaching). Our analyses of practice moderators indicated a significant moderation of effect size for type of coach (with effects being stronger for internal coaches compared to external coaches) and use of multisource feedback (with the use of multisource feedback resulting in smaller positive effects). We found no moderation of effect size by coaching format (comparing face-to-face, with blended face-to-face and e-coaching) or duration of coaching (number of sessions or longevity of intervention). The effect sizes give support to the potential utility of coaching in organizations. Implications for coaching research and practice are discussed.Practitioner pointsOur meta-analysis supports the positive effects of workplace coaching as an approach to employee learning and development in organizations, with a variety of criteria.Our findings indicate that coaching was more effective when conducted by internal coaches and when multisource feedback was excluded.Workplace coaching was effective whether conducted face-to-face or using blended techniques (i.e., blending face-to-face with e-coaching).
Several factors termed the active ingredients have been shown to play a major role in the success of psychotherapy. These ingredients have been theoretically extended to executive coaching, but the impact of these ingredients on coaching success has not yet been tested. This study examined the effects of three active ingredients on competency change in 30 coaching engagements. The results suggest that executive involvement, perceptions of developability and individual development plans are related to coaching success. Specifically, executives rated higher on these components indicated a greater degree of competency change. This study provides support for the use of the active ingredients framework within executive coaching engagements, suggests areas for future research and offers recommendations for practicing coaches.
Recent years have seen the rapid growth of an emergent 'coaching industry' in many countries with some scholars calling for the development of a 'coaching profession' replete with its own clear identity, clear boundaries and unique body of knowledge. Yet, at the same time, coaching has also been conceived as a necessary area of expertise and skill set among contemporary HRD professionals. Therefore, this article reports the results of a comparative study of the different conceptualizations and definitions of 'coaching' and contemporary HRD as reported in the literature. Results suggest that the intended purposes and processes associated with both fields of practice are virtually the same. The challenge and dilemma posed by these results are described from both a coaching and HRD perspective, and are discussed in terms of seeing the findings of this comparative study as a wake-up call for HRD professionals.
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