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An exploration of the role of coach training in developing self-awareness: a mixed methods study

DOI:10.1007/s12144-021-01929-8
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Julia Carden at University of Reading
Julia Carden
Rebecca Jones at University of Reading
Rebecca Jones
Jonathan Passmore at University of Reading
Jonathan Passmore
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It is proposed that it is critical that coaches are highly self-aware to be effective at facilitating the development of self-awareness in their clients. Accordingly, self-awareness is included in the competency frameworks of the coaching professional bodies, yet there is a lack of evidence supporting how coaches develop self-awareness. This is problematic as it brings into question the design and development of coach training programmes, which is likely to hinder the professionalization of coaching. Therefore, we set out to provide evidence as to whether coach training develops self-awareness, and if so, what aspects of the training facilitate this development. A mixed-methods design was utilized with two separate studies. Firstly, a pre-post-test quantitative study to test whether coach education increases participant self-awareness. Followed by a qualitative study to provide an in-depth understanding of how the coach training supported the participants in developing self-awareness. The research found that coach training partially develops self-awareness and that key enablers to this development include experiential learning supported by reflection in a psychologically safe environment. The contribution of this research and paper is to contribute to the theory of coach development by illuminating how coach training can develop self-awareness. In addition, it is our hope that our findings will contribute to practice by informing the future design of coach training programmes and providing a means to evaluate coach development as a result of coach training.
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An exploration of the role of coach training in developing
self-awareness: a mixed methods study
Julia Carden
1
&Rebecca J. Jones
1
&Jonathan Passmore
1
Accepted: 26 May 2021
#Crown 2021
Abstract
It is proposed that it is critical that coaches are highly self-aware to be effective at facilitating the development of self-awareness in
their clients. Accordingly, self-awareness is included in the competency frameworks of the coaching professional bodies, yet
there is a lack of evidence supporting how coaches develop self-awareness. This is problematic as it brings into question the
design and development of coach training programmes, which is likely to hinder the professionalization of coaching. Therefore,
we set out to provide evidence as to whether coach training develops self-awareness, and if so, what aspects of the training
facilitate this development. A mixed-methods design was utilized with two separate studies. Firstly, a pre-post-test quantitative
study to test whether coach education increases participant self-awareness. Followed by a qualitative study to provide an in-depth
understanding of how the coach training supported the participants in developing self-awareness. The research found that coach
training partially develops self-awareness and that key enablers to this development include experiential learning supported by
reflection in a psychologically safe environment. The contribution of this research and paper is to contribute to the theory of
coach development by illuminating how coach training can develop self-awareness. In addition, it is our hope that our findings
will contribute to practice by informing the future design of coach training programmes and providing a means to evaluate coach
development as a result of coach training.
Keywords Self-awareness .Executive coach training .Coach training .Coach development .Self-reflection
Coach training is a rapidly growing industry (Forbes, 2017;
Passmore & McGoldrick, 2009), and yet very few coach train-
ing programmes are underpinned by scientific evidence
(Jordan et al., 2017; Passmore & Fillery-Travis, 2011). To
date the majority of research on coach training has focused
on the acquisition of hard coaching skills (e.g. goal focussed
coaching), rather than how the coach develops themselves
(Jordan et al., 2017). Leggett and James (2016) claim that
there is now a need to explore how coach training benefits
the coach. Recent research by Atad and Grant (2020) that
has responded to these calls, explores how coach training de-
velops coaches and compared novice coaches to those coming
to coaching from a therapeutic or counselling background.
Despite this recent development, there is an absence of in-
depth research exploring how coaches develop during coach
training.
One of the core competencies perceived to be important for
coaches is self-awareness (Bluckert, 2005), and as such it is
included in the professional bodies (i.e. the International
Coaching Federation (ICF) and European Mentoring and
Coaching Council (EMCC)) core competency frameworks.
This focus on self-awareness is underpinned by the work of
Laske (1999) and Bachkirova (2016) who suggest that it is
essential coaches develop the ‘self’, as they argue that the
coach (i.e. the individual) is the main tool used in coaching.
Supporting this perspective is the proposition that a core pur-
pose of coaching is to elicit behavioural change through rais-
ing the self-awareness of the client (Bozer et al., 2014), and
therefore it could be argued that in order for the coach to
develop self-awareness within their clients, they first need to
Julia Carden led the research and work for this paper and was supported
by Jonathan Passmore and Rebecca Jones.
*Julia Carden
j.c.carden@pgr.reading.ac.uk; https://www.linkedin.com/in/
juliacarden/
Rebecca J. Jones
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-jones-35ab8526/
Jonathan Passmore
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-passmore-08427b57/
1
Henley Business School, University of Reading, Greenlands
Campus, Henley-on-Thames, Reading RG9 3AU, UK
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01929-8
/ Published online: 8 June 2021
Current Psychology (2023) 42:6164–6178
1 3
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
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... The conceptualization of self-awareness is complicated [4][5][6][7], and includes both intrapersonal and interpersonal perspectives [4][5][6][7]. Some researchers use the distinction between private and public aspects to describe its intra-and interpersonal aspects [8][9][10]. ...
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