At the 26th symposium of the Society for Applied Business Psychology (Gesellschaft für angewandte Wirtschaftspsychologie (GWPs)), which took place from 23 to 25 February 2023 at the FOM University of Applied Sciences in Essen, Lara Calasso (together with Hansjörg Künzli and Michael J. Burtscher) gave a presentation on “Proactive adaptation to a changing world of work. What exactly do coaches actually do? A systematic reconsideration of coaching behaviour in the context of executive coaching”. For more information on the topic of the lecture, please see the attached summary.
Research question
Executive coaching refers to a focused conversation between a coach and a client that is used to drive job-related change. In recent years, coaching research has identified a number of general success factors (e.g. experience of the coach) that contribute to an effective coaching process.
However, it is not enough to know which success factors are relevant. Effective coaching also requires the knowledge of how and when these factors are implemented in the coaching process. For this reason, the focus of this paper is on coaching behaviour. Coaching behaviour is directly observable and describes what coaches actually do during the coaching process. Besides the focus on behaviour, we also consider the temporal structure of the coaching process.
Research design
The question was examined by means of a systematic review. A total of 18 studies empirically investigating coaching behaviour were selected from 3,910 articles. The coaching behaviours identified in this way were summarised by means of thematic analysis and, based on Whitmore’s (1996) GROW model, placed in a chronological order.
Results
The results illustrate effective coaching behaviours that occur during the coaching process. Due to the temporal occurrence of the coaching behaviours, the GROW model is adapted.
The model consists of the phases “contact phase”, “exploration phase”, “operational phase” and the “conclusion phase”, which contain phase-specific behavioural ranges. In addition, a category with “recurrent coaching behaviours” is added, which summarises phase-independent behaviours.
Limitations
The review only includes studies from the field of executive coaching.
Implications
The results enable researchers to better understand the underlying mechanisms of executive coaching.
Relevance
This paper contributes to a broader understanding of the coaching process, especially in terms of what coaches do and when they do it.