Toward a Profession of Coaching: Sixty-Five Years of Progress and Challenges for the Future

By Adam M. Grant, Michaella Cavanagh. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 2004

260 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The coaching industry has reached a key important point in its maturation. This maturation is being driven by at least three interrelated forces: (1) accumulated coaching experience; (2) the increasing entry of professionals into coaching from a wide variety of prior backgrounds; and (3) the increasing sophistication of management and Human Resource professionals. There is increasing awareness among coaches of the need to ground their practice in a solid theoretical understanding and empirically tested models, rather than the standardised implementation of "one size fits all" proprietary coaching systems. Further, there is a growing disenchantment with perceived pseudo-credentialing mills. In response to these forces we are beginning to witness increased interest in coaching-related research and the theoretically grounded approaches central to evidence-based coaching practice. This paper provides an overview of the existing academic literature on coaching, and explores five key trends in coaching-related research; (a) discussion articles on internal coaching by managers; (b) academic research on internal coaching; (c) research on external coaching by a professional coaches; (d) coaching as a means of investigating psychological mechanisms and processes involved in human and organisational change, and (e) the emergence of a theoretical literature aimed at the professional coach. It is argued that an explicit movement towards the scientist-practitioner model of coach training and practice is vital for the development of the coaching industry, and that such a move is vital in a movement from a service industry, towards a respected cross-disciplinary profession with a solid research base.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/47f7626baba41e3756169519319df8336e3b0162

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Citations in the corpus

Coaching at the heart of managerial effectiveness: A cross-cultural study of managerial behaviours (2006, background): “…empirical base (see Hamlin, 2001, 2002a; Hamlin and Stewart, 1998; Mumford, 1997), so too have similar criticisms been levelled at most current coaching practice (Grant, 2003; Grant and Cavanagh, 2004; Grant and Zackon, 2004; KampaKokesch and Anderson, 2002; Kilburg, 1996, 2004; Lowman, 2005).”
The emergent ‘coaching industry’: a wake-up call for HRD professionals (2008, unknown): “However, it does not appear that Grant (2001), Grant and Cavanagh (2004) or Clegg et al. (2003) have compared coaching with these areas and aspects of contemporary HRD practice.”
Toward a Profession of Coaching? A Definitional Examination of ‘Coaching,’ ‘Organization Development,’ and ‘Human Resource Development’ (2009, unknown): “Grant and Cavanagh (2004) have argued that coaching needs to move from a service industry to a genuine coaching profession; but as yet the coaching industry is far from meeting the basic requirements of a true profession, because it lacks an holistic theoretical framework derived from a sound and…”
Evaluating the effectiveness of executive coaching: beyond ROI? (2009, unknown): “Although the published literature has begun to reflect the emergence of professional coaches (Grant & Cavanagh, 2004), rigorous empirical investigations of the outcomes associated with coaching are greatly outnumbered by practitioner articles purporting the benefits of it.”
The State of Play in Coaching Today: A Comprehensive Review of the Field (2010, background): “First, even though coaching focuses on individual and/or organizational change (a key focus of behavioural science), the majority of individuals offering coaching services to organizations are not psychologists or behavioural scientists (Grant & Zackon, 2004).”
Coaching and positive psychology (2007, background): “…and get paid for coaching have an enormous range of academic qualifications from none at all to bachelor’s degrees in almost anything, to masters degrees in counselling, education, social work, or positive psychology, to doctorates in psychology, medicine, and philosophy (Grant & Zackon, 2004).”
Does Coaching Work or Are We Asking the Wrong Question? (2006, unknown): “Grant and Cavanagh (2004) identify three generic levels: Skills coaching which can be of short duration and which requires the coach to focus on specific behaviours; Performance coaching which will focus on the process by which the coachee can set goals, overcome obstacles, and evaluate and monitor…”
Evidence-based coaching: Flourishing or languishing? (2007, background): “It is important to remember that the majority of coaches per se do not have any training in psychological science (Grant & Zackon, 2004) and, if they do have training in coaching, they tend to be trained in atheoretical, proprietary models of coaching.”
Organizational investments in social capital, managerial coaching, and employee work-related performance (2011, background): “Despite the importance of managers assuming roles as coaches, empirical research on managerial coaching is still in its infancy (Ellinger, Ellinger et al., 2010; Grant and Zackon, 2004).”
The relationship between working alliance and client outcomes in coaching: A meta-analysis (2020, unknown): “The working alliance in coaching differs, though, from other helping relationships as coaching is more egalitarian (Grant and Cavanagh, 2004).”