UNDERSTANDING THE DEVELOPMENT OF COACHING IN CHANGING TIMES

ABSTRACT

The prominent role of coaching in leadership, management and organizations has drawn the attention of practitioners leading them to consider executive coaching as a central intervention of their human resource development practices. Unfortunately, this strong interest in coaching development was not fully translated into the academic context, creating a gap between theory and practice. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the emergence of executive coaching in Romanian organizations as this was perceived by practitioners. Fifteen Romanian practitioners in the field of leadership development took part in a semi-structured interview. Data consisted of verbatim transcripts were analyzed qualitatively using the thematic analysis approach. A framework was depicted mapping out the role, the place of executive coaching in management and leadership development, the characteristics of the process and of the clients. Findings suggested that a “one-size-fits-all” approach to leadership development may be inappropriate and a number of factors need to be taken into account when coaching is chosen. Moreover, the study has led to a shift in the predominant view of executive coaching from that of a personal consulting service to that of a learning resource from which the corporate buyers of executive coaching services select those that better meet the diverse learning needs of leaders and managers. Hence, this study can contribute to an enhanced understanding of the model of professional development through executive coaching in Romanian organizations. Also, these results complement previous research on the differentiation of executive coaching by other developmental relationships.

KEYWORDS: coaching, developmental relationships, human resource practitioners, thematic analysis

PAGES: 209-231