Coaching at Work Annual Conference, 14 November 2024, online
It’s time we widely adopted a more holistic approach to coach development, according to research presented in two of the conference sessions.
Research shared by Stephen Burt and Alexandra Barosa-Pereira, and by Elizabeth Crosse and Julia Carden, challenges a linear, skill-based model of coach development, emphasising instead the need for a holistic, reflexive approach that integrates personal and professional growth.
Life experiences, reflective practice, and self-care are highly significant in coach development, according to research carried out internationally over four years by Burt, Barosa-Pereira, David Clutterbuck, Bob Garvey and Duminda Rajasinghe among 32 experienced coaches, looking at how experienced coaches make sense of their development.
In another session, Crosse and Carden reiterated the importance of putting the ‘personal’ into CPD so it becomes CPPD, building on their article series in Coaching at Work on this topic, which won them an award (see Awards, pages 14-18). They highlighted the need for self-awareness and personal connection in coaching, advocating for activities like yoga, therapy and reflective practice. They argued that such personal activities enhance human connection and differentiate coaching from AI. They encouraged coaches to reflect on their unique needs and engage in holistic development, suggesting that professional bodies should recognise and encourage such practices.
In Burt and Barosa-Pereira’s session, Burt said that traditionally, assumptions about coach development have included that it’s linear and separated from life events, and that it entails the accumulation of refinement of skills, models and approaches. However, none of the coaches surveyed mentioned the skills model of approaches as a way for development.
The findings showed that coaches develop from a range of things in addition to learning from a range of experiences, including increasing repertoire and sense-making by exploring and learning models and theories, acting as ‘teacher as learner’ (including supervising and teaching coaching), engaging in professional leadership (such as running coaching associations), and supervision and other reflexive practices (80% of the coaches referred to some kind of supervision).
Participating coaches shared how major life experiences had impacted them and “their practice, what they did, the purpose and values they had, or the purpose perspective they bring to their work…It also added to their resilience, their ability to sit with people having deep trauma, their humanity,” said Burt.
Barosa-Pereira said, “It’s not only passing through [an] external event, it’s reflecting and observing what is happening with your cognition, your feelings, and how you deal with them.
“It’s a never-ending process; it’s a continuous, dynamic, holistic process of self discovery… a way of being, not an end point, driven and enabled by reflexive learning and continuous reflective learning, and letting go and integrating, not just acquiring,” she said.
Self-care was important. When asked how they’d developed, “a significant number of our interviewees talked about how they looked after themselves. And this came across both as a foundation for self-development, but also a type of professional development as well,” said Burt.
Coaches mentioned a range of personal practices and routines that support them and their ability to coach, such as getting out into nature each day.
“The paths that people are taking are really quite individual,” said Burt. However, a common red thread is reflexive practice, he said.
“[It’s] the essential way to make the most of the experience you have.”
Reflexive practice needs to be supported in CPD, through coaching associations, whatever networks and supervision that coaches engage in. And at the heart of that reflexive practice is a development mindset, he said.
- Burt and Barosa-Pereira will delve more deeply into their research in a future issue of the magazine