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Coaching: An emerging profession – or just a spanner in the HRD toolbox?
David E GrayBusiness SchoolUniversity of Greenwich30 Park RdLONDON SE10 9LS
Mark N.K.SaundersSurrey Business SchoolUniversity of SurreyGUILDFORD GU2 7XH
Barry CurnowBusiness SchoolUniversity of Greenwich30 Park RdLONDON SE10 9LS
Catherine FarrantBusiness SchoolUniversity of Greenwich30 Park RdLONDON SE10 [email protected]
Stream: Strategic HRD and Performance
Submission type: Paper
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AbstractPurpose: To identify the extent to which coaching is a distinct occupation, or task, performed within a portfolio of HR or other roles. To also ascertain the extent to which coaches identify with coaching as a profession and to explore how their professional identity (or multiple identities) are created and maintained.
Design/methodology/approach: The study adopted a mixed methods design using a quantitative survey (N= 756) of professional coaching associations members, two focus groups (to validate the survey instrument) and 28 qualitative interviews to add depth and illustration to the quantitative results.
Findings: 65% of respondents consider that there is at least a moderate to complete overlap between the coaching profession and their sense of self. For the majority of respondents, however, coaching is only one aspect of their working lives (56% working, on average, less than three days a week as a coach) suggesting a portfolio approach to employment. Respondents with a higher affective commitment to coaching are significantly more likely to identify with the coaching profession.
Research limitations/implications: The preponderance of external, independent coaches compared with internal coaches highlights the need for further research on the later.
Practical implications: The study may offer guidance to the professional coaching associations and their work towards professional standards and highlight the need for more coherence and less fragmentation amongst the professional coaching bodies.
Social implications: The professionalization of coaching should raise standards and improve the quality of helping interventions for clients and organizations.
Originality/value: One of the few, large scale studies of coaching.
Keywords: Social identity, professional identity, professionalization, coaching
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Coaching: An emerging profession – or just a spanner in the HRD toolbox?1
ImportanceThis study investigates social identity in the context of a professional group – coaches. Social identity theory has been most frequently studied in the contexts of (1) artificial groups where participants are randomly assigned to treatments (Ellemers, Wilke & van Knippenberg, 1993); (2) categories where people are grouped according to shared attributes such as race or nationality (Crocker, Luhtanen, Baine, and Broadnax, 1994); and (3) naturally occurring small groups such as college sororities (Hogg, 1996; Smith & Tyler, 1997). As Bergami and Bagozzi (2000) point out, while some theoretical investigations have been conducted in an organisational context (Ashforth & Mael, 1989, 1996; Dutton, Dukerich, & Harquail, 1994) virtually no attention has been accorded to the dimensions of social identity, their measurement and their causes and effects. We contend that this particularly applies to groups that are held together by professional affiliations. We take coaches as an example of such a professional group.
Over the last 20 years, coaching has experienced an exponential growth, the International Coach Federation (2013) estimating that it is now a US$2 billion industry with 48,000 coaches worldwide; 28,000 of them working in HRD (Human Resource Development). A study of 2,529 professional coaches found that they originated from a wide range of professional backgrounds: consultants (40.8%), managers (30.8%), executives (30.2%), teachers (15.7%) and salespeople (13.8%) (Grant and Zackon, 2004). Other entrants include internal HRD professionals, supervisors and managers, as organisations expand their internal coaching capacity by training up employees as coaches (Hamlin, Ellinger and Beattie, 2008). Nearly 40% of UK organisations expect internal coaching to increase in the next three years (Ridler, 2013), and it is already the ‘fastest growing HRD professional enterprise’ (Egan, 2013: 178). Tensions, however, are now emerging between those who see coaching as moving from a service industry to a genuine profession (Grant, and Cavanagh, 2004; Clegg, Rhodes, & Kornberger, 2003), and others who view coaching as a part of an ubiquitous HRD ‘toolbox’ (Egan and Hamlin, 2014) rather than a separate occupational or professional group. As Bachkirova, Cox and Clutterbuck comment, the unique identity of those who coach ‘is still an unresolved problem (2010: 3). This paper reports on a global study of over 700 members of (professional) coaching associations to investigate the degree to which these coaches identify with coaching as a profession, the variables that influence their views and narratives of their journey into their becoming a coach.
Some contested definitions of coachingOne of the challenges in discussing the professional identity of coaches is identifying an accepted working definition of coaching as a concept. As Griffiths and Campbell (2008) point out, a complicating factor is the similarity between coaching and other helping interventions. For example, the terms coaching and counselling are often used interchangeably, partly because they both seek to support the individual, both are
1 We would like to thank the members of the following associations for assisting us in this research: AC, EMCC, ICF, IoC.
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delivered either face-to-face or through telephone sessions and both try to initiate personal change. Indeed, it has been asserted that those who work in the fields of psychotherapy and counselling see coaching as merely a change of brand name for what they have been doing for a long time (Bachkirova and Cox, 2004). Important differences, however, do exist. Hart et al. (2001) for example, describe counselling as recognising past injuries in order to promote insight and healing, whereas coaching focuses on untapped present possibilities in order to link this awareness to action. While these differences can be exaggerated, and overlaps do exist, Griffiths and Campbell (2008) note that the demarcation between coaching and counselling has led to practical disputes over professional boundaries.
While Grant (2005) sees coaching as an emergent profession, Hamlin et al. (2008) contend that coaching could fit within the existing and firmly established field of HRD study and practice. Indeed, as Hamlin et al. (2008) point out, professional bodies such as the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) and the UK-based Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) see coaching as a core role within HRD. This contrasts sharply with the views of other commentators who argue that coaching is quite distinct from both training (usually within the remit of HRD) and consulting (delivered by independent consultants) (Grant, 2001). The clash between scholars who view coaching as a distinct profession and those who approach it as a derivative of existing professional and institutional arrangements may be reflected in the experiences of the coaches themselves - hence a conflict may be emerging between coaches who see themselves as part of a distinct coaching profession, and those working within an HRD context (such as line managers trained as coaches, and others) who identify themselves with HRD – and see coaching as just another tool of the job. This possible tension has not been adequately explored in practice but may have far-reaching implications for the social and professional identity of coaches as well as for the future of their profession.
Individuals’ constructions of identities and their sense of selfSelf identity and self-catagorization
Identities are about who we are, who we are not and the features that differentiate us as individuals within groups, including organisations, social networks or professions. They are the meanings attached to the individual by the self and by others, meanings that may be based on personal, idiosyncratic characteristics such as attributes, traits and abilities (personal identity) or on a person’s social roles and identification with some human aggregate (social identity) (Ibarra and Barbulescu, 2010; Ashforth and Mael, 1989). Identities are multiple, mutable and socially constructed (Iberra and Barbulescu, 2010), helping to connect different experiences and to reduce fragmentation in feelings and thinking (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002). Identities also offer a person, guidelines for decision-making – certain routes seem reasonable while others are less so (Mitchell et al., 1986).
Self-identity comprises a comparatively conscious set of self-images, traits and social attributes – the self as reflexively understood by the person, assembled through the raw materials of language, symbols, values etc., derived from a mass of interactions with others, through early life experiences and unconscious processes (Giddens, 1991). A person with a relatively stable sense of self-identity has a feeling of biographical continuity. Hence, a person’s self-identity is contained in their ability to communicate this to others and ‘to keep a particular narrative going’ (Giddens, 1991: 54). To have a sense of who we are, we have to have a notion of how we got here and
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where we are going (Taylor, 1989). This can be both robust and fragile – fragile because the biography that the individual holds in the mind (‘I am a business coach’; ‘I am a life coach’; ‘I am a change agent’; ‘I am a healer’) is just one ‘story’ among the many reflexive stories that could be told about the unfolding self.
In routinized situations self-identity is relatively unchanging and stable. However, in conditions of late modernity identities are increasingly open, improvised and scripted rather than given or closed (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002), being fluid and complex (Parker, 2007) and needing to be constructed and secured (Alvesson, 2000). People are ‘continuously engaged in forming, repairing, maintaining, strengthening or revising the constructions that are productive of a precarious sense of coherence and distinctiveness’ (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002: 626). For example, in industrial society, identity choices about occupation, employer or neighbourhood often assumed an air of permanence. In contrast, in post-industrial conditions, there are fewer identity ‘givens’ and more identity changes over the course of working life (Gergen, 1991). In this kind of world, there is a need for self-invention and possible re-invention (Albert et al., 2000).
Social identity is constructed through an individual’s membership of a social group, together with some emotional and value significance of this group membership (Tajfel, 1981). It is part of a person’s sense of ‘who they are’ (Haslam, 2001) and refers to the group category that people belong to such as: company, occupation, gender, nationality, ethnicity, age (Ashforth and Mael, 1989) – or profession. For Ibarra et al. (2005) social identity emerges through network processes. The people around us are active players in the co-creation of who we are. Behaviour is socially structured because it is shaped by and oriented towards the emergent norms of the group (Turner, 1982), group identity prescribing the kinds of attitudes, emotions and behaviours that are appropriate in a given context (Hornsey, 2008). Our social identities, then, are created, deployed and changed through social interactions with others, that is, they are a form of ‘socially mediated cognition, phenomenologically experienced as a perception of a shared, public, objective world’ (Turner and Oakes, 1986: 240). It follows, therefore, that social identities change as people change roles, jobs or organizations (Becker and Carper, 1956; Ibarra, 1999), or professions. Indeed, to varying degrees, people derive part of their identity from the organisations or work groups they belong to (Hogg and Terry, 2000). Newcomers, however, are often unsure of their roles and nervous about their status. They must learn about a new organization’s (or professional association’s) policies, role expectations and norms (Ashforth, 1985) and learn to adjust to new situations (Beyer and Hannah, 2002) through the experience of the dynamic process of socialization (Saks and Ashforth, 1997).
A limitation of social identity theory is that it offers a relatively undeveloped analysis of the cognitive processes associated with social identity salience (Haslam, 2001), the degree to which processes are functionally pre-potent in determining self-perception (Turner and Oakes, 1986). For example, what is it that makes people define themselves as part of one group (such as HRD or coaching) rather than another? It was, in part, to address this that self-categorization theory was developed (Turner, 1982; Turner, Oakes, Riecher and Wetherall, 1986), a process of self-stereotyping through which the self becomes categorically interchangeable with other in-group members. This reflects a sense of depersonalized self-categorization, where an individual sees his or her perspectives, interests and motivation to be interchangeable with those of others who share the same social identity. Ellemers et al. (1999) propose
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three components that contribute to one’s social identity: a cognitive component (a cognitive awareness of one’s membership of a group or association – self-categorization; an evaluative component (a positive or negative value attached to this group membership; and an emotional component (a sense of emotional involvement with the group – affective commitment). These components are empirically distinct and differentially affected by the relative status and size of the group.
Individuals, then, cognitively assimilate themselves to an in-group prototype (the features that describe and prescribe attributes of the group). But these prototypes are not checklists of attributes, but ‘fuzzy sets that capture the context-dependent features of group membership’ (Hogg and Terry, 2000: 123). Hence, as Figure 1 shows, in the Personal Identity salient, the self is subjectively sensed in terms of personal identity rather than collective self. But the individual may move to a sense of social or organizational identity (SELF in Figure 1) seen in terms of group membership of a team, department, organization or profession. People cognitively represent their social groups in terms of prototypes, with category members seen as interchangeable exemplars of the group prototype (Hornsey, 2008). People are more likely to define themselves in terms of a particular social identity to the extent that they have worked within a context for a long time (cognitive accessibility) or they are proud of the organization or profession (normative fit) (Haslam et al., 2003). Many coaches, however, work independently, selling their services to an organisation from the ‘outside’. What implications does this independence have for their sense of identity (and depersonalisation) in relation to the organisations they work in? Does membership of a professional association help nurture cognitive accessibility?
Figure 1 Variation in self-categorization as a function of depersonalization (source: Haslam et al., 2003)
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Professional identity and personal scriptsThe concept of identity as narrative is particularly important for understanding identity dynamics during macro transitions between organizations, occupations or professions (Ibarra and Barbulescu, 2010). This is because new roles skills, behaviours and attitudes may produce fundamental changes in an individual’s self-definitions (Hall, 1986). In successful transitions, a narrative repertoire forms around new and enduring stories about the changes triggered by the transition, helping the narrator to internalize the new role identity. In contrast, incoherent or divergent repertoires impede or prolong the transition. Self-narratives act as a ‘transition bridge’ (Ashforth, 2001: x) across gaps that form between old and new roles, when people begin to explore new options and are trying to establish themselves. Stories help people to articulate their provisional selves and link the past and the future into a ‘harmonious, continuous sense of self’ (Ibarra and Barbulescu, 2010: 138). A coherent self-narrative depicts a career as a series of sequential, unfolding events within which the protagonist’s agency provides the key causal explanation. This includes accounting for any apparent discontinuity in the story. Self-narratives also show how a person joins in with a set of narratives that are unique to a particular organizational group he or she belongs to or wishes to join (Ibarra and Barbulescu, 2010).
Brown (2000) notes that one of the current weaknesses of social identity theory is its failure to acknowledge the enormous diversity of groups that can serve as the basis of peoples’ social identity. These could include, for example, personal relationships, vocations, political affiliations, stigmatised groups and ethnic and religious groups. While social identities are developed within a common cultural context, individuals may vary in the value or the functional satisfaction that identities provide them (Deaux, Reid, Mizrahi and Ethier, 1995). Hence, it is no longer legitimate to assume that: ‘a group is a group is a group’ (Brown, 2000: 761). Group membership, then, may serve a variety of identity functions, some of which are not currently included in social identity theory’s account of social identity (Brown, 2000). A study by Deaux, Reid, Mizrahi and Cotting (1999) found that important elements of group membership included: self-insight, intergroup comparisons, cohesion, collective self-esteem, interpersonal comparisons, social interaction opportunities and romantic relationships. Brown (2000) comments that only two of these, intergroup comparisons and collective self-esteem, are described by social identity theory. Our study will explore these elements in relation to coaching, and also be attuned to new and emerging elements. Finally, Brown (2000) comments that social identity theory assumes that people exercise a high degree of strategic, voluntary control when selecting comparative referents, and that as a result, research in the social identity theory tradition has focused exclusively on controlled processes and explicit measures of intergroup attitudes. What is needed is the development of theoretical and methodological tools that may help us to understand which social identity processes (if any) operate at an automatic (unconscious) level. Our use of a qualitative, narrative approach, sought to address this issue both in terms of seeking to identify automatic responses, but also in evaluating the legitimacy of storytelling within social identity theory research.
This study, then, has three purposes. Firstly it seeks to explore how the social, professional and self-identity of people in coaching, is created, established, maintained and evolved. As indicated, coaching is an expanding but complex occupation, in which the task itself, ‘coaching’ is not widely understood, and where
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there are overlapping functions with other interventions – training, mentoring, consulting and psychotherapy, to name but four. Secondly, it seeks to inform the scholarship on social, professional and self-identity, with particular reference to how this is created in new and emerging professions (like coaching) – particularly where identity is forged by people engaged in multiple (and sometimes divergent) professional activities. This has the potential to illuminate the issues for social identity formation in contexts where occupational parameters are fuzzy, imprecise and emergent. It also addresses the challenge laid down by Hogg and Terry (2000) for social identity research to become better integrated into theories of organizational behaviour – including those of the workgroup, organisation and profession (our emphasis), in line with the advice that ‘A valuable way to test the limits of theory is to pitch it into the real world’ (Abrams and Hogg, 2004: 103). Thirdly, it seeks to reach across the HRD divide between theory and practice (Gray et al., 2009). As Stewart (2007) comments, academic researchers pay too much attention to their own arguments, and not enough to the interests and needs of practitioners. Hence, it is hoped that the development of theory (in this case theories of self, social and professional-identity) can inform organizational practice (the attempts of coaches to achieve professional status and sustainability), an example of what Anderson et al. (2001) call ‘pragmatic science’.
Methodology
Research questionsThe study sought to address the following research questions:
RQ1: Is coaching a distinct occupation, or a task, performed within a portfolio of HR or other roles?
RQ2: To what extent do coaches identify with coaching as a profession? What variables (such as experience as a coach, membership of one or more coaching association, coaching accreditation, being an internal or external coach) determine this identification?
RQ3: How is a professional identity (or multiple identities) created and maintained amongst coaches? In making their career transition, what continuities and tensions do coaches experience between their old identities and their new emerging sense of self?
Research designIn addressing these questions, the study adopted a pragmatist mixed methods research design. Mixed methods are designs that include at least one quantitative and one qualitative method, where neither method is inherently linked to any particular inquiry paradigm (Greene et al., 1989). Pragmatist mixed methods designs choose to integrate the two methods within a single study, utilizing the strengths of each (Gray, 2014). The study comprised two phases:
Phase 1: A literature search was undertaken on social identity theory and on the instruments used in its measurement (see above discussion). After exploring seven potential scales, Mael and Ashforth’s (1992) six-item scale was adopted to measure identification with the coaching profession. In the same manner as the use of this scale by Bergami and Bagozzi (2000), the only amendment was the substitution of ‘coaching profession’ for the name of the ‘school/this school’ in each of the scale items. Internal consistency of this scale was good ( = .763). Following Bergami and Bagozzi (2000) we also adopted their visual direct measure of the degree of
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overlap between the respondent’s own and the coaching profession’s identity. This single question comprised eight pairs of circles from far apart (no overlap) through increasing degrees to complete overlap between the identities. Affective commitment was measured using Meyer and Allen’s (1980) eight-item short scale, ‘coaching profession’ again being substituted for an organisation’s name; internal consistency being good ( = .805). For coaching based self-esteem we again followed Begami and Bagazzi (2000) who, following analysis had adopted six items from Heatherton and Polivy’s (1991) 20 item self-esteem scale, amending them to reflect a single organisation. Five of these items measured positive self-enhancement, whereas the sixth measured self -consciousness. Keeping the wording of each of these items identical to Begami and Bagazzi (2000), we amended the associated scale question, replacing the organisation’s name with the phrase ‘working as a coach’. Internal consistency of this scale was good ( = .848). The instrument was also validated as appropriate for this research using two focus groups of coaches.
Phase 2: Collaboration was obtained from a number of national and international coaching associations (AC, EMCC, ICF, IoC and others) to distribute the questionnaire as an hyperlink in an email and elicit the support of their English speaking members in completing it online. Respondents, due to their established association with these associations can be considered a purposive extreme case sample of coaches, and as such likely to enable us learn most (Saunders, 2012). Although 911 returned the questionnaire, it was only completed fully by 756 (82.4%) of respondents. Of those respondents stating their country of residence, over two thirds were from the UK (61.6%) or Ireland (5.0%). Some 8.4% of respondents were from North America, the remainder residing predominantly in the rest of Europe. Approximately two thirds (65.6%) were female and over three quarters (76.7%) worked as an external independent coach. It is these returns that form the basis for our subsequent analysis. From survey respondents who indicated a willingness to be interviewed, 28 were selected to represent global coverage. These potential participants were contacted initially by email and subsequently interviewed by telephone at a mutually convenient time. In terms of gender, the interviewees were evenly divided between males and females. Ten were from the UK, three from the USA and two from Spain, with one respondent from each of the following countries: Australia, Canada, Chile, France, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Romania, South Africa and Switzerland. Interviews lasted a minimum of one hour.
Approaches to data analysis. Quantitative data were downloaded into SPSS and, after data cleaning, analysed statistically. For qualitative data analysis, thematic analysis was used. Thematic analysis is a method for identifying and analysing patterns (themes) within qualitative data (Braun and Clarke, 2006) and is a form of pattern recognition within the data (Fereday and Muir-Cochrane, 2006). A theme captures something important about the data in relation to the research question, and represents a level of patterned response or meaning within the data.
FindingsThe findings presented here represent provisional results since the quantitative survey is still ‘live’. However, given that 756 respondents have already completed the questionnaire, alongside the completion and analysis of 28 qualitative interviews, it is possible to offer preliminary insights.
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RQ1: Is coaching a distinct occupation, or a task, performed within a portfolio of HR or other roles?
Preliminary statistical analysis suggests that 65% of respondents consider that there is at least a moderate to complete overlap between the coaching profession and their sense of self. For the majority of respondents, however, coaching is only one aspect of their working lives, 56% working, on average, less than three days a week as a coach, suggesting a portfolio approach to employment. The number of days spent working as a coach each week is associated significantly with the level of overlap between their own identity and that of the coaching profession (2 = 4.63, df= 21, p<.000). Overall, the self-identify of those who work as a coach for three or more days a week overlap more with that of the coaching profession than those working fewer days.
Qualitative data analysis also suggests that coaching is most often associated with a portfolio of other occupations with consultancy and training clearly the most prominent. Although most preferred to call themselves a coach (depending on which client they were talking to), many admitted that coaching was only one element of their work. For Derek, a UK coach, his business is now 60 per cent facilitated leadership training and 40 per cent coaching. Sandy, in the UK, coaches once or twice a week, the other half of her portfolio being consultancy. Lily, in the USA, combines leadership development, team development and communications skills training with coaching. For Clare in Chile, the world sees her as a ‘senior consultant’, even though she sees herself as a coach. Jeff has been coaching for 30 years and does perhaps only five hours of paid coaching a week, the rest being pro bono – yet he identifies himself strongly as a coach. Steve began coaching six years ago and wants, eventually, to combine coaching with consultancy – but at the moment he is still chief executive of a housing association. Coaches, then, have portfolio working lives and exhibit multiple identities. Although most identify themselves as a coach, most combine this with a range of (often related) activities.
RQ2: To what extent do coaches identify with coaching as a profession? What variables (such as experience as a coach, membership of one or more coaching associations, coaching accreditation, being an internal or external coach) determine this identification?
Data from identification with coaching scale items (Table 1) indicate that respondents do identify strongly with the coaching profession, particularly with regard to the way they talk about the profession and with regard to what others think about the profession, both statements having over 80% agreement. Respondents’ association with the coaching profession as represented by Mael and Ashforth’s (1992) six item scale is significantly correlated with their affective commitment as represented by Meyer and Allen’s eight item scale (r=.508, p<.000). Respondents whose affective commitment is higher are significantly more likely to identify with the coaching profession. There is a significant difference in the number of days spent working as a coach each week and the nature of the work as a coach (F (3, 770)=27.014, p<.000). External independent coaches and internal coaches are likely to spend more time than unpaid coaches. Those working externally will spend the most time. Those who identify more strongly with coaching as a profession/occupation are more likely to have a coaching qualification (t=3.81, df=761, p<.000). Other variables such as age, gender, and whether the coach worked as an internal or external coach, are not
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significant. There is a significant but very weak correlation between number of years working as a coach and identification with coaching (r =.136, p<.000).
Table 1: Respondents’ identification with the coaching profession
Strongly agree
Agree
Neither agree nor
disagree
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Total
When someone criticises the coaching profession, it feels like a personal insult
7.0% 31.7% 26.7% 27.1% 7.6% 817
I am very interested in what others think about the coaching profession
27.6% 58.1% 11.1% 3.1% 0.1% 818
When I talk about the coaching profession, I usually say "we"; rather than "they"
35.0% 45.5% 13.6% 5.0% 0.9% 817
The coaching profession's successes are my successes
18.2% 39.8% 30.8% 9.8% 1.5% 815
When someone praises the coaching profession, it feels like a personal compliment
11.9% 40.2% 32.5% 14.5% 1.0% 816
If a story in the media criticised the coaching profession I would feel embarrassed
7.6% 30.7% 26.7% 30.1% 4.9% 815
Table 2: Respondents affective commitment to the coaching profession
Strongly disagree
<= <= <=> => => Strongly agree
I would be very happy to spend the rest of my career in the coaching profession
1.0% 1.4% 2.9% 5.9% 13.2% 30.8% 44.8%
I enjoy discussing the coaching profession with people outside it
0.3% 1.0% 2.2% 8.3% 18.4% 35.4% 34.5%
I really feel as if the coaching profession's problems are my own
5.8% 7.2% 16.5% 22.7% 23.0% 19.2% 5.5%
I think I could easily become as attached to another profession as I am to coaching
8.4% 20.8% 21.7% 19.5% 15.0% 11.4% 3.3%
I do not feel like 'part of the family' in the coaching profession
10.9% 16.8% 19.9% 18.4% 18.4% 11.4% 4.2%
I do not feel 'emotionally attached' to the coaching profession
12.5% 23.4% 24.9% 11.8% 15.1% 9.5% 2.8%
The coaching profession has a great deal of personal meaning for me
1.8% 4.3% 7.1% 13.3% 23.1% 30.3% 20.2%
I do not feel a strong sense of belonging to the coaching profession
15.4% 23.8% 22.5% 13.2% 15.1% 6.9% 3.2%
There is a significant difference in respondents’ self-esteem and the nature of their work as a coach (F (3, 768)=12.645, p<.000). Those working externally as
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independent coaches have significantly higher levels of self-esteem. Although the difference is significant (t = 2.021, df=764, p= .044), those possessing a coaching qualification have only a slightly higher level of self-esteem than those who do not, the effect size (d = .1465) meaning the real world effect is small.
Table 3: Respondents’ self esteem
Not at all
A little bit
Moderately
Quite a bit
Very m
uch
Total
I feel confident about my abilities
0.5% 1.5% 9.2% 45.8% 43.0% 784
I feel that others respect and admire me
1.7% 2.6% 17.8% 51.6% 26.4% 783
I feel as smart as others2.3% 3.8% 17.1% 47.2% 29.5% 782
I feel good about myself0.6% 1.3% 10.0% 48.1% 39.9% 781
I feel confident that I understand things
0.6% 1.3% 6.8% 51.1% 40.2% 784
I feel aware of or am conscious of myself
0.9% 4.6% 7.4% 40.7% 46.4% 782
Qualitative data analysis also reveals a strong identification with coaching, whether respondents coach full-time or not. There is a strong sense that coaches want to do ‘good in the world’. ‘For me, the highlights have always been in terms of helping others’ (Sandy). As a coach ‘you’re talking to the soul of the people’ (Clare) and ‘contributing something good to the globe’ (Maria). Yet this contribution is not one-way. Coaches also talk about the process of coaching aiding their own self-awareness and personal change. Coaching has instilled in Greta ‘self-confidence, self-trust, self-worth, because there were problems for me in the past’. It gets you to apply rules to yourself, encouraging you to go on a ‘self-help journey’ (Collette) and has given Christian a ‘new source of life’ a sense of affirmation. ‘It’s just transforming’ (Jenny).
RQ3: How is a professional identity (or multiple identities) created and maintained amongst coaches? In making their career transition, what continuities and tensions do coaches experience between their old identities and their new emerging sense of self?
Analysis suggests that, for external coaches at least, the journey into coaching often comes from disillusionment with the corporate world and ‘hinge moments’ stemming from an occupational or personal crisis. Some had experienced redundancy, often more than once. ‘The turning point was leaving the second large corporate and saying, ‘You know what, I don’t think I’ll do this again’’ (Nigel). For others it was the stress of long working hours. Derek realised after quitting that he had been ‘walking up somebody else’s ladder of success. My ladder was going to be pointed on a different wall’. Sometimes redundancy money was used to fund training as a coach.
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Personal trauma and crisis figures in many narratives. Max had minor surgery but ended up in a coma for three weeks followed by six months of rehabilitation. Returning to work, after two weeks he realised that the stress was probably going to kill him so he quit his law firm and sat in on a coaching class, the first step towards his involvement in coaching. Naomi suffered a horse riding accident that led to two operations and 15 months of physiotherapy, three times a week. This was a turning point for her to negotiate an exit package from the bank she worked for which helped pay for her Master’s degree in coaching. The most poignant story however, is that of Nanette for whom the still birth of her second child led to an intense journey of self-finding; ‘I lost my child so my identity widened up much more than it would in a context when it would have been much more stable and secure’. Trauma led to ‘freedom to invent myself’.
Figure 2 Hinge points in the journey towards multiple identities
In line with the quantitative analysis, qualitative findings affirm for many the importance of training in becoming a coach. After redundancy, Clare trained for a year as a coach ‘and it changed my life’. For Sandy formal accreditation was a turning point gaining her insights into the process, while for Clare, training as a coach made her hate her job and the power she had over others: ‘I realised that I had changed that I wasn’t set for that anymore’. For Collette too, the experience of being coached was a ‘huge, huge huge turning point’, like Naomi who went on a coaching programme – ‘It was just the most amazing three days ever. We all cried at the end. We didn’t want it to stop’. For some, the journey into coaching included spiritual elements of an inner journey – ‘mind and spirit’ (Collette) and a spiritual faith that ‘everything is there for a purpose and an opportunity’ (Nigel).
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While respondents coach (to a greater or lesser extent), for some this new identity contains seeds of previous roles, while for others the transition is one of disjuncture. ‘I open the door of the pigeonhole … and bits of me are still there’ (Andy) because parts of his former career (as an actor) are still part of what he knows ‘and how I am’. Skills generated in previous roles can help. ‘You coach all your life if you’re a good leader, good manager’ (Nigel). Delivering induction training in a retail firm makes Sandy believe that she has probably been coaching all of her career. For some, the transition is eased by returning to coach in their former organization or sector. Max spent 28 years as a lawyer so becoming a coach ‘there was a real transition there’. But as a lawyer he became involved in mediation work; as a coach he carved out a niche in conflict management coaching, hence linking legal and coaching work. For others, coaching develops as a role within their organisation. Hence, Christian worked within human resources to help prepare managers for their transition (redundancy), initially as a financial controller but step-by-step ‘slipped out of financial controlling and started to move into coaching’.
For others, however, the transition to coach is one of disjuncture that does not always prove easy. Dimitrios spent years working as an electrical engineer and grew weary of his occupation so spent a year training as a coach. In his new business he has six clients but only one of them pays. His friends discouraged this transition arguing that coaching is ‘for stupid people’; he became reluctant to launch a website since this might lead to ‘exposing’ him. Nanette, a senior lawyer, moved countries with her husband but couldn’t practice since the law is nationally defined. A successful and highly respected lawyer (and the loss of her second child, discussed above), made this a demanding transition: ‘I lost my career. I lost my child’.
DiscussionWe find persuasive support for Alvesson and Willmitt’s (2002) contention that in conditions of late modernity, identities are relatively open, improvised and precarious constructions. As we show, coaching, even amongst those who profess a strong commitment to the role, is often merely one task amongst a portfolio of several others, suggesting that identity is both multiple and mutable (Ibarra and Barbulescu, 2010). We offer compelling evidence for the shifting nature of identity over the course of working life (Gergen, 1991), often through disillusionment with the corporate world, through redundancy or through personal trauma or misfortune. The ability to ‘keep a particular narrative going’ (Giddens, 1991:54) is socially constructed through network processes, helping the co-creation of who we are. Hence, Dimitrios ponders whether to launch his coaching website because his friends see coaching as being ‘for stupid people’. As a newcomer, he is worried about his role and his status. But for others, the experience of being coached becomes a transformational process, inspiring them to train as a coach and to join one of the coaching associations.
We noted Haslam’s (2001) criticism that a limitation of social identity theory is that it offers a relatively undeveloped analysis of the cognitive processes associated with social identity salience. Self-categorization theory (Turner, 1982; Turner et al., 1986) developed depersonalized self-categorization partly to address this, two elements being a cognitive component and an affective component. Our study measured the cognitive component making use of a scale, integrated from those developed by Mael and Ashforth (1992) and Bergami and Bagozzi (2000) (one of the contributions of our study). We found a moderate to complete overlap between the coaching profession and the sense of self for 65% of respondents, not, perhaps, a particularly large figure,
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given that most of the respondents were members of professional associations. We also noted that over 50% of respondents work for less than three days a week as a coach, again suggesting an engagement with a portfolio of activities. Our study did not find support for Haslam’s (2003) assertion that cognitive accessibility is associated with length of time working in a context. This may be partly explained by the fragmented nature of coaching, with its multiple and often competing professional associations.
This identification with coaching, yet engaging in a portfolio of non-coaching employment, lends some support to the notion that these coaches are experimenting with provisional selves as coaches (Ibarra and Barbulescu, 2010). Within many of the narratives there is a clear sense of protagonist’s’ agency, linking the past, the present and the future into a continuous sense of self. Andy comments how elements of his acting past are still with him. Nigel brings his experience of coaching as a manager into his current coaching role. But the narratives related by our informants illustrate both stable and unstable feelings of biographical continuity. Dimitrios, a former engineer, feels exposed to the ridicule of his friends, trying to keep his new, coaching profile hidden from them. Nanette experiences both personal, family loss, but also the loss of a former, successful career as a lawyer.
One of the weaknesses of the current study is the preponderance of external, independent coaches compared with internal coaches. It is for this reason that the survey is still ‘live’ and steps are being taken to resolve this feature of the sample.
Implications for practiceThese results have important implications for HRD. Results of the study suggest that a significant proportion of coaches who are members of coaching associations identify with coaching as a profession and may, therefore, have cognitive and affective affiliations that are external to the organisations within which they coach. These professional affiliations, however, may also work to the benefit of HRD, since, as we found, identity with coaching is associated with the possession of a coaching qualification an important element of continuing professional development. Hence, identification with coaching as a profession may produce a much sharper tool in the HRD toolbox!
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