Coaching in Visegrad Four Countries: A Comparison to other European countries

Abstract

The Visegrad Four countries (the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary) share common traits in economics (Capik/Drahokoupil 2011), common history (Fawn 2013) and some political and social challenges (Förster/György Tòth 1997). In this article, we seek to determine common trends in the relatively narrow field of (executive) coaching. In the introduction, we explain the psychological background rooted in different learning theories (e.g., Kolb model, ELT) and psychotherapeutic approaches related to coaching such as humanistic psychology or solution-focused approach. The study itself formed part of a European-wide research project, where almost 3000 respondents from 51 European countries answered a questionnaire regarding professional coaching and mentoring. Answers from 419 Visegrad coaches and 1745 coaches from other European countries were compared to determine the trends and traits of the Visegrad Group-based coaching. Key insights from the study included significant differences in the use of methods of reflection such as reading coaching research, attending peer networks, using a mentor or attending webinars. There were also significant differences in the areas in which coaches pursue. Visegrad Four coaches coach significantly more in the area of life and well-being coaching and education coaching and less in the area of performance coaching. We also explored the coaching approaches and found that cognitive-behavioral coaching, NLP, transactional analysis and gestalt coaching are significantly more popular in the European sample while a solution-focused approach is used more in the Visegrad Four countries sample.