Exploring the role of self-awareness in coach development: A grounded theory study

Workplace coaching is a rapidly growing industry, and while there has been some research carried out to explore the effectiveness of coaching and to evaluate coaching outcomes, there has been very little research to underpin coach development and how coaches best develop coaching competence for workplace coaching. Self-awareness is perceived by many, including the professional coaching bodies, to be a core-competency for practising coaches. However, there is a lack of research evidence to underpin this perception and therefore this study, using an inductive grounded theory approach, explores the linkages between self-awareness and coach development. It finishes by presenting a conceptual framework to identify the linkages between self-awareness and coach development. The paper aims to make a theoretical contribution to the literature supporting workplace coaching and in particular coach development, by developing theoretical principles to underpin those providing coach development. The findings indicate that self-awareness is an important competency for coaches to develop as it provides the backbone to developing deep and meaningful connections both for the coach in terms of self-acceptance and confidence, and for the client in terms of the depth of the relationship, thereby creating an environment in which challenging work can be carried out.