How executive coaches actually coach: Leveraging a relational lens

Abstract

Despite the widespread acceptance of executive coaching as a relational phenomenon, how these relationships play out in practice tends to be overlooked and under-researched. In this conceptual paper, we argue that the “caring, yet professionally distant” clinical approach to executive coaching is unrealistic. Challenging this approach, we propose a relational communication perspective on coach-client friendship development, which we situate within the larger relational triad of coaches, leader-clients, and organizational sponsors/decision-makers/superiors. Adopting micro and macro perspectives, we detail the forces that spark and sustain these friendships, including coaches' relational communication, the sincerity and instrumentality of coaches' relationship motives, and coaching's occupational characteristics. We consider the web of multiple relationships within which executive coaching occurs. Along the way, we discuss challenges to the practice of executive coaching as it relates to personal workplace relationships, and we discuss the ethical implications of these relationships. We conclude with provocative questions to guide future research and practice in both executive coaching and personal workplace relationship arenas.