Exploring the coachee’s expectations and experiences of the coaching relationship within a state-owned utility
Abstract
Globally and in South Africa leaders are required to lead in economically unstable
environments. Organisations are proactively responding to leadership challenges through the
use of coaching as leadership development instrument. In context of the state-owned utility in
South Africa, coaching is central to its leadership strategy to build leadership capacity and
empower leaders. Coaching is mainly concerned with the enhancement of skills, productivity
and attainment of developmental goals of leaders through a relationship between the coach
and coachee that is characterised by trust, commitment and collaboration.
The coaching relationship has been identified as an important driver of the coaching process.
Researchers have expressed a need to learn more about the coaching relationship. It has been
found that current research entails predominantly outcome, effectiveness and impact studies
of the coaching relationship. There is limited research available on exploring the coachee’s
perceptive experiences of the coaching relationship. Gathering information from coachees on
their experiences of the coaching relationship will greatly improve the understanding of the
effect their expectations from the leadership coaching and outcomes reached during the
leadership coaching process might have.
Thus, the study endeavoured to explore the expectations and experiences of coachees of the
coaching relationship. An explorative qualitative study was conducted using a social
constructivist grounded theory methodology. Six semi-structured interviews were conducted
with senior managers in the state-owned utility who were selected through purposive and
theoretical sampling. Cases were sampled to a point of data saturation. Grounded theory
guided both data collection and analysis through the application of open coding, axial coding
and selective coding.
The findings of the study supported the importance of the coaching relationship. The study
revealed that participants enter the coaching relationship with no clear expectation of the
coaching relationship. However, the results indicated that six theoretical categories depict the
experiences of the coaching relationship. The coaching relational experiences have been
identified as a growth-focused relationship, where the coach, through the informal application
of a coaching approach, establishes a “friendly” relationship that enables the coachee to
grow. The relationship develops over time and is strengthened by the establishment of a
quality working alliance built on trust, commitment, collaboration, integrity and acceptance
that extends beyond the formal coaching process. It was found that there are interdependent
relationships between the theoretical categories, ultimately contributing to the experience of
the coaching relationship as a growth-enabling relationship. Additionally, the coachees
evaluate the quality of the relationship against the ability to facilitate experiences of growth
and attainment of coaching objectives.