Revisiting the Relationship Between Coaching and Learning: The Problems and Possibilities

Abstract

There is considerable interest in how coaching contributes to the education and development of managers, especially when it is claimed that learning is at the heart of coaching. However, with limited explicit consideration of theories of learning in the coaching literature, there is the temptation to fall back on habitual practice or to cherry-pick as coaching tools and techniques proliferate. There is a danger that both academics and practitioners will overlook the implicit worldviews underpinning different theories of learning that have contrasting implications for the ontological “reality” of the coaching issue being considered, the epistemological focus of the coaching inquiry and role of the coach, as well as the axiological purpose or fundamental value of coaching. In this essay, I expose four learning theories to scrutiny as a call to researchers and coaches to consider more explicitly the possibilities and problems of learning theories for coaching. I also call for greater engagement with a more extensive repertoire of learning theories, including more reflexive social and critical perspectives, to help develop additional innovative coaching practice. This appeal aims to enhance the rigor of the coaching discipline as well as inform debates about other strategies purporting to enhance management education and development.

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