Executive coaching – towards a dynamic alliance of psychotherapy and transformative learning processes

Coaching is emerging as a major professional development and performance enhancement process for senior managers and executives. There are, however, few professional development programmes aimed specifically at coaches themselves, and no internationally recognised qualification or professional standard. Much of the literature on coaching has been written by practitioners or those with an interest in human psychology, and particularly psychotherapeutic approaches to support. Yet some psychotherapeutic processes sometimes assume quite longerterm relationships between the coach and the coachee – the ‘therapeutic alliance’. Many businesses and managers themselves, however, usually seek focussed solutions to immediate problems. While recognising that there may be cases when longer-term relationships are entirely appropriate, this article offers adult learning theory, and specifically transformative learning, as an alternative or parallel theoretical model capable of underpinning the coaching processes. Transformative learning is concerned with the processes of critical reflection, the development of critical awareness of personal and organisational assumptions and the fostering of action. All coaches, however, need to be aware that the coaching process may open up deep-seated anxieties and problems, some of which are more appropriately addressed by a psychotherapeutic approach. Hence, a dynamic network model of coaching is proposed, in which psychotherapists and nontherapists collaborate to facilitate their mutual professional coaching development, learning and support.