Coaching with the heart in mind : a grounded theory exploration of the influence of coaching on leaders’ emotions and organisational relationships

Organisational relationships are among the most common reasons for leaders to seek coaching, as they are a frequent cause of intense emotions linked to stress, wellbeing, and performance. Yet there is very little research that explores the emotional effects of coaching in this context. This research aimed to explore the influence that coaching has on leaders in relation to the emotions they experience in their everyday organisational relationships. The research was approached from a social constructionism perspective, utilising constructivist grounded theory (CGT) methodology. One-to-one semi-structured interviews with 12 leaders from a wide range of organisations and industries, as well as 10 coaches (n=22), provided insights into 31 different coaching experiences. To foster a neurodiversity-friendly and creative analysis, adaptions were made to the methodology, yielding new, rich and contextualised theoretical concepts. The findings that emerged show the influence coaching has on leaders’ emotions varies according to the emotional and systemic attunement of the coach, the conditions the coach creates and the leader's inclination toward emotional engagement. The conditions created foster varying levels of emotional engagement: emotionally engaged, emotionally curious, emotionally misaligned, and emotionally avoidant. When leaders and coaches attain emotional engagement and/or explore emotions curiously, this cultivates leaders’ authenticity, emotional regulation and agency, leading to transformational changes in their relationships. However, instances of emotional misalignment were found to disengage leaders from the coaching relationship. Conversely, limited influence was observed where both the coach and the leader refrained from emotional engagement. The findings also indicate the importance of an emotional contract, a concept not previously uncovered or explored empirically in coaching research. Furthermore, the research findings highlight the significance of the leader’s emotional ecosystem when coaching in this context. This empirical study synthesises the findings into a new emotional engagement theoretical framework. The framework explains how emotional engagement is attained and how it cultivates leaders’ authenticity, emotional regulation and agency which transforms organisational relationships. The emotional engagement theoretical framework is a theoretical and practical contribution to both coaching and leadership education and development.

Grantor dc:publisher

Oxford Brookes University

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Roberts, Janine

Contributors dc:contributor

• Iordanou, Ioanna
• Gannon, Judie

Statement dc:rights

• All rights reserved

Language dc:language

en

DOI dc:identifier

https://doi.org/10.24384/m974-q682

OAI identifier oai:identifier

tle:ac190a53-a858-4285-abda-a0e6a9dc50c1:d6bd9758-527a-46cd-bfe2-c433766e8fca:1