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Coaching: An International Journal of

Theory, Research and Practice
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Coaching – psychological concepts and

coaching cultures
a b
Alanna O'Broin & Almuth McDowall
a
Productive Living Limited, 33 Isis House, Bridge Wharf, Chertsey,
Surrey KT16 8LB, UK
b
School of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH,
UK
Published online: 12 Sep 2014.

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To cite this article: Alanna O'Broin & Almuth McDowall (2014) Coaching – psychological concepts
and coaching cultures, Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 7:2,
87-89, DOI: 10.1080/17521882.2014.954324

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 Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 2014
Vol. 7, No. 2, 87–89, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17521882.2014.954324

EDITORIAL
Coaching – psychological concepts and coaching cultures

Welcome to Volume 7, and our second issue in 2014 of Coaching: An International

Journal of Theory, Research and Practice.
Downloaded by [Uniwersytet Warszawski] at 05:36 31 January 2015

We have two themes underpinning the contributions in this issue. Our opening theme
is the role of coaching and coaching cultures in organisations. We have three
contributions which speak to the topic of differing perspectives on coaching in
organisations across three continents. Drawing from literature on industry and education
perspectives, Helen Gormley and Christian van Nieuwerburgh review coaching cultures
in organisations. They suggest that coaching cultures can help to develop leadership
quality, increase resources and encourage innovation, also highlighting implications of a
lack of definition of the term ‘coaching’ on differing usage of the term ‘coaching culture,’
and the need for organisations to consider and reflect on their purpose in introducing a
coaching culture.
Suzette Skinner’s article continues the theme of coaching cultures and individual
difference through addressing the relatively underexplored research area of senior
women’s professional identity in organisations. Using semi-structured interviews with
11 senior female Australian executives, her grounded theory research findings suggested
the need for a tailored recognition within the backdrop of their specific organisational
context, of leader identity formation of each individual coachee, arguing in effect the
need for a gender perspective in coaching women in senior roles.
Stephen Walston’s survey of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) provides another view
on the perception of coaching in organisations, this time on the health setting of US
hospitals. His findings demonstrated that coaching was perceived as more valuable for
staff improvement than for succession planning in this setting. The perceived value of
coaching appeared to be influenced by both individual factors (gender and number of
subordinates) and organisational factors (system affiliation and ownership). Walston
suggests the need for a greater understanding of factors influencing the utilisation of
coaching to encourage integration of coaching in leadership development.
Practitioner relevance and an explicit link to coaching practice is a major tenet of the
aims and scope for this journal, and with this in mind, this issue includes an interview
with our new Practice Editor, Doug Mackie. With an eye to academic rigour, debate and
discussion on the question of evidence in coaching, Doug informs us about his aspirations
for his new role and potential deliverables for readers and practitioners, his views on
coaching internationally and his own research on the effects of strength-based leadership
coaching on transformation leadership.
Secondly, there is an underlying theme of using sometimes controversial psycholo-
gical concepts in coaching. Emotional Intelligence (EI), for instance, is a psychological
© 2014 Taylor & Francis
 88 Editorial

concept used in coaching with firm supporters (Goleman, 2006) and equally firm
detractors. Daus and Ashkanasy (2003) outline their debate with Locke and Landy from a
Society of Industrial and Organisational Psychology (SIOP) meeting, where the concept
was by all accounts hotly contested in terms of its construct validity, incremental validity
and fitness for purpose. It is the latter which is addressed in this issue by asking – “is
there anything to be gained from working with an EI approach in coaching?” In an
invited contribution from Nicky Schlatter and Almuth McDowall, an EI model is used for
a step-wise coaching approach in the mining industry, an unusual context for work-based
coaching. The submission reports on the process rather than actual outcomes (the authors
hope to report on these in good time), but the account so far suggests that simply raising
the topic of how managers are dealing with their own and others emotions, and offering
measurements focused on these, was a valuable addition to the coaching process using a
skill-based model of EI (Bar-On, 1997). Incidentally, Adrian Banks and Anna Barlow
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drew on the same skill-based model to undertake and evaluate an EI-based coaching
intervention for a sports team. Their randomised controlled study (RCS) investigated the
short-term impact of solution-focused coaching using EI on factors related to performance
in athletes, concluding its effectiveness when a direct link is identified between specific
scales on the EQ-i, and anxiety and self-efficacy.
Strengths-based approaches are another psychological concept prevalent in coaching.
Almuth McDowall and Lucy Butterworth’s controlled study found that group strengths-
based coaching improved short-term self-efficacy, strengthens knowledge and confidence
in goal attainment and emphasised the possible role of the coaching in increasing
coachee’s ability to align the goal with their individual strengths, in keeping with the goal
self-concordance model.
We hope you enjoy reading this issue.

Alanna O’Broin
Productive Living Limited, 33 Isis House, Bridge Wharf,
Chertsey, Surrey KT16 8LB, UK

Almuth McDowall
School of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, UK

Notes on contributors
Dr Alanna O’Broin is a practising coaching psychologist. She has been co-
editor for Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and
Practice since January 2013. Her main research and practice interests are the
coaching relationship and boundaries with other helping relationships, as
well as cognitive behavioural approaches to coaching. Following a first
career in the UK financial sector as an Investment Analyst and Fund
Manager, she retrained as a psychologist at Royal Holloway University of
London, and City University London, and is a Chartered Psychologist and
Registered Psychologist. Alanna’s doctorate research was on exploring
aspects contributing to the quality of the coaching relationship, and how the
coach uses themselves, specifically in adapting to their individual coachee. She has published
several co-authored articles and book chapters in the academic and practitioner press on this and
other coaching topics. She combines her executive coaching work as an independent practitioner
with writing, presenting and lecturing and has an interest in undertaking further research on the
coaching relationship.
 Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice 89

Dr Almuth McDowall has been co-editor for Coaching: An International

Journal of Theory, Research and Practice since 2010. Almuth’s main
research and practice interests are in the areas of work-life balance and
coaching, as well as psychometric development and evaluation. After a
successful career in health and fitness, as a personal instructor working
primarily with performing artists, Almuth retrained in psychology and
completed her Ph.D. at City University. There she started out her
professional career as a senior consultant with the Psychometrics Centre,
undertaking and overseeing a range of consultancy-related projects. Almuth
now combines her academic post at the University of Surrey, where she is Course Director for the
M.Sc. in Occupational and Organizational Psychology, with freelance work as an independent
practitioner. She wishes we could just stop speaking about the science–practitioner gap. If there is
one, it is only due to our perceptions, we are all interested in the same things. Almuth is keen to
advance the evidence base in coaching and has served on the editorial board for the Coaching
Psychology Conference for the past couple of years. Almuth has published in the academic and in
Downloaded by [Uniwersytet Warszawski] at 05:36 31 January 2015

the practitioner press and is a regular speaker at national and international conferences. She works
in the field of work–life balance as a coach and adviser to organisations and has a keen interest in
undertaking research with the Police and other emergency services.

References
Bar-On, R. (1997). The Emotional Intelligence Inventory (EQ-I): Technical manual. Toronto: Multi-
Health Systems.
Daus, C. S., & Ashkanasy, N. M. (2003). Will the real emotional intelligence please stand up? On
deconstructing the emotional intelligence “debate”. The Industrial–Organizational Psychologist,
41(2), 69–72.
Goleman, D. (2006). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. New York, NY:
Random House LLC.