The skilled coachee: An alternative discourse on coach

This thesis examines the role that coachees play in coaching conversations and relationships. It develops theoretical insights into the concept of a skilled coachee, providing an alternative discourse to that which is dominant in the coaching literature. Despite the emphasis on coachee benefits as an output of coaching, the prevailing discourse of coaching privileges the skills of the coach in coaching relationships and downplays the agency of coachees and the role this plays in coaching processes. Using a hybrid research methodology, which draws on central tenets of action research and grounded theory, seven coaching relationships are examined using a mixture of observation, paired and individual interviews. The subsequent analysis suggests a heuristic of coachee skills and behaviours deployed in coaching conversations. These sets of skills and behaviours include: enabling mechanisms which enhance and facilitate the coaching conversation and defensive mechanisms which coachees - often unconsciously - can adopt to protect themselves from embarrassment or threat. These coachee skills work in complement with coach skills, as articulated in the coaching literature. This study thus contributes an alternative discourse of coaching within which coachees are more agentic in the process, than has previously been acknowledged. This alternative discourse has three elements to it: (1) coaching is a skilled collaborative partnership where both parties utilise process skills; (2) all behaviours, whether enabling or defensive, are functional for the participants in maintaining a developmental relationship; (3) responsibility for the coaching process can be extended to encompass both coaches and coachees. These conclusions hold implications for a range of stakeholders, including coaches, coachees, scheme designers, academics, professional bodies, supervisors and therapists.