William Pennington

Executive Coaching World: a Global Perspective William Pennington

EXECUTIVE COACHING WORLD: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Explores the definition of executive coaching and the linguistic behaviours of executive coaches in the English language and answers two important and fundamental questions: What is a definition of executive coaching that can be accepted by most executive coaches? What is the relevance and use of different linguistic behaviours by an Executive Coach? A new profession has emerged over the last 20 years called executive coaching, while massive changes in the way leaders of organisations are expected to lead. Executive coaching has seen rapid growth with an estimated 29,000 executive coaches globally in an industry worth over $2bn. Yet executive coaching does not even have a universally accepted definition of what it is, let alone universally accepted standards and as a result, anyone may claim to be an executive coach and deliver any kind of service. There is almost no empirical research of any quality and academics agree that defining and delineating the field is the most urgent task facing the industry as it moves towards professional status. A definition will answer the fundamental questions "What is it?" and "Who gets it?". However it does not answer "What does an executive coach do?". The coaching conversation is at the heart of good executive coaching and therefore the effective use of linguistic behaviours is the key skill that an executive coach must possess. Utilising the latest thinking in social research methods and a pragmatic approach, a concurrent mixed method strategy was used and an on-line survey instrument selected to collect primary data. A frame of 12,500 coaches was identified that included a random set of the population. This frame was invited to take part and 1,190 qualified English speaking executive coaches were selected as the research sample that equates to a margin of error of less than 3% at 95% level of certainty. Analysis has shown that this is the largest Executive Coaching Survey conducted so far. In total the executive coaches who took part in the survey have been practicing executive coaching for over 8,000 years! Executive Coaching World: A Global Perspective will be a valuable asset to practitioners, academics, teachers and trainers alike.