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Working alliance and client design as discursive achievements in first sessions of executive coaching

  • Eva-Maria Graf and Sabine Jautz
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Relationships in Organized Helping
This chapter is in the book Relationships in Organized Helping

Abstract

While outcome research has convincingly proven that the working alliance is a key success factor in coaching, qualitative process-oriented insights are so far missing. We strive to fill this gap by shifting the focus from ‘the working alliance is crucial’ to ‘how is the working alliance discursively accomplished in authentic coaching interactions?’. The guiding assumption is that the coaching alliance emerges locally as a joint product of coach and clients’ negotiation process. We analyze the first sessions of two different coach-client dyads from the executive coaching protocol Emotional Intelligentes Coaching within an integrative discourse analytic framework. Our analyses demonstrate that the coach displays a specific ‘client design’ in the local discursive management of the working alliance.

Abstract

While outcome research has convincingly proven that the working alliance is a key success factor in coaching, qualitative process-oriented insights are so far missing. We strive to fill this gap by shifting the focus from ‘the working alliance is crucial’ to ‘how is the working alliance discursively accomplished in authentic coaching interactions?’. The guiding assumption is that the coaching alliance emerges locally as a joint product of coach and clients’ negotiation process. We analyze the first sessions of two different coach-client dyads from the executive coaching protocol Emotional Intelligentes Coaching within an integrative discourse analytic framework. Our analyses demonstrate that the coach displays a specific ‘client design’ in the local discursive management of the working alliance.

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