TY  - JOUR
TI  - How coaching helps leadership resilience: The leadership perspective
AU  - Lawton-Smith, C.
AB  - Objectives: Resilience has grown as a topic of interest to coaches and increases in resilience as a result of specific coaching programmes are often reported (Grant, Curtayne & Burton, 2009). However, the perspective of the coached leaders has remained largely unexplored. This study seeks to gain the leadership perspective on two key areas. Firstly to assess if existing coaching might already be affecting resilience, despite that not being a contracted objective. Secondly, to identify what aspects of coaching might be most influential in leadership resilience. Design: The study was positioned in the pragmatic paradigm using a grounded theory approach (Charmaz, 2006). Interview data was gathered from eight senior managers who had previously had coaching. Analysis was based on the grounded theory coding approach using NVivo software. Methods: Eight leaders volunteered to be interviewed on the topic of resilience and had to have completed a programme of coaching at least one year prior to data collection. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews asked about the coaching that they had received and if they felt it had affected their resilience. Results: The results indicated that leaders did perceive coaching to have affected their resilience, even if this was not a defined objective for the coaching. In addition leaders reported that coaching helped in five ways. It helped them reclaim their self-belief, it contributed to their learning, it helped them see the wider perspective, it provided a supportive relationship and gave them a thinking space. Conclusion: Leaders often came to coaching as the result of facing a challenge and experienced significant experiential learning in relation to their resilience as a by product of coaching. While the development of certain cognitive strategies proved helpful, participants expressed the importance of the supportive coaching relationship during times of challenge where resilience was required. This questions how far resilience can be enhanced as a proactive preventative approach through training. Recommendations are made to support coaches when dealing with leaders in a resilience context. 
IS  - 1
JO  - International Coaching Psychology Review
PY  - 2015
KW  - leadership coaching
KW  - resilience
KW  - confidence.
UR  - shop.bps.org.uk/publications/publication-by-series/international-coaching-psychology-review/international-coaching-psychology-review-vol-10-no-1-march-2015.html
VL  - 10
LA  - English
ER  -