Less is More: The Executive Coach’s Experience of Working on the Telephone

Abstract

This study adopts an interpretative phenomenological analysis of one-to-one interviews with six practicing executive coaches, who were asked to describe their experience of using the telephone for contracted coaching sessions. Findings suggest that the modality can offer a powerful, highly flexible and creative tool. They also indicate that the coach’s satisfaction with the medium is complex and dynamic, and may bear a relationship to the practitioner’s awareness of, and proficiency in working with the differing benefits and challenges of the aural space. Potential implications therefore emerge for the coaching profession as a whole and providers of education and development specifically.

Keywords

• telephone coaching
• executive
• leadership
• virtual coaching
• distance coaching