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Workplace coaching is a rapidly growing industry, and while there has been some research carried out to explore the effectiveness of coaching and to evaluate coaching outcomes, there has been very little research to underpin coach development and how coaches best develop coaching competence for workplace coaching. Self-awareness is perceived by many, including the professional coaching bodies, to be a core-competency for practising coaches. However, there is a lack of research evidence to underpin this perception and therefore this study, using an inductive grounded theory approach, explores the linkages between self-awareness and coach development. It finishes by presenting a conceptual framework to identify the linkages between self-awareness and coach development. The paper aims to make a theoretical contribution to the literature supporting workplace coaching and in particular coach development, by developing theoretical principles to underpin those providing coach development. The findings indicate that self-awareness is an important competency for coaches to develop as it provides the backbone to developing deep and meaningful connections both for the coach in terms of self-acceptance and confidence, and for the client in terms of the depth of the relationship, thereby creating an environment in which challenging work can be carried out.

It is proposed that it is critical that coaches are highly self-aware to be effective at facilitating the development of self-awareness in their clients. Accordingly, self-awareness is included in the competency frameworks of the coaching professional bodies, yet there is a lack of evidence supporting how coaches develop self-awareness. This is problematic as it brings into question the design and development of coach training programmes, which is likely to hinder the professionalization of coaching. Therefore, we set out to provide evidence as to whether coach training develops self-awareness, and if so, what aspects of the training facilitate this development. A mixed-methods design was utilized with two separate studies. Firstly, a pre-post-test quantitative study to test whether coach education increases participant self-awareness. Followed by a qualitative study to provide an in-depth understanding of how the coach training supported the participants in developing self-awareness. The research found that coach training partially develops self-awareness and that key enablers to this development include experiential learning supported by reflection in a psychologically safe environment. The contribution of this research and paper is to contribute to the theory of coach development by illuminating how coach training can develop self-awareness. In addition, it is our hope that our findings will contribute to practice by informing the future design of coach training programmes and providing a means to evaluate coach development as a result of coach training., Author(s): Julia Carden [sup.1] , Rebecca J. Jones [sup.1] , Jonathan Passmore [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.9435.b, 0000 0004 0457 9566, Henley Business School, University of Reading, , Greenlands Campus, [...]

Self-awareness is often seen as a critical component in leadership and career success, and has therefore become a feature in MBAs, leadership development, and management education. It has become a popular "buzzword" in management literature, yet when reviewing this literature, there appears to be no consistent definition of the construct. This article reports a systematic literature review, covering how the construct of self-awareness is defined and how it differs from self-consciousness and self-knowledge within the context of management education. After screening, 31 articles were included in the review, analysis of which identified there is an overlap with how self-awareness, self-consciousness, and self-knowledge are defined. Other themes from our analysis include the identification of the components of self-awareness, how to be self-aware, and the purpose of self-awareness. The contribution of our article is the provision of clarity on the construct of self-awareness and a working definition, which can be used in the fields of leadership and management development by practitioners in education and organizations, and for future research within the context of adult development and the workplace.

This music score was submitted for the Kaleidoscope 2020 Call for Scores, an open access collaboration with the UCLA Music Library.