858645

research-article2019
JMEXXX10.1177/1052562919858645Journal of Management EducationEriksen et al.

Research Article
Journal of Management Education
2020, Vol. 44(1) 9­–38
Developing Students’ © The Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
Coaching Ability sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1052562919858645
https://doi.org/10.1177/1052562919858645
Through Peer journals.sagepub.com/home/jmd

Coaching

Matthew Eriksen1 , Sarah Collins1,

Bailey Finocchio1, and Julian Oakley1

Abstract
Our study adds to the existing literature by documenting an improvement
in students’ coaching effectiveness over the course of the semester, as well
as identifying the most important factors contributing to this improvement.
We identify the rationale for the development of the peer coaching process
and its learning objectives, as well as describe the employment of the
peer coaching process. We found that training, structured peer-feedback,
supporting handouts, and consistent practice of peer coaching were the most
important factors to becoming an effective peer coach. The most challenging
factors to students in becoming an effective peer coach were developing
their ability to effectively listen to their peers and the fear associated with
asking their partner challenging or probing questions. Rather than listening,
students found themselves interjecting their opinions, offering advice, talking
about themselves, or relating what their partners were saying to their own
lives, if only in their minds. We found the most effective aspects of students’
peer coaching in supporting peers’ leadership development were being
nonjudgmental, listening, accountability, and asking questions. We present
suggestions to prepare instructors and students to employ a peer coaching
process, as well as possible adaptations.

1Providence College, Providence, RI, USA

Corresponding Author:
Matthew Eriksen, Management Department, Providence College, One Cunningham Square,
Providence, RI 02918, USA.
Email: meriksen@providence.edu
10 Journal of Management Education 44(1)

Keywords
coaching, peer coaching, leadership, leadership development, experiential
learning, self-learning, action learning

Background
Increasingly, managers are being called upon to use coaching methods to facili-
tate employee development (Forbes, 2010; Frankovelgia & Riddle, 2010;
Gandhi, 2017; Hunt & Weintraub 2016; Noble, 2018; Whitmore, 2009; Wigert
& Mann, 2017) and support organizational change initiatives (Carey, Philippon,
& Cummings, 2011; Grant, 2010). In looking into what effective managers do,
Google researchers found that the most important competency separating
highly effective managers from average ones is the coaching of their employ-
ees (Valcour, 2015). In an organizational environment in which employees
want to learn and develop, “managers must increasingly take on the role of
coach for their team members” (Gandhi, 2017). Leaders’ support of their
employees has been found to motivate proactive behaviors and facilitate the
opportunity and motivation to bring about change (Wu & Parker, 2017).
In the business, health care, and nonprofit sectors, organizations have
employed peer coaching in leadership-development programs to support in-
class learning and to provide accountability and support to developmental
plans established at the completion of the program (Parker, Kram, & Hall,
2014; Van Oosten & Kram, 2014). Peer coaching has been increasingly
employed in business settings to facilitate employees’ professional growth
and development through the sharing of knowledge, reflection on practice,
development of new skills, improvement of competencies, and employees’
and managers’ performance (Parker, Kram, & Hall, 2008). Peer coaching has
been shown to have benefits in a variety of environments from professional
career and employee development to psychosocial improvements (Huston &
Weaver, 2008; Jones, Woods, & Guillaume, 2016; Parker, Wasserman, Kram,
& Hall, 2015). Career-focused peer coaching has led to increased goal
achievement, professional development, improved professional networks
and relationships, and to resilience and well-being within the work environ-
ment (Jones et al., 2016). Peer coaching is recognized as an effective alterna-
tive to executive and professional coaching (Parker et al., 2015). It is
increasingly viewed as a learning resource in leadership development pro-
grams in both academic and corporate settings (Van Oosten & Kram, 2014).
In business school settings, coaching has been used in number of ways,
with many different types of students. Instructors have coached students
(Hesseln & Gair, 2016) and student teams (Bolton, 1999), certified coaches
Eriksen et al. 11

and professional managers have coached MBA students (Ghannadian &

Thomason, 2017), graduate assistants have been trained to coach undergrad-
uate student teams (Sargent, Allen, Frahm, & Morris, 2009), and MBA stu-
dents have been trained to coach undergraduate students in a developmental
assessment center (Hunt & Weintraub, 2004).
To date, there exists limited scholarship published on the employment of
peer coaching in business schools. Peer coaching in dyads was employed in a
postgraduate leadership class at Griffith University in Australia to support stu-
dent learning of course content and processes associated with leadership and
self-development. Students were introduced to a coaching model and skills.
When coaching, students first focused on coaching question techniques. Then,
they coached each other to apply the leadership course content (e.g., personal
visioning) to their lives (Parker et al., 2008). At Boston University, peer coach-
ing was used to support in-class learning by partnering undergraduate, MBA,
and executive MBA students with one another as peer coaches. Students
paired off after in-class activities to share their reactions and learning. They
also helped one another process self-assessment tests and exercises in which
they had engaged, as well as write a final paper that integrated their self-
assessment data to create career development plans. Of these MBA students,
75% reported being satisfied with their peer coaching experience. The degree
of satisfaction with the peer coaching process appeared to be a function of the
amount of time and effort both individuals in each dyad put into the peer
coaching process. Sixty-six percent of the students reported that peer coaching
contributed to their professional growth. Seventy-five percent of students
made some future use of peer coaching on their own. These students did so
because they saw the peer coaching that they experienced as contributing to
their professional development (Parker et al., 2008). In professional and edu-
cation settings, evidence suggests that peer coaching accelerates learning and
career development (Parker et al., 2014). Finally, Taylor and Boyatzis (2012)
outline how they employ compassionate peer coaching in management courses
to attempt to facilitate connection among students and their engagement in the
course to reduce student stress to improve their learning.
Consistent with past research conducted in a business school setting
(Parker et al., 2008; Parker et al., 2014), our research suggests that peer
coaching supports students’ personal and leadership development. Our study
adds to the existing literature by documenting an improvement in students’
coaching effectiveness over the course of the semester, as well as identifying
the most important factors contributing to this improvement. In addition, we
also identify what students found most important and challenging to becom-
ing an effective peer coach and what students’ peer coach did that was most
effective in supporting their leadership development. Below, we identify the
12 Journal of Management Education 44(1)

rationale for the development of the peer coaching process and its learning
objectives, as well as describe the employment of the peer coaching process.
Then we share student-survey feedback on the efficacy, experience, and out-
comes of engaging in the peer coaching process. Finally, we present sugges-
tions to prepare instructors and students to employ a peer coaching process,
as well as possible adaptations.

Rationale for the Development and Employment of

the Peer Coaching Process
Increasingly, managers are being asked to coach employees to facilitate their
development (Forbes, 2010; Frankovelgia & Riddle, 2010; Gandhi, 2017;
Hunt & Weintraub, 2016; Noble, 2018; Whitmore, 2015; Wigert & Mann,
2017). Over the past decade, coaching has become an accepted practice to
develop high-potential leaders within organizations (Carey et al., 2011; Coutu
& Kauffman, 2009; Cox, Bachkirova, & Clutterbuck, 2014a; Feldman &
Lankau, 2005; Frankovelgia & Riddle, 2010; Kimsey-House, Kimsey-House,
& Sandal, 2011; Quick & Macik-Frey, 2004). Based on a systematic litera-
ture review, Leskiw and Singh (2007) identified developmental relationships
of coaching and mentoring as a key component of effective leadership devel-
opment programs.
Although coaching is now identified as an essential managerial skill—effec-
tive in developing leaders, facilitating improved performance, results, and per-
sonal effectiveness (Cox, Bachkirova, & Cutterbuck, 2014b)—no widely
accepted definition of coaching exists, nor is there a single model for coaching
(Carey et al., 2011). According to the Society for Industrial and Organizational
Psychology (2009), “Coach refers to the one who provides one-on-one coach-
ing, while the coachee (or executive in executive coaching) refers to the one
who gets the coaching service” (as quoted in Carey et al., 2011, p. 53). The
most common types of coaching include skills and performance coaching,
executive and leadership coaching, the “manager as coach,” team coaching,
life coaching, career coaching, and peer coaching (Cox et al., 2014b).
Over the course of Matthew’s teaching career, the focus of his teaching has
become leadership development. Over this time, he has moved from focusing
on the dissemination of information and facilitation of the development of criti-
cal, analytical, and strategic thinking, to developing students’ ability to engage
in self-reflection, practical reflexivity, and self-observation to learn from, and
through, their lived experience (Eriksen, 2012) in an attempt to strengthen their
capacity to be effective relational leaders (Cunliffe & Eriksen, 2011). Consistent
with management educators such as Borredon, Deffayet, Baker, and Kolb
(2011) in their employment of learning teams to facilitate deep learning, and
Eriksen et al. 13

Innes’ (2006) conceptualization of problem-based learning groups, he grew to

understand learning and personal development to be a social, as well as a psy-
chological, process and, thus, began to imagine his courses as communities of
mutual learning and development. The social aspect of learning emphasizes
that each student has a responsibility not only for his or her learning and growth
but also a responsibility for—and ability to influence—fellow students’ learn-
ing and growth (Mesle, 2008). Students act on this responsibility by doing such
things as being present, engaged, empathetic, supportive, caring, on time, lis-
tening deeply to and encouraging one another, as well as sharing ideas, experi-
ences, and life lessons.
In support of this, Matthew has been intentionally co-constructing learn-
ing contexts and interactions among students and himself to leverage the rela-
tional (Parker et al., 2015) and social aspects of learning and personal
development (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Vygotsky, 1962). One example of the
way he accomplishes this is by developing a shared purpose and enabling
course context with his students (Eriksen & Cooper, 2017). Below, we pres-
ent another supporting pedagogy in this effort—the employment of a peer
coaching process. The peer coaching process facilitates students’ personal
and leadership development, as well as supports the development of their
ability to effectively coach others.
Peer coaching involves two partners of equal status focusing on facilitat-
ing the personal and professional development of both individuals (Parker
et al., 2012). In distinct coaching sessions, partners alternate between being
the coach and being coached. They do not alternate roles within a particular
coaching session. Peer coaching’s unique value “is the inherent mutuality and
reciprocity of the process” (Parker et al., 2008, p. 490). Parker et al. (2008)
identify four critical elements of peer coaching: equal status of the partners,
focus on both personal and professional development, integration of reflec-
tion on practice to identify critical incidents for focus, and emphasis on pro-
cess as well as content that facilitates leadership skill development. Rather
than offering advice or trying to solve the coachee’s challenges, the coach
asks open-ended and probing questions to increase the coachee’s self-under-
standing and facilitate their personal development (Ladyshewsky, 2014).

Learning Objectives for the Peer Coaching Process

The overall learning objectives for students engaging in the peer coaching
process are

1. Students will develop their ability to effectively coach others.

2. Students will develop their ability to effectively listen to others.
14 Journal of Management Education 44(1)

3. Students will develop their ability to ask self-developmental

questions.
4. Students will experience personal and leadership development over
the course of the semester.

Peer Coaching Process

In 2011, Matthew became an International Coach Federation (ICF) certified
coach through the Coaching Training Institute. This experience had a profound
impact on his thinking about how he could employ coaching to facilitate stu-
dent learning and leadership development, and he began experimenting with
interacting with his students through a coaching frame (Hesseln & Gair, 2016).
In 2012, he taught an MBA Leadership Coaching course. In this class, Matthew
paired students as peer coaches to help them learn how to effectively coach. In
2015, based on students’ acquisition of coaching skills and abilities he wit-
nessed in the Leadership Coaching course, he began to experiment with stu-
dents engaging in peer coaching in all his leadership courses. In addition to
developing their ability to effectively coach others, peer coaching was employed
to support students’ personal development from their engagement in in-class
developmental exercises (e.g., identifying their leadership values, principles,
and vision; identifying defining moments, a resilience exercise; a eulogy exer-
cise; a self-compassion exercise, etc.) and out-of-class experiential learning
assignments (e.g., living out their virtues, changing a relationship, engaging in
a personal change initiative, and leading an organizational change initiative).
A key success factor in peer coaching is the context in which it occurs, as
it influences the interactions between students (Parker et al., 2015). On the
first and second day of class, prior to students engaging in peer coaching, the
professor and students develop a shared purpose for the course and an
enabling course context. Students are then given the opportunity to verbally
commit to this shared purpose and enabling course context (i.e., ways of
being, acting, and relating with one another). This process is outlined in the
article entitled “Shared-purpose process: Implications and possibilities for
student learning, development, and self-transformation” (Eriksen & Cooper,
2017). This purpose and enabling course context create a safe space (Kisfalvi
& Oliver, 2015) within which the course experiential learning exercises and
assignments, including the peer coaching, can flourish. For each course, the
enabling course context invariably includes confidentiality and support of
one another’s learning and development. Students are not evaluated or graded
on their coaching. The experience is framed as an experiment in which they
will learn from both their successes and failures. What is of greatest impor-
tance is to, each week, learn from their coaching experience and employ what
Eriksen et al. 15

they have learned to improve their coaching the following week. As well as
their interest in developing their ability to coach others, students are inher-
ently driven to improve the effectiveness of their coaching by a felt-responsi-
bility toward the persons they are coaching.
Through his initial experience employing peer coaching, he learned that
“you cannot just put two people together and tell them to help each other.
(You can, but not much good will result.)” (Parker et al., 2014, p. 122). As a
result, Matthew created—and has continuously developed—formal peer-
coach training for the students that takes place during the second week of
class. The formal training focuses on explaining the purpose of employing
the peer coaching, providing a coaching model, and explaining how and why
it works. He chose to use the GROW model of coaching (Whitmore, 2015),
as it is the most common framework used by executive coaches and is easy to
understand and employ. GROW stands for Goals, Reality, Options, and Will
(see Appendix A). The GROW model focuses on helping clients fulfill their
potential and performance by helping them learn from their experience,
rather than trying to teach them.
In his training, and over the course of the semester, Matthew emphasizes
the most basic and important elements of coaching, of deepening the learning
and forwarding the action of the coachee (Kimsey-House et al., 2011), the
primary coaching skills of deep listening and asking curious self-exploratory
questions (Stanier, 2016), and the importance of being supportive and caring,
as well providing accountability and practicing confidentiality. In lieu of
attempting to be experts trying to solve their peers’ challenges or problems,
students need to learn how to listen and ask questions that help their peers
better understand themselves and their experience to deepen their learning to
allow them to engage in further action and the resulting learning (Kimsey-
House et al., 2011). During the training, students are shown two videos of
real-life coaching sessions in which the coach employs the GROW model.
Matthew follows this up by talking about the importance of being self-com-
passionate, compassionate, and raising one’s nonjudgmental awareness of
one’s coaching, rather than trying to evaluate it or being judgmental. During
the training, time is taken to answer students’ questions.
One meaningful way that the multiplicity of coaching models and per-
spectives have been categorized, is into three main genres: performance,
developmental, or transformational coaching. Performance coaching focuses
on facilitating incremental changes in an individual’s behaviors, skills, abili-
ties, and results. Developmental coaching focuses on evolutionary changes in
feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions that drive a person’s behaviors
and, thus, the outcomes each achieves in his or her lives. Finally, transforma-
tional coaching focuses on a person’s feelings, thoughts, beliefs and
16 Journal of Management Education 44(1)

assumptions to influence who he or she is as a person, not just the outcomes

achieved. Practically, when coaching someone over time, even if from the
perspective of a particular genre, it is likely all three genres will be utilized.
All genres affect students’ performance directly or indirectly (Bennett &
Bush, 2014; Cox et al., 2014a).
Since the leadership courses focus on leadership development, the peer
coach training and GROW model are developmental in focus. Developmental
coaching is different from performance coaching, which often focuses on
offering coachees advice to improve their performance or try to solve their
problems (Stanier, 2016). Developmental peer coaching is about helping
one’s peer deepen his or her self-awareness, imagine new possibilities of who
one might become, engage in new actions, and learn from one’s experience.
The hope is that each student’s development will be facilitated through being
coached by a classmate before, during, and after the developmental and expe-
riential exercises in which students engage.
The training finishes with the following quote by Tim Gallwey (2000):

There are three ways to learn coaching. The least important is the theory and
training you might receive. You can read about coaching or take a coaching
workshop. But the two important ways are from the direct experience of
coaching and being coached. Coach as much as possible and ask for coaching as
much as possible. Learn from both what works and what doesn’t work. (p. 213)

The reason the training finishes with this quote is to emphasize that the
only way students are going to learn coaching is by actually practicing coach-
ing and being coached. This training takes approximately 60 minutes to com-
plete. The length of the training will vary based on the number of student
questions and class dialogue.
At the end of the training, students are supplied two supporting handouts.
One of the handouts contains all the information covered in the training and the
other a summary of the information (see Appendix A). Prior to each of the first
three peer coaching sessions, the students are asked to review the summary
handout. After that, before each peer coaching session, students are asked what
the two most important goals of coaching are (deepening the learning and for-
warding the action), what they need to do to accomplish these goals (listen
deeply, ask curious questions, and hold their partners accountable), and the
approach they must take (supportive and caring). This helps them learn the
language of coaching and orient themselves in interactions with their partners
to increase their learning and the effectiveness of their coaching.
To support the above training by helping them understand the realm of
coaching, while also covering relevant course content in the next class
Eriksen et al. 17

meeting, Matthew does a presentation on inhibitors and enablers of personal

and leadership development. This presentation runs approximately 60 min-
utes in length. Inhibitors of personal and leadership development include
concepts such as the inner critic (Gallwey, 2000), simple identities (Stone &
Heen, 2015), fixed mindset (Dweck, 2007), and our mental cycle of interfer-
ence (Gallwey, 2000). Enablers of personal and leadership development
include such concepts as vulnerability (Brown, 2015) that is enabled by self-
compassion (Neff, 2015), self-belief, purpose, values, and goals. Students are
also introduced to the concepts of first and second-order learning (Brothers &
Kumar, 2015). These concepts help students understand the importance of
being response-able, in contrast to being reactive, to their personal and lead-
ership development (Covey, 2004; Eriksen & Cooper, 2018), as well as to
their development as coaches.
As mentioned above, like any skill or ability, the best way to acquire and
improve it is through deliberate practice (Ericsson, Prietula, & Cokely, 2007).
The peer coaching takes place every week. Twenty to 30 minutes is allocated
for coaching—10 to 15 minutes for each student to be coached. Students
coach one another based on their experience of engaging in in-class develop-
mental exercises and out-of-class experiential-learning assignments. During
the first couple of coaching sessions, some students struggle to fill the time.
For the first few weeks, after every coaching session, students receive verbal
feedback on their coaching from their partners. Then, they receive written
feedback two times during the semester. The feedback is simple and develop-
mental (i.e., “What is your coach doing well in your interactions with him or
her that has been particularly effective in facilitating your personal develop-
ment?” and “What is it you would like to see more of from your coach in your
interactions with him or her that would further facilitate your personal devel-
opment?”). The developmental nature of the feedback increases students’
acceptance of the feedback and, thus, improves students’ development.
At the end of each coaching session, students engage in a class discussion
about their coaching experiences, what they are learning, and how they can
improve the effectiveness of their coaching. This helps students deepen their
learning by having the opportunity to learn from reflecting on their experience
and listening to one another’s peer coaching experiences. Through the weekly
practice, feedback and class discussions, students become more effective
coaches. In addition, Matthew models the process and behaviors of develop-
mental coaching through coaching students on particular exercises or assign-
ments during class, always asking students for permission to coach them.
Although it might be initially uncomfortable for some students, the pro-
fessor encourages students to pair up with someone that they do not know
well. He does this for a couple of reasons. First, this realistically represents
18 Journal of Management Education 44(1)

the coaching situations that students will face as managers. Second, he

found that peer coaches who were friends most often default to their past
ways of relating as friends, unable to effectively interact with one another
as peer coaches. This negatively affects their learning experience and
developmental outcomes. Over the years, a few students that initially
chose to pair up with friends chose to change their partners mid-semester,
after realizing this for themselves through their experience. In contrast,
unfamiliar students have neither preconceived notions of each other nor
habitual patterns of relating to one another, making it easier for them to
relate to one another as coaches. Herminia Ibarra (2004) talks about this
phenomenon in her book Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for
Reinventing Your Career:

Our close contacts don’t just blind us, they also bind us to our outdated
identities. Reinventing involves trying on and testing a variety of possible
selves. But our long-standing social networks may resist those identity
experiments . . . Without meaning to, friends and family, pigeonhole us. Worse,
they fear our changing. (2004, pp. 120-121).

She notes that even people who change in positive ways such as stopping
smoking or losing weight are often met with mixed reactions from friends
and family (Ibarra, 2004).
At the end of the semester, along with providing their coaches with devel-
opmental feedback, students engage in a class debrief which includes
answering questions like: What was the most important thing you learned
about being an effective developmental coach? What was the most impor-
tant thing your peer coach did to facilitate your development? What would
you have liked to have seen more of from your coach to facilitate your
development? What is the most important thing you learned about being an
effective coach? What was most challenging about coaching and how did
you attempt to work through this challenge? What additional support would
have been effective in improving your practice and development as a peer
coach? The feedback from these class meetings solidifies students’ learning
and is used to improve the peer coaching process. Table 1 presents an outline
of the above peer coaching process.

Student Experience
To understand students’ experience of peer coaching and to assess whether or
not the peer-coaching experience achieved its learning goals, students were
asked to participate in a survey during their last class meeting of the semester.
Eriksen et al. 19

Table 1. Elements of the Peer Coaching Process.

Week(s) of
semester Activity
1 and 2 Develop a course shared purpose and enabling context
2 Peer-coach training
3 Presentation on inhibitor and enablers of personal and
leadership development
3-14 Weekly peer coaching (Weeks 3-14)
• Examples of in-class developmental exercises
♦ Identifying leadership values, principles, and vision
♦ identifying defining moments
♦ Resilience exercise
♦ Eulogy exercise
♦ Self-compassion exercise, etc.) and
♦ Anxiety exercise
• Examples of out-of-class experiential learning assignments
(Weeks 4-14)
♦ Living out one’s virtues
♦ Engaging in a personal change initiative
♦ Changing a relationship
♦ Leading an organizational change initiative
1,2,3,7,11,14 Peer coaching feedback
3-13 Class discussions on peer coaching experience
14 End-of-semester class debrief

Student respondents were enrolled in an undergraduate or MBA Self Leadership

course, undergraduate Leadership Development or Leading Change course in
spring semesters of 2017 or 2018 or the fall semester of 2018. These courses
were taught at a liberal arts college in the northeast United States. In total, 105
students took the survey. Prior to taking the survey, the students were told that
completing the survey was optional and their responses would be anonymous.
They were also told that their feedback would help the instructor understand
their experiences and improve the experience for future students, as well as
provide input for an academic journal article. In all courses, all students were in
attendance and all chose to complete the survey.
The survey contained closed- and open-ended questions. The closed-
ended questions employed a scale of strongly agree, agree, disagree, or
strongly disagree. Based on feedback from the reviewers of this paper during
the review process, closed-ended survey questions were added in the spring
of 2018 and fall of 2018. The statement “Over the course of the semester,
being coached by my partner contributed to my development as a leader” was
20 Journal of Management Education 44(1)

added to the survey in the spring semester of 2018. The statements “Over the
course of the semester, my partner’s coaching ability improved” and “Over
the course of the semester, practicing coaching on a weekly basis contributed
to my development as a peer coach” were added to the survey in fall semester
of 2018. The latter question from the fall 2018 was answered through email
by 22 out of the 25 MBA students 6 weeks after the completion of their
course, as this MBA course was a compressed 8-week course and the ques-
tion was not developed until after this course was completed. The MBA
course taught in the fall of 2017 was also an 8-week course. All other courses
were 15 weeks in length. All survey questions and results for the closed-
ended questions can be found in Appendix B.
Students’ responses overwhelmingly support that the overall learning
goals of the peer coaching process were achieved:

•• Students will develop their ability to effectively coach others:

○ All but one student respondent agreed or strongly agreed that
“Over the course of the semester, I was able to develop my ability
to effectively coach others’ in their self-development.” (n = 105)
○ All but one student respondent agreed or strongly agreed that
“Over the course of the semester, my partner’s coaching ability
improved.” (n = 39).
•• Students will develop their ability to effectively listen to others:
○ All but one student respondent agreed or strongly agreed that
“Over the course of the semester, I improved my ability to effec-
tively listen to my partner.” (n = 105)
•• Students will develop their ability to ask self-developmental
questions:
○ All but one student respondent agreed or strongly agreed that
“Over the course of the semester, I improved my ability to ask my
partner self-developmental questions.” (n = 105)
•• Students will experience personal and leadership development over
the course of the semester:
○ All students agreed or strongly agreed that “Over the course of the
semester, being coached by my partner contributed to my self-
development.” (n = 105)
○ All students agreed or strongly agreed that “Over the course of the
semester, being coached by my partner contributed to my leader-
ship-development.” (n = 76)

In addition, student feedback supports that the training, structured peer-

feedback, and consistent practice of peer coaching in which they engaged,
enabled them to improve their ability to effectively coach:
Eriksen et al. 21

○ All but two students agreed or strongly agreed that “The self-develop-
mental peer coach training provided at the beginning of the semester
was valuable to my development as a self-developmental peer coach.”
(n = 105)
○ All but one student agreed or strongly agreed that “Receiving struc-
tured feedback from my partner was valuable to my development as a
self-developmental peer coach.” (n = 105)
○ All but one student agreed or strongly agreed that “Receiving struc-
tured feedback from my partner was valuable in learning how to more
effectively coach him or her.” (n = 105)
○ All but one student agreed or strongly agreed that “Over the course of
the semester, practicing coaching on a weekly basis contributed to my
development as a peer coach.” (n = 36)

Students’ responses to the question of what was most valuable in learning

how to more effectively coach partner, most often mentioned repetitive prac-
tice, feedback, and the handouts.

○ The time spent each class doing it over and over. It is not easy to get it
right the first time, but I improved with practice.
○ The handouts on self-developmental coaching, not having been paired
with a friend from outside of class and being told the goal/purpose of
self-developmental coaching.

A few people mentioned the class environment being supportive for

coaching, including the training, clear expectations of the peer coaching,
being paired with a partner they did not know well, and developing a relation-
ship with their partners based on trust and respect as a strength.
When asked, through their experience of coaching their partner, what
they believed was the most important factor to helping them become effec-
tive coaches, students most often identified the amount of practice coaching
and improving their ability to listen to the persons they were coaching.

○ I think that the most important thing was getting to practice so often.
The first few times felt awkward and robotic but once I had enough
time to get to know my partner and get comfortable it amplified the
effectiveness of the coaching, as well as the rate at which I improved.
○ Listen very carefully, then listen more.
○ Listening . . . listening . . . listening—that has been the key for me.

Students also mentioned the importance of being open-minded and vulnera-

ble, asking meaningful questions, connecting with their partners, the handouts,
22 Journal of Management Education 44(1)

their partner’s level of engagement, concern for their partners, partner feedback,
and not knowing their partners.
When asked what “was their greatest personal challenge to improving their
effectiveness as a coach?” almost all the responses related to their ability to
effectively listen to their partners. Rather than listening, students found them-
selves interjecting their opinions, offering advice, talking about themselves, or
relating what their partners were saying to their own lives, if only in their minds.

○ My greatest personal challenge was getting over my desire to provide

advice. Especially in the beginning, I really wanted to help and thought
by giving advice I was helping. But what I soon realized that the best
thing I could do to help was just listen and ask the question necessary
to help her think.
○ The hardest thing was to stop making the sessions about me. I was
struggling to stay focused on my partner at times.

A few students identified their fear of asking their partners challenging or

probing questions.

○ My greatest challenge was asking difficult probing questions, without

being afraid of what the response might be.

When asked “what did your coach do that was most effective in support-
ing your development as a leader?” students most often mentioned their
coaches being nonjudgmental, listening, and asking questions.

○ She was nonjudgmental and helped me by asking by asking clarifying

questions that helped to draw out deeper levels of thinking.
○ He was a great listener. Asked thought provoking questions and was
honest and nonjudgmental.

Other things that we mentioned were that their coaches were respectful,
held them accountable, helped them see different perspectives, and were
present and engaged.
When asked how being coached by their partners contributed to their
development as leaders over the course of the semester, most students men-
tioned that it increased their self-awareness and learning from their experi-
ence of engaging in the experiential learning assignments.

○ I learned more about myself than I realized I knew. I learned how to

problem-solve my own issues.
Eriksen et al. 23

○ Being coached by my partner helped me develop throughout the

semester by allowing me the time to talk and think about my successes
and failure with a support system.
○ [By] having someone that I did not know well provided me with feed-
back and give me new perspectives, it really opened my eyes to the
kind of person I am and who I want to be.

Finally, when asked what would have helped them further develop as
coaches, students most often mentioned having the opportunity to coach
someone other than their partners.

○ It was great to have the same person to coach throughout the semester,
but I think I could have learned even more by mixing things up some-
times to coach and be coached by someone else.

Other things mentioned were additional training and guidance, being able
to watch professional coaches in action, and coaching their partners on some-
thing outside of the course assignments.

Instructor Preparation
At its most fundamental level, coaching is a way of relating and responding
to others that is different than our default way of being in relationships.
Thus, what is most important to becoming proficient at coaching is practice.
This practice can be facilitated in a number of ways. As an example, if one
uses the GROW model employed by Matthew, at the most basic level, an
instructor could study the book Coaching for Performance: GROWing
human potential and purpose and watch online videos of coaches employing
the GROW model and practice coaching based on the GROW model. They
can receive feedback from those they coach, audio or video tape their coach-
ing, engage in continuous reflection on what they are learning about becom-
ing a more effective coach, and develop experiments based on this learning
to improve their coaching.
If feasible, instructors can enroll in formal coach training. We recommend
that instructors solicit funding from their institutions for this professional
development activity. Matthew was fortunate enough to have his Dean’s finan-
cial support. The chosen training should be consistent with the type of coaching
the instructor wants his or her students to learn and support the student learning
outcomes the instructor wishes to achieve. There are many training programs
that teach participants how to coach others based on the GROW model. To
increase their level of expertise and practice, instructors may even decide to
24 Journal of Management Education 44(1)

engage in training programs that lead to ICF certification. The ICF website
provides a searchable directory of coach training programs and includes a
video explaining the different types of training programs available.
The instructor might solicit an ICF-certified coach to volunteer to train his
or her students to coach one another. The University of Tampa asked ICF
certified coaches to volunteer to coach their students (Ghannadian &
Thomason, 2017). It is also important to develop supporting materials based
on the training to which students can refer to after the initial training.
For any instructor, regardless of his or her level of expertise as a coach, it is
important not to worry about employing the peer coaching process perfectly. It
is better to view it as an experiment in which there will be successes and fail-
ures from which they will learn how to improve the peer coaching process in
future semesters. If seen as a learning opportunity for instructor as well as stu-
dents, all will benefit from the practice, and the peer coaching process will
improve over time. Because like any other practice we want to learn, we must
do so “by the actual doing of it: people become builders by building and instru-
mentalists by playing instruments. Similarly, we become just by performing
just acts, temperate by performing temperate ones, brave performing brave
ones” (Aristotle 1955 as quoted in Shotter & Tsoukas 2014, 232).
As with any experiential learning opportunity, it is important to create a
safe space in which it can unfold. Thus, the instructor needs to be intentional
about creating a course context of safety and openness. To assist in this effort,
instructors can begin by referencing Kisfalvi’s and Oliver’s (2015) article,
“Creating and maintaining a safe space in experiential learning.” As men-
tioned earlier, one way to develop this safe space with students is to create a
shared purpose and supporting enabling course context that includes consid-
eration of peer coaching (Eriksen & Cooper, 2017).
We encourage instructors to allocate class time for students to provide
their partners with nonevaluative, developmental feedback throughout the
semester. It is helpful to have a handout with questions to structure the feed-
back. Matthew has found it effective to simply have students answer—and
share their answers to—the following two questions with their coaches:

What is your coach doing well in your interactions with her that has been
particularly effective in facilitating your personal development?

What is it you would like to see more of from your coach in your interactions
with him or her that would further facilitate your personal development?

At the end of the semester, it is important to have students reflect on what

they learned about themselves through being coached and what they learned
Eriksen et al. 25

about themselves through coaching others (e.g., what they did particularly well
and what would they like to be able to do more of), as well as how they have
developed as leaders. It is important to obtain student feedback on the peer
coaching process to understand what went well and how it can be improved.
At the beginning of the semester, when first coaching one another, stu-
dents often regress to their day-to-day conversational styles. During these
conversations, students revert to Level-I listening (see Appendix A) in which
the focus of their listening is on themselves, what the conversation means to
them, and relating what is being said by their peers to their own lives. In addi-
tion, students often default to offering advice and trying to solve their peers’
“problems,” rather than helping their peers learn and develop from their
experience. During the first few class peer-coaching debriefs, the instructor
should inquire if this is happening and nonjudgmentally express that this
often happens, as it is often our habitual way of interacting with others.
Students need to be reminded that, although these default ways of interacting
feel comfortable, they are not coaching.
As all students are not equally proficient at coaching and it is always
meaningful to experience coaching and being coached by different people, it
makes sense to have students coach someone other than their dedicated peer
coaches a few times a semester. Students find this a meaningful experience,
as it expands their perspective on what is possible. This also occurs on days
when a peer’s coach is absent. If there is an odd number of students enrolled
in the course, or on days when an odd number of students are in attendance,
the instructor will need to coach a student (as Matthew does) or form a stu-
dent coaching triad.
As well as always observing the coaching dyads in practice, a few times
over the course of the semester the instructor should inquire through email
about the students’ coaching experience. He or she should ask the students if
they have any concerns or are having any challenges with their partner. Once
over the past 4 years, Matthew had to step in to pair up with a student because
the student was a disengaged and ineffective coach. Matthew did so by talk-
ing privately with the student. In the end, the student ended up withdrawing
from the university due to personal issues.
Coaching sessions have been based on course assignments and the person
being coached is told to share only what he is comfortable sharing when
being coached. Matthew is aware of only one situation in which a student
voiced being upset with what she spoke about during coaching. This was
expressed in the anonymous end-of-semester course evaluations during the
second semester Matthew employed peer coaching. Since then, he has
increased his emphasis on students sharing only what they feel comfortable
sharing when being coached, as well as in the course in general.
26 Journal of Management Education 44(1)

Student Preparation
Some students may be initially anxious and hesitant to share personal
thoughts, feelings, and experiences with someone with whom they have not
previously interacted. This can lead to feelings of awkwardness between
the two partners. Because of this, it is important that the instructor clearly
states the topic that the coaching session is centered on and its relation to
their personal growth and development as a leader, as well as facilitating a
follow-up large-group discussion about the experience of peer coaching.
While it may seem awkward and uncomfortable at first, it is important that
students be paired up with someone they do not know in order for both part-
ners to truly grow and develop while reducing the risk of the conversation
turning casual. A lack of initial trust may hold students back from sharing
information, thus limiting growth potential. Therefore, it is important a clear
rule of trust and confidentiality be established within the classroom environ-
ment through the shared purpose and course context. Students find that the
process of sharing becomes easier with time, as partners share together and a
relationship develops through hearing the experience of other peer coaching
pairs during the class debriefs. Students may also struggle to ask self-devel-
opmental questions rather than giving their opinions or advice. Asking effec-
tive self-developmental questions is a skill that students develop with
practice, along with the ability to actively listen.
It may occur that partnering of students does not result in equal skill or
commitment level of both partners (Parker et al., 2014). Establishing a class-
shared purpose along with an enabling course context and giving students the
opportunity to voluntarily verbally commit to both can help reduce the likeli-
hood of noncommitted students (Eriksen & Cooper, 2017). However, in cases
where one partner’s ability and commitment exceed the other’s, frustration
may occur that reduces the personal sense of growth and development of the
one partner. Nonetheless, because a similar situation is likely to occur while
coaching employees after becoming a manager, the student will still learn
how to coach someone, perhaps focusing on commitment and motivation,
and through his “poor” coaching experience better learn what makes an
effective coaching experience.
To ensure students remain focused on the development of their coaching
skills and their partners’ development, it is important that the instructor incorpo-
rate classroom feedback sessions, where students can share their experience of
the session, encouraging self-reflection, sharing of techniques, best practices
and difficulties. This helps to reframe the peer coaching session as a “practice
makes perfect” exercise, rather than a single, isolated conversation. Incorporating
feedback sessions in which students give nonjudgmental feedback to their
Eriksen et al. 27

partners not only helps individuals further their coaching abilities but also
enables students to seek feedback through frank conversations regarding their
personal performance. In giving feedback, students will have to reflect on previ-
ous coaching sessions and identify areas of strengths and possible improve-
ments. To ensure such feedback is developmental, the instructor needs to
highlight the importance of being honest and offering nonjudgmental
feedback.
As in all coaching contexts, students may express their emotions when
being coached. This is perfectly natural, as we are emotional beings. Emotions
are part of the human experience and, thus, are relevant to coaching as they
drive a person’s behaviors. Instructors should discuss this with students dur-
ing training and remind students of this over the course of the semester. When
a peer is expressing emotions, there is nothing the coach needs to do other
than be with her peer. After a peer expresses his or her emotions, the coach
may ask the coachee if there is anything he or she needs. They should not try
to “make things ok” or solve the peer’s “problem.” If the coach feels the per-
son may be struggling with something, if available, she could remind her
about the counseling services available on campus or recommend that she
speak to the course instructor.

Adaptations
Peer coaching can be employed in any course to enhance students’ learning
and/or development, as well as to facilitate the development of their coaching
skills. As mentioned earlier, peer coaching has been employed in a postgrad-
uate leadership class to support student learning of leadership, self-develop-
ment content and processes, and to support in-class learning by partnering
undergraduate students, MBA, and executive MBA students with one another
as peer coaches (Parker et al., 2008).
What is most important to consider when employing peer coaching is that
the peer coaching’s effectiveness will be dependent on the course context.
The most important contextual variant will be what the professor wishes to
accomplish through peer coaching. This will determine the genre of coaching
chosen, that is, performance, developmental, or transformational coaching
(Bennett & Bush, 2014)—as well as the particular coaching model within the
genre that will guide the peer coaching (Cox et al., 2014a). For example,
rather than a desired outcome of personal development presented in this arti-
cle, the desired outcome might be performance related, such as improving
students’ performance on a test or assignment, or helping students acquire
certain skills or developing a particular ability. Thus, in this case, the training
and support provided to students would be based on a model of performance
28 Journal of Management Education 44(1)

coaching. In addition, it is important to articulate to students the purpose and

expected outcomes of the coaching, that it is nonevaluative, that they receive
adequate training, support, and feedback, and that each coaching session is
viewed as an experiment from which to learn from both success and failure.
Although students report having a designated peer coaching partner for
the entirety of the semester as beneficial to becoming a more effective coach
and their personal development, feedback suggests that it is meaningful to
also provide students with a few opportunities to coach other classmates to
further facilitate their development. It is also be beneficial to allow students
to witness a professional coach in action. A certified professional coach could
do a demonstration in class. Alternatively, videos of professional coaches in
action could be played in class followed by a group discussion. Students also
expressed a desire to coach their peers on a topic outside of the course assign-
ments and exercises. In this case, students could choose a professional or
personal challenge on which they would like coaching.

Conclusion
We have presented a peer coaching process that has four fundamental com-
ponents: (1) a training session at the beginning of the class, (2) (re)orienting
students to coach one another by reminding them of the most important
aspects of coaching (i.e., deepening the learning, forwarding the action, lis-
tening deeply, asking curious questions, support, caring, and accountability),
(3) developmental peer-feedback on their coaching, and (4) large-group dis-
cussions in which students ask questions and share their experience of—and
challenges with—peer coaching, as well as what they are learning about
effective peer coaching. Consistent with past research (Parker et al., 2008),
our research found that peer coaching positively affected students’ personal
and leadership development. We have added to the existing literature by dem-
onstrating that the peer coaching process can be effectively employed in both
undergraduate and graduate classroom settings to develop students’ ability to
effectively coach others and identified factors important in supporting this
development (i.e., training, peer feedback, structured peer feedback, and con-
sistent practice). We also identified what students found most important and
challenging to becoming effective peer coaches, as well as what students’
peer coaches did that was most effective in supporting their development.
The instructor employing peer coaching must not only prepare herself by
engaging in coach training, establishing her purpose for employing peer
coaching and identifying a relevant coaching methodology to employ, she
must also understand the students’ perspectives to consistently provide ade-
quate guidance, support, and training throughout the process. Employing
Eriksen et al. 29

peer coaching within a classroom will help students develop crucial coaching
skills such as active listening, asking meaningful questions, and giving and
receiving developmental feedback.
While there is a growing number of sponsors and participants reporting
positive experience with peer coaching (Parker et al., 2008), there is still a
dearth of research on the efficacy of peer coaching and how to develop stu-
dents’ ability to be effective coaches. Research on the efficacy of coaching in
general, and peer coaching more specifically, remains limited. In addition,
there is limited research on the effectiveness of coaching on leadership devel-
opment, and it is hampered by biased and confounded measurements of out-
comes (Thach, 2002). Future research on peer coaching’s impact on leadership
development and how to effectively develop students’ coaching abilities
should seek to employ a pretest and posttest methodology and measure per-
formance on a series of leadership exercises or being assessed on the
Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire.

Appendix A
Developmental Peer Coaching Summary
GROW Model
•• Goals
♦ For the coaching session
♦ The goal for the specific issue to be discussed
•• Reality—increase awareness of understanding of current reality as
they perceive it.
•• Options—generate as many possible ideas about solutions and options,
not the one “right” answer.
•• What will you do? When will you do it? Will you actually do it?
Wrapping up.

7 Curious Developmental Questions (From The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More,
and Change The Way You Lead Forever by Michael Stanier (2016)
1. “What’s on your mind?” or “What would you like to talk about?”
2. “And what else?”
3. “What is the real challenge for YOU here?”
4. “What do you want?”
5. “How can I help?”
6. “If you are saying Yes to this, what are you saying No to?”
7. “What was most useful for you?”
30 Journal of Management Education 44(1)

Curious Questions that Deepen the Learning (Below Drawn From Co-Active
Coaching by Whitworth, Kimsey-House, Kimsey-House, and Sandahl (2007)
•• “Tell me more about ________?”
•• “What else is important to this discussion?”
•• “What feelings do you have about this?”
•• “What did you mean, when you said____?”
•• “What was most significant?”
•• “What’s most exciting?”
•• “What was most rewarding?”
•• “What was most challenging?”
•• “What did you learn about yourself?”
•• “What’s now possible?”
•• “What can you do differently? What are some options?”

Curious Questions to Forward the Action (Below Drawn From Co-Active Coaching
by Whitworth et al. (2007)
•• “What advice would you give a friend in your situation?”
•• “What do you wish I’d dare you to do?”
•• “What are going to do and when will you do it?”
•• “What will you have to give up or let go?”
•• “Who can you reach out to for support?”
•• “What resources, structures or technology might you employ in the
future?”
•• “What can you change in your environment?”
•• “What obstacles can you proactively remove? How?”

Listening (Below Drawn From Co-Active Coaching by Whitworth et al. (2007)

○ When listening at Level I, although you listen to the words of the
other person, your attention is on what the words mean to you. At the
center of your attention are your thoughts, feelings, and judgments.
When listening at this level when coaching, you relate what the client
is saying to yourself and your life. Your internal mind chatter is at a
maximum. At this level of listening, you desire more information for
yourself to increase your understanding and meet your needs. While
this can be an effective way to listen (e.g., when you are trying to make
sense of an unfamiliar situation, dining at a restaurant, or being
coached), this is not an effective mode of listening when coaching
another person, since your attention is on yourself.
○ When listening at Level II, you hold a sharp focus on the other person.
As well as listening to what the other person is saying, you are listening
Eriksen et al. 31

to how she is saying it. You are aware of her emotions and mood, the tone
of her voice, and her interpretations, judgments, and body language. You
even are aware of what she is not saying. When coaching, you are aware
of the impact of your listening and responses on your coachee. Through
empathy and questioning for clarification, you help your coachee increase
his self-understanding and understanding of what’s possible, as well as
learn from his experience. Your mind chatter disappears, and you don’t
worry about what to say to your coachee next. What you say becomes an
intuitive response to what he or she is saying.
○ When listening at Level III, you are aware of everything you are
bringing in through your senses and arising from your intuition. It is a
type of environmental listening through which “[y]ou notice the tem-
perature, the energy level, the lightness or darkness, both literally and
figuratively. Is the [coachee’s] energy sparking or flat? Is she cool,
lightly present or tightly controlled? You will know by listening at
Level III . . . Performers develop a strong sense of Level III listening.
Stand-up comedians, musicians, actors, training presenters—all have
the ability to instantly read a room and monitor how it changes in
response to what they do . . . you must be very open and softly
focused, sensitive to subtle stimuli, ready to receive information
from all of your senses (Whitworth et al., p. 39).”

Common inhibitors to listening on Levels II and III

○ Planning your response while the person to whom you are listening is
still talking
○ Assuming you know what the other person will say and finishing his
or her sentence in your mind, if not out loud
○ Interrupting to express our knowledge, thoughts or opinions
○ Letting your mind wander from the present moment to something that
draws your attention because it seems more important
○ Interpreting what the speaker is saying to match your own beliefs
○ Sharing your own experience rather than trying to understand the
speaker’s experience
○ Offering advice
○ Filling the silence
○ Being judgmental

Listening coaching skills

○ Articulating
○ Clarifying
32 Journal of Management Education 44(1)

○ Meta-view
○ Metaphor
○ Acknowledging

Appendix B
Feedback Survey Results on Peer-Coaching Experience
Open-ended questions—Students indicated whether they strongly agree,
agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with the following statements:

Undergraduate Graduate
students students
Q1. Over the course of the semester, I was able to develop my ability to effectively
coach others in their self-development.
Strongly agree 64.06% 46.34%
Agree 35.94% 51.22%
Disagree 2.44%
Strongly disagree
Total respondents 64 41

Q2. Over the course of the semester, my partner’s coaching ability improved.
Strongly agree 78.57% 56%
Agree 21.43% 20%
Disagree 4%
Strongly disagree
Total respondents 14 25

Q3. Over the course of the semester, I improved my ability to effectively listen to
my partner.
Strongly agree 73.44% 60.98%
Agree 26.56% 36.59%
Disagree 2.44%
Strongly disagree
Total respondents 64 41

Q4. Over the course of the semester, I improved my ability to ask my partner self-
developmental questions.
Strongly agree 70.31% 41.46%
Agree 29.69% 56.10%
(continued)
Eriksen et al. 33

Appendix B. (continued)

Undergraduate Graduate
students students
Disagree 2.44%
Strongly disagree
Total respondents 64 41

Q5. Over the course of the semester, practicing coaching on a weekly basis
contributed to my development as a peer coach.
Strongly agree 92.86% 90.92%
Agree 7.14% 4.54%
Disagree 4.54%
Strongly disagree
Total respondents 14 22

Q6. The self-developmental peer coach training provided at the beginning of the
semester was valuable to my development as a self-developmental peer coach.
Strongly agree 46.88% 48.78%
Agree 51.56% 48.78%
Disagree 1.56% 2.44%
Strongly disagree
Total respondents 64 41

Q7. Receiving structured feedback from my partner was valuable to my

development as a self-developmental peer coach.
Strongly agree 63.49% 41.46%
Agree 34.92% 58.54%
Disagree 1.59%
Strongly disagree
Total respondents 63 41

Q8. Receiving structured feedback from my partner was valuable in learning how to
more effectively coach him or her.
Strongly agree 60.94% 53.66%
Agree 39.06% 43.90%
Disagree 2.44%
Strongly disagree
Total respondents 64 41
(continued)
34 Journal of Management Education 44(1)

Appendix B. (continued)

Undergraduate Graduate
students students

Q9. Over the course of the semester, being coached by my partner contributed to
my development as a leader.
Strongly agree 68.62% 40.00%
Agree 31.38% 60.00%
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Total respondents 51 25

Q10. Over the course of the semester, being coached by my partner contributed
to my self-development.
Strongly agree 62.50% 63.41%
Agree 37.50% 36.59%
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Total respondents 64 41

Open-Ended Questions:
Through your experience of coaching your partner, what do you believe to be
most important factor in helping you become an effective self-developmental
coach?
What was your greatest personal challenge to improving your effectiveness
as a self-developmental coach?
What helped you most in developing as a self-developmental coach over the
course of the semester?
What would have helped you further develop as a self-developmental coach
over the course of the semester?

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publi-
cation of this article.
Eriksen et al. 35

ORCID iD
Matthew Eriksen https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0268-7024

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