Factors influencing implementation of executive peer coaching

Abstract

Peer coaching within the South African context is not widely promoted or implemented. In the field of coaching, peer coaching is slowly entering the marketplace with a focus on career learning and self-driven leadership development. It is one of the options available to organisations in which to assist leaders with addressing development needs. This research set out to establish the factors behind the rationale to implement a peer coaching program at executive level. The research followed a qualitative design methodology making use of semi-structured interviews to gather data. The richness of the data lay in the semi-structured approach which allowed for the participants to air their views, yet for the researcher to remain true to the purpose of the study. The findings suggest that within the current South African context, there are more constraining factors present which may inhibit the decision to implement a peer coaching program than enabling factors. These include the perceived limited choice of peer coaches available; the challenges of setting up a coach-coachee relationship, which includes trust and confidentiality; the presence of dominant leaders; power dimensions within organisations; environments of mistrust, gossip and competitiveness and the presence of diversity discrimination. It further posits that the leaders of the organisations play a pivotal role in determining the rationale behind the decision to implement a peer coaching program.