| Summary: | 15 middle managers from a major Danish, nationwide company were trained to coach by two coaching psychologists through theoretical presentations, individual coaching and peer coaching sessions with direct supervision (learning-by-doing, (see Spaten, 2011b)). Until now there has been conducted rather limited empirical research on managers who coach their employees (Crabb, 2011). The aim was to investigate the managers challenging and successful experiences when coaching their employees and how these coaching sessions were assessed by their employees. The qualitative analysis elicited three main themes: 1) coaching skills, 2) professional and personal development, and 3) the coaching relationship and power relations. Middle managers’ coaching skills were assessed very positively by employees across all coaching sessions. One key finding of the study is that the manager as coach, should be very sensitive and empathetic in building the coaching relationship, be aware of the power relations and make clear boundaries between the role as leader and the role as coach.
Keywords: Executive & employee coaching, middle-managers, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis,
coaching and power relationships, coaching skills, productivity
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