Coaching Books

I was 20+ years into my career in IT before I was introduced to the power of coaching. I hired a coach and experienced the power of exploring one’s goals, and having a good listener alongside.

I first studied the coaching as taught in the Clean Language community. You can find those books on my Clean Language Books and Resources page. For other coaching models, I found the books listed below helpful for business and organizational contexts. 

Business Coaching International – Transforming Individuals and Organizations – Sunny Stout Rostron, 2009. The UK Amazon site provides a cheaper option than the US site and a Kindle version, which the US Amazon site does not have.

This book contains a sweeping overview of business coaching with details about specific coaching models, examples from real business situations and a detailed 20 page bibliography. It is comprehensive, well structured, and includes a final chapter on research and evidence based outcomes. 

The Appendix on Competences in Business Coaching was my first exposure to the skills coaches would need to develop.  While coach training organizations maintain their own links to these, here you can find comparisons and similarities from the International Coaching Federation (ICF), the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches (WABC), and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC).   Seeking out the right organization with the right style and ethical concerns is important to do before you spend money on coaching training.  This is a wonderful initial resource for the aspiring business coach. Complement it with direct interviews of people who either train at or have been trained by the institution you are researching.

Since this book was published, Sunny Stout Rostron has continued to be a prolific author and contributor to the field of coaching and leadership development in South Africa and internationally.

Performance Coaching – A complete Guide to Best Practice Coaching and Training – Carol Wilson, 2014   Similar to the prior book in length and breadth, this book is also packed with information. Carol worked for Richard Branson’s Virgin organizations for many years and was also influenced by David Grove (Clean Language originator). You can read more about her illustrious career here.

With 52 chapters dealing with a huge variety of topics and models, I valued especially the 4th section, Tools of the Trade, which I use as a quick reference for ideas to bring into my coaching. There are 25 such tools, and the first two relate to Clean Language style coaching (no secret that that is one of my go to models).  You can preview the other tools by scrolling to the outline preview at the Amazon link above!

I appreciate Carole for her decades long experience in creating coaching cultures and the value that she brings to managers within organizations by having a broad variety of coaching paradigms to choose from. 

Coaching – Evoking Excellence in Others – James Flaherty, 2010

James Flaherty was heavily influenced by Fernando Flores and Humberto Maturana. With a heavy emphasis on organizational coaching, I valued this book for its in depth analysis of ‘speech acts’ and the importance given to a strong ongoing relationship between the coach and the client. Flaherty’s Flow of Coaching includes, ‘establish relationship’, ‘recognize opening’, ‘observe and assess’, ‘enroll client’, and ‘coaching conversation’. The author elaborates each of these steps in great detail and then weaves the story of a client throughout to illustrate the concepts.

There is a bibliography reference with comments at the end of each chapter which I found very useful for further reading. Flaherty has gone on to found the well known coaching model called Integral Coaching at New Ventures West.

If you would like to be coached or to have an opportunity to connect and explore what coaching is about, please don’t hesitate to set up an appointment with me here.