| Summary: | The contribution of the voice of the executive coaching client in understanding the process of executive coaching. The literature on executive coaching suggests that there is a need to have a greater understanding of the process of executive coaching and this study questions whether the voice of the executive coaching client is a critical missing factor in building this understanding. An explorative, phenomenological approach, gathering interpretive data using qualitative methodologies within a constructivist paradigm was used to allow the reality of the executive coaching clients to emerge. This approach facilitated the identification of common structural themes that help to inform the process of executive coaching for practitioners, executive coaching clients and organisations, thereby giving the process of executive coaching more structure, commercial usage and credibility. Following a discussion of common structural themes, three key contributions are posited to explain why - despite the common structural themes - there is such a high level of complexity and ambiguity in the process of executive coaching and why it is important that attempts to make executive coaching more structured do not stifle its originality and fluidity, but allow each coaching engagement to follow its own natural - and potentially undefined - path. This study argues that it is the methodology used in giving a voice to the executive coaching client and allowing their reality to emerge that has enabled these contributions to be posited and that the voice of the executive coaching client is indeed a critical factor in our understanding of executive coaching. The implications of the study for theory and practice, and suggestions for future research in relation to the process of executive coaching, are examined in the conclusion of the thesis.
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