Teoría General del Coaching

Abstract

The fundamental problems that plague the profession and discipline of coaching are addressed, such as (1) the lack of a sufficiently agreed definition, (2) its intrinsic link to an amalgam of disparate methodologies, and in many ways contradictory, (3) its excessive inclination to the consumption of tools and/or theories from other fields and disciplines, alien to it, and isolated from common and coherent methodological, philosophical and/or scientific bases and roots, (4) the non-recognition and/or articulation of a binding tradition, where their identity can be clarified and understood compared to the many other aid processes that currently exist, (5) the scant academic research that addresses these fundamental problems, and the absence of accurate information about their identity, application and real scope of their interventions, with the aim of (1) descriptively articulating the theoretical essence of coaching as an element of identity and fundamental essential in the recognition of their own nature, (2) establish the guiding and fundamental principles that guide their practice, (3) describe and develop the fundamental competences and/or skills that must be mastered in their professional practice, and that are coherent to their essence and principles, (4) scientifically base its relational, procedural and conversational structure, and finally (5) propose a general theory of coaching, which integrates all of the above, and that accounts for its distinguished epistemology, teleology (or purpose), operational methodology, competence approach, tool’s orientation and types of results that are achieved in their relationships, processes and conversations. The research is carried out on the basis of methodological dualism, individualism and subjectivism, with the subsidiary postulate of the existence of the tacit component of knowledge, under the combination of historical-evolutionary analysis (of the thinking of key authors who influenced the emergence of coaching) and an axiomatic-logical-deductive articulation. The most important results of the research are framed in the very articulation of the general theory of coaching, based on three scientific references: (1) First reference (ante actio), relative to the continent, (2) Second reference (post actio), relative to the content and the operational methodology, and (3) Third reference, (in actio), relative to the theoretical application.