A Reflection on Coaching: Bringing Us Up to Date and a Look Ahead

The coaching profession has evolved greatly over the past decade, making now an ideal time to evaluate its current state. The number of professional coaches has grown dramatically, and the efficacy of the coaching modality has been proven. In addition, specialty coaching, that is coaching within a domain in which the coach has expertise, has emerged for coaches looking to establish a niche practice. Coaching skills are being more broadly deployed in team coaching by managers and leaders, and increasingly by everyone in organizations. And since coaching skills enhance dialogue, they can improve communication and mutual understanding in all conversations, which benefits individuals (micro), teams and organizations (meso) and the wider global community (macro). Finally, emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technology is poised to further grow and evolve the profession, which in turn would benefit individuals, teams, and organizations. With this in mind, the purpose of this perspectives paper is to introduce some of what we know about coaching with a view to encouraging the reader to think about what is next.