This research was supported by the Israeli Coaching Chamber, ICF and Israel Association of Coaching Psychology.
This report provides an overview of the main findings from the 2019 Middle East coaching research project, undertaken by Jonathan Passmore, Hazel Brown, Sigalet Finkelstein, Joel DiGirolamo and Alicia Hullinger in partnership with coaching colleagues in the region. The study was planned in Autumn 2018 and the survey undertaken during a 10-week period, between February and April 2019.
The aim of the research project was to reach the widest number of practising coaches in Israel. To assist in this process the Israeli Coaching Chamber translated the survey into Hebrew. The research questions were designed by the researchers, in collaboration with colleagues in the region. The questions were designed to echo the research project undertaken in 2017 in Europe. The survey was publicised through established coaching federations, as well as online through LinkedIn interest groups and through a series of talks and webinars.
In total, 77 coaches completed the questionnaire. As noted in Table A, the majority of participants were female (73. 1%). This was a higher proportion than in Europe, where the balance was close to two-thirds female. Almost all the participants were Israeli nationals. It is hard to estimate the total number of coaches working in Israel, but based on information gathered from professional bodies, there are an estimated 600 coaches identifying as professional coaches.
Reflection practice is widely acknowledged to be an important part of a coach’s professional development. Coaches need to be able to understand both themselves and others. Reflection supports this, as well as providing the opportunity to consider ways to improve and develop. In this section we explore how coaches reflect on their practice. Most of our graphs include comparative data collected from previous research using the same questions. As comparators we have included the UK and Europe (excluding the UK) – each sample with over 500 participants.
Coaches in Israel actively use self-reflection as a tool, along with mentoring/co mentoring. Levels of engagement with supervisors are slightly lower than the UK, with almost 30% not engaged in supervision.
However, there is significantly higher supervisor engagement in Israel than in other countries, which could be seen as reflecting the developed nature of the coaching market within the country.
The models used by Israeli coaches are similar to those used in Europe, but there are notable exceptions –specifically, the use of emotional coaching and systems coaching. Some approaches, such as NLP, are more popular than in Europe, while others, such as transactional analysis, are less popular. Evaluation is a feature of coaching, with the most popular methods being a combination of informal review at the end of each session. Feedback, as in Europe, is mostly gathered from clients, with very low levels of engagement with the commissioning manager or sponsor
Contracting and ethical practice are important but often underresearched elements of coaching practice. The data suggests that most coaches view the individual client as the most important. Contractual terms were similar to UK and European responses, as shown in Diagrams 11 and 12. What was interesting was the stronger focus on ethical practice – specifically, the focus on the sanctions to be imposed on coaches who break professional boundaries, as in the three hypothetical cases.
Passmore, J., Brown, H. J., Finkelstein, S., DiGirolamo, J., & Hullinger, A. (2019). Coaching in Israel 2019.