ABSTRACT
This chapter explores and addresses coaching as a transitional process. It also explores the role of the coach. Coaching can offer a solution to many of these shortcomings, especially if thought of as a socio-psychological and transitional process. Coaching can be designed to meet the specific needs of executives by focusing on different domains of concern, on roles, tasks, authority, and the organizational context as well as the emotions that are stirred up. H. Bridger realized that the transitional processes in organizational situations resonated with the mother–infant experiences that D. W. Winnicott described of dependency, independency, attachment and separation, the period when the infant tests the environment to ascertain his own independence. Thinking about coaching as a transitional process and holding this in mind made it possible to facilitate David's move from a lawyer into business. The psychometric assessments were the "baseline" for the coaching, and the final evaluation referred back to these.
