Chapter 12 – General Readings
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Leadership Learning Strategies
Peer Coaching
Coaching is a learning strategy that is used extensively in leadership development to
promote learning. Coaching can come from an external paid coach, a critical friend, or a
peer. Peer coaching is commonly used in higher education contexts and is an
educational strategy in which individuals of equal rank or standing coach one another
towards achieving some higher level of performance.
The purpose of peer coaching is to help learners explore their experiences and
current practice, attend to feelings, test their conceptions against the frameworks of
others and then re-evaluate their experience and subsequent learning. There is strong
support for the use of peer coaching in professional development (Joyce & Showers
1982, 1995; Kohler, Crilley, Shearer, & Good, 1997; Showers 1984, 1989; Williamson &
Russell, 1990; Wynn & Kromrey, 1999). This kind of discussion and reflection fosters
deeper learning and a much more integrative and applied understanding of learning and
development, because learners must ‘reflect-in-action’ and ‘reflect-about-action’ (Schon,
1991). It is this reflection on learning that strengthens one’s professional competence as
a manager/leader.
A variety of benefits follow from effective peer coaching, these include: mutual
problem solving; learning through observation; and self and peer development. These
can lead to deeper learning, critical thinking and higher levels of leadership and
managerial competency.
Effective peer coaching requires the development of an effective communications
strategy between the coach and coachee. Active listening, open-ended questioning,
giving and receiving non-evaluative feedback, paraphrasing and probing are techniques
that are needed for an effective coaching experience.
Co-operation is essential. This means that both parties have to be individually
accountable for participating fully in the peer coaching experience. Trust is an important
part of this partnership; the coachee must believe that you, as his/her peer coach, are
there to provide honest and helpful support.
The premise behind peer coaching is that it creates a ‘safer’ learning environment for
the adult learner. The informal communications between peers are less threatening than
the advice from a senior manager, supervisor, or even an instructor. This stems from
the unavoidable power differential between a staff person and superior, or student and
instructor. This power differential, whether real or perceived, can impede learning. In
peer coaching situations, peers are at an equal level. Feedback and guidance from a
peer coach, therefore, is far less threatening. With this greater perceived sense of
safety, learners can be more open and inquisitive with one another and explore more
fully areas of critical cognitive conflict. Even if after this exploration they cannot resolve
the cognitive conflict, learners feel more empowered as a team to approach their senior
counterparts or instructor for support because the potential for negative appraisal is
lessened.
The best peer coach is someone you trust, who shares a similar position in the
organisation, and is faced with many of the same responsibilities and tasks as yourself.
It may even be better to identify a person in a different Faculty so that ‘internal’ Faculty
issues do not get in the way of effective coaching.