Coaching frameworks

In corporate leadership coaching, one distinction clears up a lot of confusion:

ICF is primarily a professional competency and ethics framework for how coaching should be practised. GROW, CLEAR, OSKAR, solution-focused coaching, cognitive-behavioural coaching, systemic coaching, etc. are primarily models or schools for how change can be facilitated.

So they are not really competitors. A strong executive coach can be ICF-aligned while using GROW in one session, CBT ideas in another, systemic thinking with a leadership team, and 360° feedback across the engagement.

1. What exactly does ICF propose?

The does not prescribe one coaching methodology.

Its current 2025 framework defines eight competencies within four domains. The update was based on a global job analysis involving nearly 3,000 coaches.

ICF domain	Competencies	In simple language
Foundation	Ethical Practice; Coaching Mindset	Be ethical, self-aware, reflective and genuinely coach-like
Co-creating relationship	Establishes & Maintains Agreements; Cultivates Trust & Safety; Maintains Presence	Contract properly, create psychological safety and be fully present
Communicating effectively	Listens Actively; Evokes Awareness	Listen beyond words and help the client see something new
Learning & growth	Facilitates Client Growth	Convert insight into learning, action and sustainable change

The philosophical centre of ICF coaching is therefore approximately:

The coach is not there primarily to give the client answers. The coach creates a relationship and conversation in which the client develops awareness, choices and ownership of action.

That distinction becomes extremely important when comparing coaching with consulting, mentoring and management.

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2. The major coaching models and schools

Think of them as different lenses rather than competing religions.

GROW — performance and action

Probably the most famous corporate coaching model, associated particularly with Sir John Whitmore.

G — Goal
R — Reality
O — Options
W — Will/Way Forward

For example:

"I need to become a better CEO."

Goal: What would "better CEO" actually look like?

Reality: What's happening currently?

Options: What could you do differently?

Will: What specifically will you do?

GROW is extraordinarily useful because managers can learn it easily. It is structured, pragmatic and action-oriented.

Its limitation is equally important: not every leadership problem is a goal-setting problem.

A CEO struggling with identity, power, conflict avoidance, unconscious patterns or organisational politics may require much deeper work than Goal → Reality → Options → Action.

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3. Solution-Focused Coaching / OSKAR

Rather than analysing extensively:

"Why is this problem happening?"

solution-focused coaching asks:

"What would better look like?"

"When does this problem NOT happen?"

"What are you already doing that works?"

"What is the smallest useful next step?"

OSKAR commonly expresses this as:

Outcome → Scaling → Know-how/resources → Affirm & Action → Review

It is particularly useful in organisations because it avoids endless problem analysis.

The underlying philosophy is:

Build on strengths and exceptions rather than spending excessive time diagnosing deficits.

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4. Cognitive-Behavioural Coaching

This has considerable overlap with the CBT ideas you've previously explored.

The underlying proposition is:

Situation → interpretation/beliefs → emotions → behaviour → consequences

Suppose a newly promoted VP says:

"My CEO questioned my proposal. Clearly he doesn't trust me."

A cognitive-behavioural coach might explore:

Fact: CEO questioned the proposal.

Interpretation: "He doesn't trust me."

Emotion: Anxiety/defensiveness.

Behaviour: Overexplaining, avoiding disagreement.

The coaching intervention isn't merely:

"What will you do next?"

It investigates the thinking that produces the behaviour.

This becomes especially powerful in executive coaching because leaders frequently have deeply established assumptions such as:

"I must have the answer."

"Conflict is dangerous."

"If I delegate, I lose control."

"Asking for help demonstrates weakness."

Changing those assumptions can change leadership behaviour.

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5. Positive Psychology / Strengths-Based Coaching

Here the emphasis moves from:

What's wrong with you?

toward:

What capacities already exist that we can amplify?

Typical territory includes:

strengths, resilience, meaning, optimism, values, purpose, engagement and psychological resources.

Gallup-style strengths approaches belong broadly within this territory.

This is particularly useful for leadership development because development doesn't always require "fixing weaknesses."

Sometimes moving someone from excellent → exceptional comes from deploying distinctive strengths differently.

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6. CLEAR — deeper relational coaching

Peter Hawkins' CLEAR model is commonly represented as:

Contracting → Listening → Exploring → Action → Review

Notice the difference from GROW.

GROW moves quickly toward:

Goal → Options → Action

CLEAR creates somewhat greater space for:

relationship + exploration + reflection.

This becomes useful for complex executive situations where the problem presented initially may not actually be the real problem.

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7. Systemic Coaching — increasingly important in senior leadership

This represents one of the biggest evolutions in executive coaching.

Traditional coaching tends to conceptualise:

Coach ↔ Leader

Systemic coaching asks:

What system is this leader operating inside?

So the unit of analysis becomes:

Leader
↓
Team
↓
Peers
↓
Boss/Board
↓
Customers
↓
Organisation
↓
Stakeholders/environment

Peter Hawkins' systemic team coaching work, for example, explicitly extends coaching toward collective leadership and stakeholder systems rather than treating leadership merely as an individual's behaviour.

Imagine a CFO who "doesn't collaborate."

An individualistic approach asks:

"How can the CFO become more collaborative?"

A systemic coach may discover:

Sales and Finance have conflicting incentives.

The CEO rewards functional competition.

Budget allocation creates territorial behaviour.

Board pressure encourages short-termism.

Now "fix the CFO" is the wrong diagnosis.

That's an important development in contemporary executive coaching.

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8. Psychodynamic coaching

This is deeper territory.

It explores patterns such as:

authority relationships, identity, defence mechanisms, projection, attachment, conflict patterns, unconscious motivations and recurring interpersonal dynamics.

For example:

A CEO repeatedly hires powerful executives and then eventually marginalises them.

The interesting coaching question isn't merely:

"How should you delegate?"

It might become:

"What happens inside you when someone working for you becomes powerful?"

This can produce profound executive development.

But it also illustrates why ethical boundaries matter: coaching must not quietly turn into psychotherapy where the coach lacks appropriate clinical competence.

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9. EMCC versus ICF

The is probably the closest major professional-framework comparison with ICF.

Its framework identifies eight areas:

Understanding Self → Commitment to Self-development → Managing the Contract → Building the Relationship → Enabling Insight & Learning → Outcome & Action Orientation → Use of Models & Techniques → Evaluation.

There is huge overlap with ICF.

But I would characterise the emphasis slightly differently:

ICF: particularly strong on coaching identity, client autonomy, presence, relationship, listening and evoking awareness.

EMCC: somewhat more explicitly accommodates coaching + mentoring, practitioner development, models/techniques, evaluation and contextual sophistication.

EMCC also explicitly highlights evidence-based practice, reflective learning and systemic thinking.

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10. So what do virtually all credible schools agree upon?

Underneath the terminology, there is remarkable convergence.

Most serious coaching traditions ultimately contain something like:

Relationship → Awareness → Choice → Action → Reflection

Or expanded:

Trust → Exploration → Insight → Options → Experimentation → Feedback → Learning → Behaviour change.

ICF calls this cultivating learning and growth.

GROW calls it Goal–Reality–Options–Will.

CB coaching works through cognition and behaviour.

Solution-focused coaching discovers exceptions and possibilities.

Positive psychology identifies strengths and resources.

Systemic coaching expands the field to stakeholders and systems.

Psychodynamic coaching goes deeper into recurring patterns.

Different maps; much overlapping territory.

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11. Where I think corporate coaching has evolved

The older picture of coaching was roughly:

A coach asks powerful questions and never gives advice.

That is now too simplistic for sophisticated executive work.

The more contemporary picture is:

Coach as thinking partner

A senior executive doesn't necessarily need someone repeatedly asking:

"And what do YOU think?"

They need someone capable of challenging assumptions without taking ownership of their decisions.

Context matters

Leadership cannot be separated from organisational politics, culture, strategy, power, incentives and stakeholders.

Hence systemic approaches have become increasingly important.

Insight without behavioural change isn't enough

Excellent conversations are not necessarily excellent coaching.

Corporate coaching ultimately needs some translation into behaviour:

Insight → experiment → behaviour → feedback → reflection → adaptation.

Data increasingly enters the room

Modern executive coaching can incorporate:

360° feedback, psychometrics, engagement data, stakeholder interviews, business KPIs and behavioural observations.

The coach doesn't have to pretend that the client's self-perception is the only legitimate source of information.

Coaching is becoming developmental rather than remedial

Historically:

"Send this difficult manager for coaching."

Increasingly:

"This person has CEO/CXO potential. Let's accelerate development."

Research from the likewise frames coaching around leader effectiveness, job performance, contribution to business success and capacity to lead under pressure.

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12. The most important distinction for leadership coaching

I would put the landscape on this continuum:

Therapy ← Coaching → Mentoring → Consulting

The questions gradually change.

Therapist:
"What underlying psychological pattern is producing this?"

Coach:
"What are you noticing? What needs to change?"

Mentor:
"I've encountered something similar. Here's what I learned."

Consultant:
"I've analysed the situation. Here's what I recommend."

A corporate executive coach may move somewhat across the middle of this continuum—but should be transparent about which hat is being worn.

That is where ICF's insistence on contracting and agreements becomes extremely valuable.

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My synthesis: the contemporary model of executive coaching

If I were designing a leadership-coaching practice today, I would not choose between ICF, GROW, CBT, positive psychology and systemic coaching.

I'd build a layered model:

ICF = professional foundation

Ethics + contracting + trust + presence + listening + awareness + client ownership.

↓

Psychology = understanding the person

CBT + strengths + identity + emotional regulation + behavioural patterns.

↓

Systemic thinking = understanding the environment

Boss + team + organisation + stakeholders + culture + power + incentives.

↓

GROW/CLEAR/solution-focused = structuring conversations

↓

Leadership data = reality testing

360° + stakeholder feedback + psychometrics + performance/business context.

↓

Behavioural experimentation

"What will you actually do differently before our next conversation?"

↓

Reflection and accountability

"What happened? What did you learn? What will you modify?"

That, in my view, captures the contemporary truth of corporate leadership coaching better than allegiance to any single model.

The fundamental shift is from "coach the individual to solve a problem" toward "help the leader understand self, behaviour, relationships and system—and translate that awareness into sustained leadership effectiveness."

And importantly, this doesn't contradict ICF. The 2025 ICF framework itself remains intentionally broad rather than prescribing a single technique; its latest revision was explicitly designed around how coaching practice has evolved.

If you're considering becoming a leadership/executive coach yourself, I can next map out the major routes—ICF ACC/PCC/MCC vs EMCC, Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coaching, Co-Active, systemic coaching, and psychology/CBT-based coaching—and tell you which combination would make the most sense for someone coming from a senior HR/OD background.