Capstone title and abstract
From Coach to Positive Psychology Coach
I. Objective:
As an executive coach, I work with emerging leaders, new managers, teams, and executives who are attempting to achieve business results and gain greater personal fulfillment. I am interested in crafting an identity as a positive psychology coach and identifying the most effective positive psychology concepts and interventions for effective coaching - those interventions that help clients achieve marked improvement in a short period of time.
My hypothesis is that it is possible to become a deeper coach helping clients to achieve improved outcomes by identifying a few specific vehicles of constructive engagement (positive interventions), developing depth and expertise as a coach in these areas, and applying these to coaching engagements. Further, I am interested in connecting three vehicles of change: executive coaching, visual learning, and positive psychology. Each field offers influential tools for helping individuals achieve greater effectiveness and well-being; combined I believe these fields can lead to even greater impact and ease of learning.
II. Executive Summary:
From Coach To Positive Psychology Coach is a reference manual (with potential resource materials and training program) comprised of a philosophy, identity statement, and a few specific vehicles of constructive engagement (positive interventions) that will allow me to develop greater depth and expertise in positive coaching so that I can help clients move deeper, faster and with greater effect. Each method or intervention will use visual diagrams to support client understanding and change.
The success of positive psychology interventions and visual learning methods combined with the growing field of executive coaching provides rich opportunity to develop a few specific, potentially transformative positive coaching methods. This manual will include a literature review of pertinent positive psychology, coaching and visual learning research.
The goal is to gather a broad perspective of successful coaching interventions and positive psychology constructs. From there, I will focus to identify a limited number of key concepts that I can research deeply and develop into compelling interventions with supporting visuals. Constructs for developing interventions may include: optimism, resilience, explanatory style, strengths, emotional intelligence, positive emotions, team effectiveness (Losada, 2004), Appreciative Inquiry, Flow, Positive Psychological Capital (PsyCap), self-efficacy, growth mindset, goal theory, hope theory, self-regulation, somatics, mindfulness, decision-making, conflict management, moral reasoning, motivation/self-determination, self-regulation, etc.
