Silvia King
Mrs Silvia King is an enthusiastic empowerer of people and a Positive Psychology Coach. She is a PhD candidate with Heriot Watt University, exploring Coaching Psychology in a Middle East context, and holds an MA/lic.oec.publ. from the University of Zurich and an MSc in Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology (MAPPCP) from the University of East London. She is a graduate member of the British Psychological Society (GMBPsS) and an EMCC-accredited Senior Practitioner coach, a certified facilitator for Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence, EFT Master Practitioner, Laughter Yoga Teacher and MTa® Experiential Learning facilitator.
As a coach, trainer and consultant, Silvia works with individuals and teams to help them flourish through 1-to-1 Positive Psychology Coaching, trainings and workshops. She has over 20 years’ experience in cross-cultural corporate contexts, coaching at every level of seniority, and developing and delivering leadership trainings and wellbeing workshops and programmes as a trainer and consultant.
She is passionate about developing the coaching profession and its next generation of practitioners. Silvia is a guest lecturer for leadership programmes and adjunct faculty for coaching psychology with Heriot-Watt University. As Accelerator co-lead of EMCC Global’s Centre for Excellence in Research, Silvia works with volunteers to strengthen the coaching, mentoring and supervision professions through research. Her own publications include peer-reviewed academic journal articles and book chapters.
A patchy map of what coaching means in the MENA and Arab world
Coaching facilitates “the coachee’s attainment of professional or personal goals or outcomes”(Grant & Atad, 2022, p. 533) to achieve a desired change. The field of coaching psychology (CP) and the practice of coaching can be considered well-established fields especially in the Western world with a combined around 70’000 members at the two biggest global coaching bodies ICF and EMCC alone (EMCC Global, n.d.; ICF, 2023). While interest in coaching has increased across the Middle East, there appears to be a lack of understanding for the role of the coach and coaching (Passmore et al., 2019), while regional coaching research is limited (e.g., Dodds & Grajfoner, 2018; King et al., 2021; King & van Nieuwerburgh, 2020).
This scoping review aimed to map knowledge about and understanding of coaching and CP in the MENA and Arab world by systematically exploring the existing literature, using the PRISMA-ScR framework for scoping reviews (Tricco et al., 2018). 95 English-language articles were included in the review that focused on working-age populations and coaching in work-related contexts.
The analysis of the charted data showed an increase in publications from 2002-2022 in line with global trends, but an uneven distribution of literature across countries, sometimes unclearly defined methodologies and types of publications. The use of coaching was observed in three industry groups of private-sector business (n=33), education (n=38) and health (n=22). However, mapping coaching as a concept suggested that coaching as defined above had no or low relevance for the publication’s topic, study or observed phenomenon in almost half of the charted publications (n=41) and almost half provided no definition of coaching (n=43). However, most publications (n=81) described coaching behaviours, for example to describe interventions or programmes that were implemented or tested.
Overall, this scoping review was able to map the existing coaching and CP literature relating to the MENA and Arab region and identify gaps that can guide future research. The review was also able to clarify the concept in so far as it showed the breadth of “understandings” in research literature alone what coaching is and what coaches do, adding to the findings in the report by Passmore et al (2019). A possible implication of this may be that our understanding as researchers and practitioners of what coaching is in the region may need to change.
References
Dodds, G., & Grajfoner, D. (2018). Executive coaching and national culture in the United Arab Emirates: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. International Coaching Psychology Review, 13(1), 89–105.
EMCC Global. (n.d.). EMCC Global: Who we are. Retrieved November 23, 2024, from https://www.emccglobal.org/about_emcc/who_we_are/
Grant, A. M., & Atad, O. I. (2022). Coaching psychology interventions vs. positive psychology interventions: The measurable benefits of a coaching relationship. Journal of Positive Psychology, 17(4), 532–544.
King, S., & van Nieuwerburgh, C. (2020). How Emirati Muslims experience coaching: An IPA study. Middle East Journal of Positive Psychology, 6, 73–96.
King, S., van Nieuwerburgh, C., Bolton, L., Serkal, A. al, Assaad, L. el, & Mattar, M. (2021). Exploring the need for an indigenous coaching psychology for the Middle East: A panel discussion at the International Psychology Conference Dubai (IPCD). Coaching Psychologist, 17(1), 32–37.
Passmore, J., Brown, H., DiGirolamo, J., & Hullinger, A. (2019). Coaching in the Middle East. Henley Business School and International Coach Federation.
ICF. (2023). Professional Coaches Membership and Credentialing Fact Sheet. International Coach Federation.
Tricco, A. C., Lillie, E., Zarin, W., O’Brien, K. K., Colquhoun, H