WHAT IS GROUP COACHING?
Group coaching is one of the most misunderstood formats in professional coaching. It is frequently confused with team coaching, workshop facilitation, and group training. This guide explains precisely what group coaching is, how it works, and when it is the right choice. It connects to our guide on what coaching is and our article on what is team coaching.
What group coaching is
Group coaching is a structured coaching process in which one coach works with multiple individuals simultaneously. Each person in the group is an individual client. The group format is used to enhance and enrich the coaching experience, through peer learning, shared reflection, and the diversity of perspectives that a group brings, while each participant continues to work on their own individual development goals.
This is the defining characteristic of group coaching, and the one most often misunderstood. The participants in a group coaching programme are not a team being coached together. They are individual clients who happen to be coached in a group context. They may not know each other well. They may work in different parts of an organisation or come from entirely different organisations. What they share is the coaching space and the opportunity to learn from each other's experience as well as from the coaching itself.
The coach's role in group coaching is the same as in one-to-one coaching: non-directive, focused on facilitating the thinking of each participant, and drawing on the coaching relationship rather than expertise or instruction. What changes is the complexity of managing multiple coaching relationships simultaneously and the skill of using group dynamics productively rather than letting them derail individual development.
Group coaching vs team coaching
The distinction between group coaching and team coaching is the most important one in this area, and the one most frequently confused. They are not the same thing.
The individuals in the group are each the client.
Participants may or may not work together. They do not need shared performance objectives.
The group format enhances individual coaching through peer learning and shared reflection.
The coach manages multiple individual coaching relationships within the group context.
Success is measured by individual development and goal achievement.
The team itself is the client, not the individuals within it.
Participants work together and have shared performance objectives and collective accountability.
The coach works with the team's collective dynamics, identity, and performance as a system.
The coach holds the whole team in mind, not individual relationships within it.
Success is measured by the team's collective development and performance.
In practice the boundary can blur, particularly when a group of people who work together participate in group coaching. A skilled coach will be clear about which contract applies and will manage the group accordingly. Mixing the two approaches without clarity creates confusion for participants and reduces the effectiveness of both. For a complete guide to team coaching, read our article on what is team coaching.
Group coaching vs training and workshops
Group coaching is also regularly confused with training and workshop facilitation. The distinctions matter because they shape what participants should expect and what outcomes the format can deliver.
Non-directive. The coach does not deliver content, expertise, or answers.
Participant-driven. The agenda emerges from what participants bring.
Focused on individual development, thinking, and insight.
The participants' own experience is the primary resource.
Outcomes are individual and vary by participant.
Directive. The trainer or facilitator delivers expertise, tools, and frameworks.
Content-driven. The agenda is set in advance by the programme design.
Focused on skills, knowledge, and behavioural change.
The trainer's expertise is the primary resource.
Outcomes are standardised and consistent across participants.
Both formats have their place. Training delivers knowledge and skills efficiently at scale. Group coaching develops the individual thinking and self-awareness that allows people to apply that knowledge effectively in the complexity of their actual work. The strongest development programmes use both.
How group coaching works in practice
A group coaching programme typically involves four to eight participants working with one coach over a series of sessions, usually monthly or fortnightly, across a period of three to six months. The group size is important. Too small and the peer learning dynamic is limited. Too large and it becomes impossible for each participant to receive meaningful individual attention.
Each session follows a broadly consistent structure. Participants check in, sharing what they are working on and what they want to take from the session. The coach then facilitates time for individual coaching within the group, using the group's responses, questions, and perspectives to enrich each person's coaching rather than limiting what is possible to just the coach's own contribution.
Contracting is especially important in group coaching. Participants need to know what confidentiality means in this context, how the group's time will be shared, and what the norms for engagement are. A group coaching programme that has not contracted well will underdeliver, however skilled the coach. For more on how contracting works in coaching, read our guide to contracting in coaching.
Group coaching is increasingly used by organisations to develop cohorts of leaders, managers, or professionals simultaneously. It provides many of the benefits of one-to-one coaching at a fraction of the cost per participant, while adding the distinctive benefit of peer learning. For organisations interested in group coaching for leadership or management development, visit our corporate and group bookings page or book a call with the team.
When group coaching is the right choice
Group coaching is less appropriate when the content a participant needs to bring is highly sensitive or personal, when the level of trust between participants is insufficient for genuine openness, or when participants need a level of individual focus that the group format cannot sustain. In those cases, one-to-one coaching is the right choice.
Group coaching for coaches: supervision
Group coaching principles also underpin one of the most important professional development practices for qualified coaches: group supervision. In group supervision, a trained supervisor works with a small group of coaches, facilitating reflective practice on their coaching work, ethical challenges, and professional development.
Group supervision combines the benefits of individual supervision with the peer learning of a group context. Coaches bring cases and challenges from their practice, and the group's collective reflection often surfaces insights that a one-to-one supervision conversation would not reach. It is also significantly more affordable than individual supervision, making it accessible to coaches at every stage of their career.
TPC Coaching Academy's Group Supervision programme provides structured supervision with a trained supervisor, with hours eligible for ICF CCE credit and EMCC CPD recognition. It runs as four sessions over eight months, giving coaches consistent reflective space across their practice year.
Training to deliver group coaching
Delivering group coaching well requires competence that goes beyond one-to-one coaching skill. Managing multiple individual coaching relationships simultaneously, using group dynamics productively, contracting with a group rather than an individual, and maintaining the non-directive approach when a group context creates constant pressure toward facilitation and instruction, these are distinct capabilities that require specific development.
The foundation is a strong one-to-one coaching qualification. TPC Coaching Academy's Coach Practitioner programme develops the core coaching competencies that underpin both individual and group coaching practice. It is ICF and EMCC accredited, runs over seven months, and introduces the group dynamics and systemic thinking that group and team coaching require.
For coaches wanting to develop further into team coaching, our Coaching for Teams advanced pathway is a two-day specialist programme. For those working toward the ICF Advanced Certification in Team Coaching, the Transformational Team Coaching programme is the full route. Visit our course selection guide to find the right starting point.