Written with clarity and warmth, this book is a transformative guide for professionals determined to create learning-rich, trust-filled environments where people and organizations not only grow—but thrive together.
As group coaching rises as a leading and cost-effective tool for leadership development, organizational learning, and personal growth, many practitioners remain unsure how to distinguish it from team coaching or facilitation—or how to deploy its full power. Erek Ostrowski, blending original research and two decades of real-world expertise, offers a groundbreaking capabilities-based model that moves beyond checklist competencies and rote interventions. With an emphasis on flexibility, responsiveness, and adaptability, coaches will find practical guidance for working with complex, ever-changing client systems and fostering authentic human connection, learning, and transformation. Practical frameworks, vivid vignettes, and accessible theory anchor the book’s approach for facilitating psychologically safe, reflective, and accountable group experiences. Readers will discover the five key group factors—exchange, vicarious learning, belonging, role flexibility, and peer accountability—that enable deep insight and sustained change.
Whether you are a leadership or executive coach, OD practitioner, educator, or supervisor, this book equips you with a research-informed, real-world toolkit for designing, facilitating, and teaching effective group coaching. Ultimately, Ostrowski’s work invites coaches and organizations to embrace the complexity, relational depth, and unique human potential that only group coaching can unlock.
Table of Contents:
Introduction. Part 1 - Foundations of Group Coaching. Chapter One: What is Group Coaching? Chapter Two: Why Group Coaching? Chapter Three: Five Group Factors That Support Learning & Change. Chapter Four: How Does Group Coaching Work? Chapter Five: Becoming a Group Coach: The Six Capabilities Framework. Chapter Six: Ethical Considerations and the Challenge of Group Work. Part 2 - Group Coaching in Context. Chapter Seven: Group Coaching in Organizations… Desired Outcomes & Conditions for Success. Chapter Eight: Common Pitfalls in Organizational Group Coaching. Chapter Nine: Designing and Implementing Group Coaching Programs. Chapter Ten: Frontiers in Group Coaching Scholarship and Research. Chapter Eleven: Educating the Capable Group Coach. Conclusion. Bibliography
About the Author :
Erek J. Ostrowski, PhD, PCC is Chair of the Leadership and Organizational Coaching master’s concentration at the University of Pennsylvania, where he leads curriculum design and instruction for one of the field’s premier graduate coaching programs. As a board member of the Graduate School Alliance for Education in Coaching (GSAEC), he plays an active role in advancing standards for coach education globally. He is also a Professional Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation, a certified coach supervisor (Oxford Brookes), and the owner and principal of Verve Coaching.
Review :
Coaching groups, however widespread, remains an underexplored modality of coaching. Erek Ostrowski’s book offers a comprehensive guide to students and practitioners interested in becoming a capable group coach. Written by a thoughtful and insightful educator, this book will surely become a faithful companion to coaches who focus not only on the ‘how’ of this practice but are committed to explore the ‘why’ behind their choices of interventions. Moreover, they will be sensitised to potential issues and pitfalls that are inevitable in this complex practice. A highly important text.
Tatiana Bachkirova, Professor of Coaching Psychology at Oxford Brookes University, UK
Erek has written a stellar book on coaching with groups. His grounded and multidisciplinary approach is refreshing. He blends insights from his own journey, his strong academic foundation, and his practice to offer a rich and robust resource.
David Drake, Founder of the Moment Institute, Inc.
This book is packed with useful information, regardless of whether you’re a practitioner, educator, or procurer of group coaching. Erek’s warm writing style feels like a conversation over coffee, which belies his expertise gained over two decades of work and scholarship. Treat this as your go-to handbook and return to it often as your group coaching understanding evolves.
Penny Potter, Founder of Productive Interactions and Director of Coach Education, George Mason University
