Collaborative Coaching to Unlock Your Full Potential

The desire for collaboration, whether in a research or organizational context, is ideally driven by a shared desire to contribute to a collective enterprise. In the academy, collaboration holds the promise of creating knowledge that has greater reach than any single individual would have on her own, as well as of combatting the personal isolation of scholars working in small towns, in niche areas, or in cutting-edge, unfamiliar fields of research. Coaching relationships-whether individualized or done in collaborative groups-foster internal investigation and self-knowledge, followed by reflection and action that seek to unlock the personal potential in the service of one's overall life and career goals. Through an examination of personal experience in and research on coaching, this article presents a case for incorporating coaching into professional academic and personal development.