Educators' perceptions of the value of coach mindset development for their well-being

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine high school educators' (three teachers, a career counselor and a social worker) perceptions of training to develop a coach mindset and the perceived impact of the training on their professional and personal well-being. Design/methodology/approach Individual semi-structured interviews and 16 h of observational data of professional development were collected. Findings Five themes emerged from the data. Participants: challenged themselves to work on coach skills; affirmed the importance of relationships; identified areas of increased skill development; envisioned coach training throughout the school; and applied a coach mindset in other domains. These themes are related to two constructs of psychological capital - efficacy and hope - which contributed to participants' professional and personal well-being. Research limitations/implications - The low number and selection of participants make transferability of the findings difficult. Practical implications - Findings indicate that a coach mindset may increase educators' well-being as they learn to build positive student, collegial and personal relationships. Recommendations for further research include exploring relationships between the development of a coach mindset, increased positive student outcomes and educator well-being. Social implications The development of a coach mindset may lead to increased educator well-being and positivity. Originality/value As few empirical studies exist regarding the effectiveness of coach training for teachers, the findings of this study fill a gap in the literature regarding these topics.