Servant Leadership, Coach Learning and Care

A prominent theme in contemporary coach learning research has been the shift towards recognition of less formal infrastructure in helping coaches learn their craft. Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner’s (2020) latest iteration of their social theory of learning provides a promising device through which to conceptualize the facilitation of coach development from less formal and more ecological perspectives. Specifically, we consider how Systems Convenors and learning facilitators might help practitioners enhance their knowledgeability. Additionally, considerable recent discussion has concerned the importance of helping coaches to learn to be ‘caring’ practitioners. This paper considers how Systems Convenors and learning facilitators might enhance coaches’ caring practice. We propose Servant Leadership as a tool to solve these intersecting problems. Here, we consider how principles commensurate with both Servant Leadership and Christian theology, namely (a) serving the followers’ highest priority needs, (b) foresight and (c) providing direction, offer considerable potential to help coaching become more caring.