Growth- and Security-Orientation in Coaching: Success through Motivational Fit

In coaching, moving from a current state to a desired target state has an essential value. To overcome this discrepancy and achieve a goal, effective self-regulation is required. The theory of the regulatory focus (Higgins, E. T., The American Psychologist 52:1280–1300, 1997) is based on two motivational orientations that determine which self-regulatory strategies people prefer when pursuing their goals. While people with a promotion orientation are driven by a growth motive and focus primarily on achieving positive results, people with a prevention orientation are driven by a security motive, which directs their focus to averting negative results. What consequences result from these different motivational orientations for the design of coaching processes? How should coaching processes be designed to be able to respond to individual orientation toward growth or security? In this chapter, we try to provide answers to how regulatory fit situations (Higgins, E. T., Current Directions in Psychological Science 14:209–213, 2005) can be created in the coaching setting, which give clients a feeling of motivational congruence and thus enable them to pursue their goals with intrinsic motivation and consequently to grow in a self-effective way.