What is the GROW Coaching Model?
What is the GROW Coaching Model?
Tuesday, 18 August 2026
Key takeaways
- The GROW coaching model is a four-stage structure for coaching conversations: Goal, Reality, Options and Will.
- It emerged in the late 1980s and is widely associated with Sir John Whitmore and colleagues, popularised by the book Coaching for Performance.
- GROW helps a leader draw out a person’s own thinking through questions rather than giving instructions.
- The model is flexible: a good conversation moves between the four stages rather than marching through them in order.
- For managers in Australian workplaces, GROW turns everyday conversations into moments of development and accountability.
The GROW coaching model is a simple four-stage framework for structuring a coaching conversation around a person’s Goal, their current Reality, their Options and their Will to act. It gives a leader or coach a clear path to help someone think through a challenge and commit to action, using questions rather than instructions.
GROW is one of the best-known coaching models in the world and sits at the heart of the shift from command-and-control management towards leaders who develop their people. In Australian workplaces, across both the public and private sectors, that shift is well underway. This guide explains what each stage of the GROW coaching model does, where the model came from and how leaders and managers use it in practice in an Australian setting.
What does GROW stand for?
GROW stands for Goal, Reality, Options and Will. Each letter marks a stage in a coaching conversation: the person clarifies what they want (Goal), describes where they are now (Reality), generates possible ways forward (Options) and commits to specific action (Will). The stages give a conversation shape without dictating its content.
The four stages work as a sequence of questions that move a person from intention to action. Performance Consultants, the firm Sir John Whitmore helped found, sets out the GROW model as beginning with the Goal, examining the current Reality, opening up Options and then securing the Will to act. In practice the Goal stage defines what a useful outcome looks like, the Reality stage surfaces facts and assumptions, the Options stage widens the field of possibilities and the Will stage turns a chosen option into a concrete commitment. Structured this way, GROW keeps a conversation purposeful without the coach supplying the answers.
For a leader, this means GROW is less a script to follow than a map of which kind of question will be most useful at each point in a conversation.
Where did the GROW coaching model come from?
The GROW coaching model emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1980s and is widely associated with Sir John Whitmore, Graham Alexander and Alan Fine. Whitmore made the model widely known through his book Coaching for Performance, first published in 1992 and now in its fifth edition, which is often described as one of the most influential texts in workplace coaching. The model grew out of earlier work applying performance psychology from sport to business. Its aim was always practical: to help people bring the best out of themselves. Whitmore framed coaching as unlocking a person’s own potential and helping them learn for themselves, rather than being taught the answers. The three developers later read the final letter differently, with Whitmore insisting it stood for Will, the will to commit, while others described it as Way Forward. That origin explains why GROW relies on questions rather than instruction.
How do you run a GROW coaching conversation?
You run a GROW conversation by working through the four stages with open questions, letting the other person do most of the thinking. A typical conversation starts with the Goal: what the person wants from this session and from the bigger picture, framed as something specific and stretching. It then turns to Reality, where questions such as what is happening now and what has already been tried surface the real situation. Often the solution starts to emerge on its own. From there the Options stage invites the person to generate as many ways forward as possible before weighing them up. The Will stage pins down what they will actually do, by when and how they will stay accountable. The order is not rigid: a good conversation usually opens with Goal and Reality, then moves freely between the four stages as understanding develops.
Why should leaders and managers use GROW?
Leaders increasingly need to coach rather than command. GROW gives them a practical way to do it. Harvard Business Review, in the widely cited article The Leader as Coach by Herminia Ibarra and Anne Scoular, argues that command-and-control leadership no longer fits fast-changing organisations and that managers should instead facilitate problem solving by asking questions and drawing insight from their people, using the four-step GROW model to build those habits. Australian organisations are moving the same way. The Australian Public Service Academy, which develops capability across the Commonwealth public service, teaches coaching conversations and the manager-as-coach model to help build engaged and high-performing workplaces, a sign that the approach is embedded in Australian practice rather than imported theory. The professional field has grown alongside it. In 2025 the International Coaching Federation (ICF) estimated a record 122,974 coach practitioners worldwide. That figure counts professional coaches rather than managers, but it shows how far coaching has moved into mainstream working life, in Australia as elsewhere. For an Australian manager, learning GROW is a direct route into this way of leading.
Does GROW work in every situation?
GROW is powerful, but it is not the right tool for every conversation. Because the model is non-directive, it works best when the person has the knowledge and capacity to reach their own answer and mainly needs structure and encouragement to do so. Harvard Business Review distinguishes between directive coaching, where a manager shares expertise, non-directive coaching, where they draw answers out and situational coaching that flexes between the two, noting that sometimes no coaching at all is the right call, such as in a genuine emergency. A skilled leader reads the situation and chooses accordingly, using GROW when development and ownership matter more than speed. Seen this way, GROW is one valuable option in a leader’s range rather than a formula for every exchange.
Bringing GROW into your leadership with AcademyGlobal
GROW is a practical skill and it develops fastest through structured practice with feedback rather than reading alone. AcademyGlobal (AG), a Sydney-based professional development provider with 20 years of leadership and management training across 20 countries and ISO 9001:2015 certification, teaches coaching skills to leaders and managers using a version of this framework. To build the capability directly, explore AG’s Coaching for Leaders and Managers course, which is built around the ToGROW model, a common extension of GROW that adds a Topic stage at the start to agree what the conversation is about before setting the Goal. The workshop gives leaders the questions and the practice to guide both individual and team development. For managers applying these skills day-to-day, related programs such as Managing Staff Performance, Leading High-Performance Teams and the First-Time Managers Program put coaching conversations to work in performance, team and early leadership settings.
These sit within AG’s wider Leadership and Management Skills portfolio and are delivered by faculty who have held senior leadership roles across the public and private sectors. AG has delivered leadership and management training for Australian government agencies at Commonwealth, New South Wales, Victorian and Queensland level and for major Australian organisations, so the coaching skills are taught in the context Australian leaders actually work in. Used consistently, the GROW coaching model can turn routine management conversations into moments of genuine development, helping people think for themselves and commit to action they own.
Frequently asked questions
What does GROW stand for in coaching?
GROW stands for Goal, Reality, Options and Will. The four stages guide a coaching conversation from clarifying what the person wants, to understanding their current situation, to exploring ways forward and finally to committing to action.
Who created the GROW coaching model?
The GROW model emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1980s and is widely associated with Sir John Whitmore, Graham Alexander and Alan Fine. Whitmore popularised it through his book Coaching for Performance, first published in 1992.
Is the GROW model only for professional coaches?
No. While professional coaches use GROW, it was designed for use by leaders and managers in everyday conversations. It also works for team discussions and for self-coaching, where a person works through the four stages on their own.
What is the difference between GROW and ToGROW?
ToGROW adds a Topic stage before Goal. The Topic stage agrees what the conversation is broadly about before the person defines a specific goal within it. The remaining four stages are the same as in GROW.
Is the GROW coaching model used in Australia?
Yes. GROW is widely used across Australian public and private sector workplaces. The manager-as-coach approach it supports is taught within the Australian Public Service. Australian training providers, including AcademyGlobal, build leadership programs around it.
References
Performance Consultants (2025). The GROW Model.
Whitmore, J. (2017). Coaching for Performance (5th Edition). Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
International Coaching Federation (2025). Global Coaching Study.
Ibarra, H. and Scoular, A. (2019). The Leader as Coach. Harvard Business Review.
Australian Public Service Academy (2026). Coaching and Developing Others.