Abstract
Leaders facing adaptive challenges must navigate competing demands and persistent tensions that resist resolution. Coaches increasingly integrate futures thinking to develop adaptive capacity, an orientation we term “futures-focused coaching,” yet case formulation frameworks for adaptive challenges are lacking. Through a personal construct analysis of 24 coaches, we identified three adaptive polarities: temporal (present-moment grounding ↔ future visioning, 75% of participants), systemic (individual agency ↔ systemic engagement, 67%), and strategic (responsive adaptation ↔ intentional direction, 58%). Building on Lane's case formulation approach, polarity management theory, and adaptive leadership frameworks, we develop pattern recognition criteria for formulating complex cases. Implications span coaching practice and case formulation.
Keywords
Introduction
Leaders increasingly confront adaptive challenges requiring simultaneously engaging competing values, perspectives, and time horizons (Uhl-Bien & Arena, 2017, 2018). These adaptive challenges (Heifetz et al., 2009) resist technical solutions, demanding the capacity to navigate ongoing tensions between seemingly contradictory demands. Sternberg (2019) terms this broad adaptation: simultaneously adapting to environmental conditions, shaping environments to fit purposes, and creating new environmental possibilities.
From a complexity leadership perspective, adaptive challenges cannot be addressed through reductionist approaches seeking simple linear cause–effect relationships (Morin, 2008; Prigogine & Stengers, 1997; Stacey, 1995; Uhl-Bien & Arena, 2017). Instead, they require frameworks recognising leadership as emerging from dynamic interactions where new learning and problem-solving arise as outcomes (Lichtenstein & Plowman, 2009). Clarke (2013, p. 138) argues that complexity leadership development must focus on “seeking to influence the contexts and processes that give rise to these network dynamics,” positioning adaptive challenges not as problems requiring resolution but as ongoing tensions requiring navigation.
Leaders facing such challenges require coaching approaches that can hold multiple competing perspectives simultaneously rather than privileging one over another (Cavanagh, 2013; Cavanagh & Lane, 2012). Traditional leadership development has focused primarily on individual leader competencies (Day, 2001), neglecting the systemic nature of leadership practice (Clarke, 2013). Yet generic instructions to “notice complexity” provide insufficient guidance for systematic case formulation when coaching for adaptive challenges.
The absence of such frameworks creates challenges for case formulation in futures-focused coaching. Futures-focused coaching is defined as helping clients to develop anticipatory capacity to work with multiple possible futures whilst engaging adaptively with present challenges. Whilst existing formulation approaches guide case conceptualisation and intervention selection (Lane & Corrie, 2009), they provide limited guidance for navigating persistent tensions between competing imperatives. Complexity leadership theory positions such tension as essential for adaptive capacity (Uhl-Bien & Arena, 2018).
This recognition aligns with polarity management theory (Johnson, 1996), which conceptualises persistent tensions as interdependent poles requiring ongoing navigation rather than resolution. However, identifying which polarities characterise specific coaching contexts remains challenging without systematic empirical research. This study addresses this gap through a Personal Construct Theory (PCT) methodology, examining how experienced coaches construe futures-focused practice. PCT is particularly appropriate for polarity identification because all personal constructs are inherently bipolar (Kelly, 1955), as practitioners naturally organise their understanding through contrasting poles (Stojnov & Pavlovic, 2010). The repertory grid approach systematically surfaces these bipolar constructs as they emerge in practitioners’ meaning-making (Burr & King, 2019; Fransella et al., 2004), enabling identification of which polarities characterise adaptive challenges in coaching practice.
This study addresses the research question: What are the characteristic polarities that emerge when experienced coaches formulate cases involving futures-focused adaptive challenges? Through repertory grid interviews with 24 coaches, we identified three empirically-derived adaptive polarities characterising this coaching domain: Temporal Adaptation (Present-Moment Grounding ↔ Future Visioning), Systemic Adaptation (Individual Agency ↔ Systemic Engagement), and Strategic Adaptation (Responsive Adaptation ↔ Intentional Direction). These polarities provide dimensional content for Laneet al.'s (2025), 4P case formulation framework, offering coaches structured guidance for navigating adaptive challenges involving competing temporal, systemic, and strategic perspectives.
We first review literature establishing theoretical foundations, then describe our PCT methodology. The findings section presents the three adaptive polarities with empirical evidence. The discussion examines how the framework extends Lane's 4P case formulation approach, empirically grounds polarity management theory in coaching practice, and contributes to interpretative clustering methodology before considering limitations and future research directions.
Literature Review
This literature review establishes the theoretical foundations for adaptive polarity case formulation. We examine case formulation approaches in coaching, frameworks for understanding adaptive challenges and emergent complexity, polarity management theory, and personal construct theory's methodological foundations. Together, these perspectives establish the rationale for identifying adaptive polarities through systematic analysis of experienced coaches’ construct systems, extending existing formulation frameworks to address dimensional complexity when persistent tensions characterise coaching challenges.
Case Formulation in Coaching
Case formulation has been defined as “an explanatory account of the issues with which a client is presenting (including predisposing, precipitating and maintaining factors) that can form the basis of a shared framework of understanding and which has implications for change” (Lane & Corrie, 2009, p. 194). While formulation has established roots in applied psychology (Johnstone & Dallos, 2006), frameworks for complexity contexts remain recent (Kovács & Corrie, 2021).
Lane and Corrie (2009) developed a systematic formulation approach centred on Purpose, Perspective, and Process, later refined as the 4P Framework with the addition of Positionality (Lane et al., 2025). Case formulation frameworks distinguish situation-specific, pattern-based, and case-level conceptualisation (Kovács & Corrie, 2021). While leadership research recognises that navigating complexity requires flexing between opposing but complementary behaviours in an inherent balancing act (Kaiser & Overfield, 2010), and Kovács and Corrie (2021) acknowledge such tensions characterise complexity contexts, their three-level structure does not specify which tensions characterise adaptive work, leaving coaches without dimensional content to guide formulation.
Both frameworks acknowledge critical limitations when working with complexity. Lane and Corrie (2009, p. 196) noted formulation has historically overemphasised individual factors while neglecting nested contexts operating simultaneously across multiple levels, referencing “fuzzy space” where multiple perspectives intersect yet lacking the dimensional structure for such complexity. Kovács and Corrie (2021, p. 278) emphasised that “without a formulation, practice can take the form of feeling one's way in the dark,” yet their framework does not specify which tensions and trade-offs characterise adaptive challenges requiring ongoing navigation.
The fundamental gap is the lack of dimensional content for adaptive challenges. When challenges involve ongoing tensions between competing demands, traditional formulation structures prove insufficient because factors operate simultaneously across poles rather than pointing toward single-dimension interventions. Without dimensional frameworks, coaches cannot determine which perspectives to prioritise when challenges span multiple levels or how to formulate competing demands without privileging one over another.
Adaptive Challenges and Emergent Approaches
Certain coaching challenges resist permanent solutions, involve ongoing tensions between competing values, and unfold in contexts of uncertainty where traditional planning proves inadequate. Complexity theory distinguishes such challenges from conventional problems. Poli (2013) contrasts complicated systems (decomposable through expert analysis) with complex systems (emerging from multiple interacting causes requiring ongoing management). Snowden and Boone's (2007) Cynefin framework shows complex contexts require pattern-based management with leaders probing-sensing-responding rather than applying predetermined solutions.
Heifetz et al. (2009) distinguish between technical problems and adaptive challenges, with the latter characterised by gaps between aspirations and capacity, conflicts among competing values necessitating trade-offs, and requirements for learning rather than expertise application. From a complexity leadership perspective, Uhl-Bien and Arena's (2018) adaptive space concept describes how such conflicting demands generate emergent responses through ongoing interaction rather than resolution.
Traditional coaching frameworks have historically emphasised vision and goal-setting grounded in linear cause-and-effect assumptions useful in stable environments (Cavanagh, 2013). Contemporary coaching scholarship increasingly recognises goals as emergent rather than pre-set (Clutterbuck, 2013), positioning goals in the middle rather than at the beginning of developmental change processes. This shift reflects growing appreciation of the need for approaches consistent with emergent non-linear dynamics (Cavanagh, 2013), yet frameworks for managing such emergent complexity remain underdeveloped. Navigating emergent complexity requires more sophisticated temporal orientation than linear planning provides. Anticipation theory (Poli, 2010, 2017) distinguishes anticipatory systems (where future states may determine present changes) from mechanistic systems (where only past determines present). This matters because human systems are anticipatory, and representations of possible futures actively shape current decisions (Miller, 2018).
Futures literacy (Miller, 2015, 2018) defined as the capability to actively use the future in present decision-making, provides crucial grounding for coaching in uncertainty. It involves recognising and working with anticipatory assumptions rather than projecting current patterns forward, helping clients distinguish between “colonising” the future (projecting current assumptions onto imagined futures) and using the future (allowing multiple futures to expand present possibility) (Miller & Sandford, 2019). These perspectives suggest that coaches working with adaptive challenges require frameworks that attend to characteristic polarities, providing dimensional content for Lane and Corrie's (2009) formulation meta-structure.
Polarity Management Theory
Polarity management theory (Johnson, 1996) distinguishes between “problems to solve” and “polarities to manage.” Problems present either/or choices resolving issues definitively. Polarities involve interdependent opposites where both poles contribute essential value, and overemphasising one pole eventually creates difficulties requiring attention to the neglected pole. Unlike problems, polarities require ongoing navigation rather than resolution.
Donnelly (2020) argues that many organisational polarities reflect socially constructed binary oppositions inherited from modernist thinking. Drawing on Morin's (2008) complexity theory, Donnelly emphasises engaging polarities requires both distinguishing elements and recognising connections—a dialogical relationship maintaining productive tension without forcing synthesis. Manderscheid and Harrower (2016) demonstrated empirically that polarities manifest prominently in leadership transitions, identifying five characteristic polarities with temporal dimensions proving particularly salient when navigating uncertain futures.
Application to coaching practice remains limited, with virtually no research connecting polarity management to coaching formulation (Manderscheid & Freeman, 2012). This gap is particularly evident regarding futures-focused coaching, where no frameworks specify the characteristic polarities that emerge when formulating cases involving clients navigating uncertain futures.
Polarity management finds theoretical grounding in PCT, which conceptualises all constructs as inherently bipolar dimensions of meaning (Kelly, 1955). Procter and Ugazio's (2017) work on family constructs and semantic polarities demonstrate polarities function as relational structures creating interdependence. PCT's foundational alignment with coaching principles (Stojnov & Pavlovic, 2010) and emphasis on anticipation in contexts of rapid change and instability (Stojnov et al., 2011) make it methodologically suited for investigating how coaches conceptualise adaptive challenges where competing demands generate emergent responses through ongoing interaction (Uhl-Bien & Arena, 2018). Procter and Ugazio's (2017, p. 76) finding that semantic polarities may be tripolar with median positions emerging from “balancing processes” suggests that effective engagement with adaptive challenges requires simultaneous orchestration of polarity tensions rather than sequential movement between discrete positions.
Integration and Research Gap
While case formulation provides meta-structure, complexity theory establishes that adaptive challenges require navigating polarities, polarity management offers conceptual frameworks, and PCT provides methodological access to bipolar meaning making, no empirical research identifies which specific polarities characterise futures-focused adaptive coaching. Existing formulation frameworks acknowledge complexity and paradox (Kovács & Corrie, 2021; Lane & Corrie, 2009) yet lack dimensional content specifying characteristic tensions. Polarity research documents organisational tensions (Manderscheid & Harrower, 2016) yet does not connect these to coaching formulation. Futures literacy research emphasises temporal sophistication (Miller, 2018) yet does not specify how temporal polarities manifest in coaching. This study addresses this gap by empirically investigating: What are the characteristic polarities that emerge when experienced coaches formulate cases involving futures-focused adaptive challenges?
Methods and Materials
Methodological Approach
This exploratory study adopts a PCT methodology due to its focus on anticipation and future-oriented meaning-making (Kelly, 1955). PCT conceptualises personal constructs as bipolar dimensions that people use to make sense of experience and anticipate future events (Caputi et al., 2012). This bipolar structure makes PCT methodology particularly suited to studying how coaches navigate polarity tensions in futures-focused coaching. The repertory grid technique enables systematic exploration of how coaches construe their practice (Fransella et al., 2004), while interpretative clustering (Burr & King, 2019) reveals how constructs interconnect to form the polarity patterns through which coaches make sense of developmental work addressing adaptive challenges.
Research Design
A sequential explanatory mixed method design (Creswell, 2015) was used to identify characteristic polarities that emerge when experienced coaches formulate cases involving futures-focused adaptive challenges.
The design comprised three phases: (1) repertory grid interviews eliciting personal constructs from 26 coaches, (2) quantitative interpretative clustering analysis identifying network patterns within individual construct systems, and (3) narrative interviews enabling coaches to interpret emergent clusters, followed by cross-case pattern analysis.
Participants and Sampling
Participants were recruited through purposive sampling, appropriate for exploratory research seeking to understand the construct systems of experienced practitioners (Jankowicz, 2004). Six criteria guided selection: (1) evidenced professional coaching qualification or credentialing, (2) minimum three years of professional practice, (3) demonstrable expertise in futures thinking or related complexity disciplines, (4) practice contexts involving future-oriented work, (5) peer recognition in the coaching field, and (6) diversity across methods, demographics, and geography. These criteria ensured participants possessed both legitimate coaching expertise and sufficient futures-focused practice to have developed meaningful construct systems about this work.
Twenty-six coaches were selected with demonstrated expertise in futures-oriented coaching or coaching in contexts characterised by uncertainty and complexity. A summary of the participant characteristics is presented in Table 1. Following completion of all data collection phases, two coaches were excluded during cross-case analysis as their datasets did not meet minimum inclusion criteria (≥6 constructs classified, ≥1 overarching construct with nexal support, ≥1 fully developed polarity with transcript evidence), resulting in a final analytical sample of 24 coaches.
Summary of Participant Characteristics.
To maintain clarity between coach and construct identifiers in the results section, individual coaches are referred to as Participant 1 (P1) through Participant 24 (P24), while construct numbers within each coach's repertory grid retain the diagram notation (C1, C2, etc.).
Limitations include geographic concentration in Southern African and European contexts, with limited representation from other regions. The “peer recognition” criterion relied partly on subjective peer recommendation. However, sample size and diversity were appropriate for PCT methodology, prioritising depth of construct elicitation over statistical representation.
Data Collection
Phase 1: Repertory Grid Interviews
The repertory grid technique (Fransella et al., 2004) was used to explore the personal constructs participants applied when formulating cases involving futures-focused coaching. This provided a means of making coaches’ anticipations and bipolar meaning structures explicit (Fransella et al., 2004; Poli, 2017). Repertory grid methodology has been applied across diverse coaching research contexts, including practitioner typologies (Jackson, 2005) and coaching relationship formation (O'Broin & Palmer, 2010), with recent methodological advances in the analysis of grid data (Burr et al., 2020).
Seven coaching cases (elements) from each participant's practice were used in the repertory grid interview, an element sample size enabling sufficient construct elicitation while remaining cognitively manageable for participants (Jankowicz, 2004). Triadic elicitation (presenting three cases and asking how two are similar and different from the third) systematically identified personal constructs relating to how coaches approached futures-focused work in those cases. Constructs were rated using binary scoring on a grid as required for the interpretative cluster analysis (Burr et al., 2020). The rating indicated which pole of each construct applied to each of the seven cases.
Phase 2: Narrative Interviews
A second round of narrative interviews provided an opportunity for all 24 participants to interpret clusters emerging from their repertory grid analysis. These interviews focused on how coaches navigate adaptive challenges within the coaching process when supporting leaders facing futures-focused challenges. Interview transcripts provided rich narrative data, which was analysed thematically (Braun & Clarke, 2006) throughout subsequent analytical phases to validate construct classifications, verify thematic groupings, and provide evidential grounding for polarity descriptions in coaches’ own practice language.
Data Analysis
Interpretative Clustering Analysis
Constructs elicited in the first interview were rated by participants using a binary rating system (Burr et al., 2020). These data were analysed using interpretative clustering via OpenRepGrid (http://ic.openrepgrid.org/), applying recommended parameters (Burr et al., 2020): six out of seven matches indicating a relationship and minimum of three clusters in a clique. This software generated visual cluster diagrams showing network connections between constructs.
A classification system was developed using a network conceptualisation of the personal construct system. The classification prioritised constructs that are more networked within the construct system: nexal constructs (forming nexus points connecting two or more cliques, connecting a clique to other constructs, or connecting three constructs not in a clique), nodal constructs (in relationship with one or two constructs but not in a clique), and peripheral constructs (having no relationships with other constructs).
Multi-Phase Analysis Process
Data analysis followed a systematic five-phase process applied to all 24 coach datasets: (1) Network position analysis classified constructs by network connectivity; (2) Thematic categorisation identified natural groupings through semantic analysis and cluster overlap patterns; (3) Polarity development transformed overarching constructs into actionable polarities grounded in polarity management principles; (4) Cross-case pattern analysis identified convergent patterns using explicit similarity criteria (structural, behavioural, intervention, and evidence) and frequency thresholds (core patterns: ≥10 coaches, ≥40% sample, ≥15 nexal support); (5) Framework Synthesis integrated validated patterns into coherent formulation guidance.
Cross-case pattern recognition (Phase 4) employed four explicit similarity criteria that all had to be met for polarities to be grouped together. (1) Structural similarity required that both poles of different coaches’ polarities addressed the same fundamental coaching tension (e.g., navigating present reality versus envisioning possible futures). (2) Behavioural similarity required that coaches identified comparable early warning indicators when clients over-focused on either pole (e.g., clients becoming stuck in reactive patterns or losing connection with current realities). (3) Intervention similarity required that coaches described comparable approaches for helping clients access the strengths of each pole (e.g., using mindfulness practices for present-moment grounding or scenario planning for future visioning). (4) Evidence similarity required that polarities were grounded in transcript evidence describing similar client challenges across coaching contexts (e.g., leaders struggling to balance immediate operational demands with strategic planning). Only polarities meeting all four criteria were grouped as instances of the same adaptive polarity pattern.
For each phase, the research team first manually analysed initial datasets to establish analytical protocols specifying classification criteria, evidence requirements, and quality standards. These protocols were then systematically applied across all coaches using AI assistance (Claude 4.5 Sonnet, Anthropic, 2025), with continuous researcher validation ensuring adherence to PCT methodology and polarity management principles. This approach aligns with emerging best practices for AI-assisted qualitative research, where AI systematically applies researcher-defined protocols while human oversight maintains interpretive control and validates all outputs (Al-Fattal & Singh, 2025; Morgan, 2023). All AI-generated outputs were reviewed against explicit criteria: construct classifications reflected objective network topology from OpenRepGrid outputs, thematic groupings and polarities were grounded in actual transcript evidence rather than theoretical imposition, and conservative inclusion criteria prioritised evidence quality over pattern completeness. Analytical decisions were guided by these criteria, with iterative refinement of protocols to enhance consistency and rigour.
This methodology enabled consistent application of complex analytical procedures across a large dataset while maintaining researcher control over theoretical interpretation. Initial manual analysis established analytical standards, structured protocols ensured systematic implementation, AI assistance provided consistent application across 24 coaches, and researcher oversight validated adherence to methodological and theoretical requirements throughout. Consistent with recommendations for transparent reporting of AI-assisted analysis (Christou, 2023), we explicitly document our approach: AI tools served as systematic coding assistants applying researcher-defined protocols, while all theoretical interpretation, pattern validation, and analytical decisions remained under human control. This division of labour, with AI handling systematic application and humans maintaining interpretive authority, addresses concerns about maintaining the researcher's analytical voice in AI-augmented qualitative research (Hitch, 2024; Roberts et al., 2024).
Results
Within-Case Analysis: Individual Construct Systems
Repertory grid analysis of 24 experienced coaches yielded 228 personal constructs describing how futures thinking was integrated into coaching practice. Interpretative clustering analysis (Burr et al., 2020) revealed that constructs within each coach's repertory grid demonstrated varying degrees of network integration. Across the sample, 30% of constructs were classified as nexal (highly networked, serving as integrative hubs within the meaning system), 44% as nodal (moderately connected), and 26% as peripheral (isolated with limited integration to other constructs).
Figure 1 and Table 2 present an illustrative example from Participant 11 (P11) practising as a sustainability leadership coach, showing how nexal constructs bridge multiple themes in futures-oriented practice. P11's nexal constructs included “Seven generations thinking ↔ Being in the here and now within your own lifetime” (C5) and “Working with networks ↔ Working with self” (C8), revealing core tensions organising her practice. The coach described these constructs as deeply interconnected: “The future cannot be worked with effectively without an emphasis on the present” and “effective work with the individual is in part associated with the ability to work with networks.” Such within-case analysis revealed sophisticated individual approaches to futures-focused coaching, but also considerable diversity in emphasis—some coaches focused primarily on temporal dimensions, others on systemic engagement or strategic adaptation.
Interpretative cluster analysis.
Case Construct Table.
This diversity raised a critical question for case formulation: despite varied individual approaches, do systematic patterns exist across coaches when working with adaptive challenges? Answering this required systematic cross-case pattern recognition using explicit similarity criteria (all four must be met: structural, behavioural, intervention, and evidence similarity) and conservative frequency thresholds (≥10 coaches, ≥40% of sample, ≥15 combined nexal support).
Cross-Case Pattern Recognition: Three Core Adaptive Polarities
Systematic cross-case analysis identified three core adaptive polarities meeting all four similarity criteria and exceeding frequency thresholds (≥10 coaches, ≥40% sample, ≥15 nexal support). Twenty-four coaches met minimum inclusion criteria (≥6 constructs classified, ≥1 overarching construct with nexal support, ≥1 fully developed polarity with transcript evidence), with two excluded at this stage due to insufficient data quality. These polarities characterise the dimensional structure of adaptive challenges in futures-focused coaching practice.
Temporal Adaptation: Present-Moment Grounding ↔ Future Visioning
Temporal adaptation emerged as the most prevalent polarity, with coaches describing the fundamental tension between present-moment grounding and future visioning. All member polarities addressed the core tension between present awareness and future orientation using diverse terminology: “Present-Moment Awareness ↔ Future Visioning,” “Immediate Responsiveness ↔ Generational Stewardship,” “Grounded Present Reality ↔ Expansive Future Vision,” and “Emergent Responsiveness ↔ Structured Planning.”
Coaches consistently identified early warning signs when clients over-focused on either pole. Over-focus on present-moment grounding manifested in recognisable patterns: clients repeatedly processing current challenges without forward movement, sessions becoming repetitive as clients say “I just need to vent” without engaging future possibilities, and clients stuck in reactive patterns losing motivational direction. Over-focus on future visioning appeared as anxiety when discussing futures, clients “thrashing around angrily” about current situations while fixating on distant goals, and disconnection from present reality creating “blank stares” when vision seemed too distant.
Common coaching approaches included mindfulness practices for accessing present-moment strengths, scenario planning and legacy thinking for future visioning, and integration strategies connecting current actions to future outcomes. P2 described a practice-grounded intervention: “Let's stay here and leave that future thing. Let's stay here and look at what do you want? What are your strengths?” This present-centred approach allowed future direction to emerge organically rather than overwhelming emotionally stressed clients with premature goal-setting.
Representative evidence illustrated the integration principle: P1: “We work with the what is, and the future will emerge… by muddling around in the present, we can find any one of those routes.” P3: “To get to the future, we've got to be in the present.” P4: “Everything's in flux… you working with what's happening now, short term, medium long term, you got to balance all of these things up.”
Systemic Adaptation: Individual Agency ↔ Systemic Engagement
Systemic adaptation characterised the tension between focusing on individual client agency and embedding coaching within broader stakeholder networks and systemic contexts. Member polarities addressed the individual-system boundary though framed differently by context: “Individual Development ↔ Systemic Contribution,” “Working with Self ↔ Working with Networks,” “Individual Agency ↔ External Dependency,” and “Self-Sufficiency ↔ Systemic Connection.” Coaches identified predictable problems from over-emphasis: over-focus on individual agency led to unimplementable solutions and powerlessness when systemic constraints emerged; over-focus on systemic engagement resulted in lost personal agency and external dependency.
Common coaching approaches included stakeholder mapping for systemic awareness, individual capability building for accessing agency, and positioning strategies helping clients see how individual development serves systemic contribution.
Representative evidence: P8: “When I hear you talk about alignment, that's your systemic view coming through… If we pull the one string, the other pieces come.” P14: “It's about gaining greater insight to help them decide what they want to change… understanding the here and now and the hidden dynamics allows them to pinpoint what they need to change.”
Strategic Adaptation: Responsive Adaptation ↔ Intentional Direction
Strategic adaptation characterised the tension between emergent, responsive adaptation to unfolding situations and intentional goal-directed planning. Coaches framed this tension using diverse terminology: “Emergent Responsiveness ↔ Structured Planning,” “Responsive Adaptation ↔ Intentional Direction,” “Circumstances Force Change ↔ Self-Organised Change,” and “Present Capacity ↔ Future Vision.”
Over-focus on responsive adaptation manifested as clients lacking strategic coherence, becoming purely reactive, and losing motivational direction. Over-focus on intentional direction appeared as inflexibility when circumstances changed, goal fixation without responsiveness, and anxiety when plans didn't unfold as anticipated. Common approaches included iterative planning cycles allowing strategy refinement, experimentation frameworks balancing structure with discovery, and ongoing planning processes that incorporate rather than eliminate responsiveness.
Representative evidence: P2: “Planning is continuous tense, every day planning.” P6: “I focus on set a goal, which is not too distant future, something you can achieve in three to six months, and then actively working towards that through experimentation.”
Synthesising an Adaptive Polarity Framework for Case Formulation
These three core polarities, Temporal Adaptation, Systemic Adaptation, and Strategic Adaptation, converged systematically across coaches from diverse theoretical orientations, coaching contexts, and cultural backgrounds. The convergence provides empirical support through: (1) nexal construct network positions demonstrating centrality within individual meaning systems, (2) four-criteria similarity matching ensuring genuine pattern recognition, (3) conservative frequency thresholds preventing inclusion of idiosyncratic themes, and (4) cultural validation showing patterns held across Southern African and European contexts.
Critically, these polarities emerged from coaches’ actual construing of their practice rather than researcher-imposed frameworks. The PCT methodology's emphasis on network position over content ensured polarities reflected how coaches organised their professional knowledge. The convergence across 24 coaches, each interviewed independently using repertory grid methodology, suggests these polarities characterise genuine dimensional structure in futures-focused coaching.
The three polarities are organised into an integrated framework (Table 3) for case formulation application. This synthesis is warranted by both theoretical and empirical considerations. Theoretically, polarity management theory (Johnson, 1996) emphasises that polarities are interdependent pairs requiring ongoing navigation rather than one-time solutions. When multiple polarities characterise a phenomenon, as these three do for futures-focused adaptive challenges, they exist within the same practice context and must be navigated concurrently rather than sequentially. Additionally, the PCT methodology revealed highly networked patterns rather than modular ones: nexal constructs frequently bridged multiple thematic domains, suggesting the polarities themselves emerge from interconnected patterns of meaning-making rather than operating in isolation.
Adaptive Polarity Framework for Futures-Focused Case Formulation.
Empirically, examination of individual coaches’ construct networks showed that polarities often co-occurred within the same cases. For instance, P11 demonstrated both temporal adaptation (“Seven generations thinking ↔ Being in the here and now”) and systemic adaptation (“Working with networks ↔ Working with self”), describing these as interconnected aspects of practice rather than discrete challenges. This pattern of co-occurrence across coaches suggests the polarities function as dimensions of an integrated phenomenon.
The three polarities shown emerged from systematic cross-case analysis meeting explicit similarity and frequency criteria as discussed in the methodology. Their organisation into this integrated framework reflects: (1) theoretical expectations from polarity management and PCT that multiple polarities within a practice domain function systemically rather than independently, and (2) empirical evidence that these polarities co-occurred within individual coaches’ construing. The framework structure facilitates case formulation by identifying which polarities are active in specific coaching situations. Table 3 presents the framework with recognition criteria, formulation questions, and intervention foci for each polarity.
Discussion
This mixed method study identified three adaptive polarities characterising futures-focused coaching practice through repertory grid analysis and narrative interviews with 24 experienced coaches. The findings address fundamental limitations in case formulation scholarship where existing frameworks acknowledge complexity and paradox yet lack dimensional content specifying characteristic tensions. We discuss how these findings extend case formulation frameworks by empirically specifying polarity content for adaptive challenges, while extending interpretative clustering methodology for systematic polarity identification
Extending Case Formulation Theory
The Adaptive Polarity Framework addresses three specific gaps in existing formulation approaches. First, Lane and Corrie (2009, p. 196) noted that formulation has historically overemphasised individual factors while neglecting nested contexts operating simultaneously across multiple levels, referencing “fuzzy space” where multiple perspectives intersect yet lack dimensional structure. Our three polarities specify which dimensions characterise adaptive challenges when multiple levels operate simultaneously: temporal (navigating present and future), systemic (navigating individual and system), and strategic (navigating emergence and intention).
Second, while leadership research recognises that navigating complexity requires flexing between opposing but complementary behaviours (Kaiser & Overfield, 2010), and Kovács and Corrie (2021) acknowledge such tensions characterise complexity contexts across their three formulation levels (situation, pattern, case), their framework does not specify which tensions characterise adaptive work. The Adaptive Polarity Framework addresses this gap by providing empirical dimensional content, specifically three core polarities that function as pattern recognition criteria enabling coaches to distinguish adaptive challenges requiring ongoing navigation from technical problems amenable to situation-level solutions.
Third, existing frameworks leave coaches without guidance for determining which perspectives to prioritise when challenges span multiple levels or how to formulate competing demands without privileging one over another. The framework addresses these challenges by identifying characteristic polarities emerging when adaptive challenges involve futures thinking. Rather than choosing between perspectives, coaches can recognise which polarities are active and design interventions leveraging both poles. This represents a fundamental shift from asking “which perspective best explains this case?” to “which ongoing tensions between perspectives characterise this case?,” aligning formulation with the paradoxical nature of adaptive leadership challenges.
Empirical Grounding of Polarity Management Theory in Coaching Practice
This study provides a systematic empirical identification of polarities characterising coaching formulation for adaptive challenges. Polarity management theory (Johnson, 1996) proposes that certain challenges involve interdependent opposites requiring ongoing navigation. While theoretically compelling, research connecting polarity theory to professional practice remains sparse (Manderscheid & Freeman, 2012). Our findings address this gap by demonstrating that temporal, systemic, and strategic polarities emerge as convergent patterns across 24 practitioners who independently identified the dimensions they use in futures-focused coaching, without researcher-imposed categories.
This convergence provides empirical grounding for polarity theory in coaching contexts. When experienced coaches independently describe their practice, they consistently construct these three polarities even when using different language and theoretical orientations. This cross-theoretical convergence suggests the polarities may reflect structural features of adaptive challenges in futures-focused coaching rather than artifacts of particular coaching approaches.
Our findings contribute to polarity theory by identifying specific polarities rather than polarity as abstract concept, demonstrating that polarities can be identified empirically through systematic analysis of practitioner construing, and specifying polarities emerging in futures-focused coaching contexts. Building on Procter and Ugazio's (2017) finding that semantic polarities function through “balancing processes” requiring simultaneous orchestration rather than sequential movement, our framework extends this insight by demonstrating that effective coaches manage multiple polarities simultaneously.
Extending Interpretative Clustering for Polarity Identification
A persistent challenge when studying professional practice is distinguishing empirically derived patterns from researcher-imposed categories (Donnelly, 2020). When seeking to identify which polarities characterise coaching practice, we needed a methodology that would surface these patterns from practitioners’ own meaning-making rather than imposing theoretical frameworks. PCT's repertory grid technique provides this methodological foundation because Kelly's (1955) insight that all constructs are inherently bipolar suggests the method should naturally reveal polarities. However, while the repertory grid technique enables the elicitation of bipolar constructs, it does not inherently distinguish which constructs function as highly networked dimensions characterising practice from those representing less connected concerns. We therefore extended interpretative clustering methodology (Burr & King, 2019) to systematically identify convergent patterns across practitioners, with polarities emerging consistently indicating structural features of adaptive challenges rather than idiosyncratic preferences.
First, building on interpretative clustering's capacity to reveal construct inter-relationships (Burr & King, 2019), we developed a classification for identifying which constructs were most central to coaches’ meaning systems. When analysing cluster patterns across the 24 coaches, we noticed some constructs appeared in multiple overlapping clusters while others were isolated. We formalised this observation through three categories: nexal constructs (appearing in multiple clusters, serving as integrative connections), nodal constructs (moderately connected), and peripheral constructs (isolated with limited integration). This classification enabled systematic identification of which constructs organised coaches’ thinking versus those playing marginal roles, providing explicit analytical criteria for moving beyond simple construct listing to identifying organising structures within professional expertise.
Second, we extended interpretative cluster analysis (Burr & King, 2019), originally developed for exploring individual meaning making, specifically for identifying polarities in professional practice. Burr and King (2019) demonstrated how interpretative clustering reveals which constructs hold implications for each other within a person's construing, enabling exploration of tensions in individual meaning making. We adapted this methodology for systematic polarity identification by focusing analysis on constructs demonstrating both high connectivity (nexal position) and thematic bridging functions (appearing across multiple cluster domains). This dual criterion approach enabled us to distinguish organising polarities—bipolar constructs that structure how coaches navigate their practice—from peripheral tensions that play more limited roles. We then applied explicit similarity criteria across cases (structural, behavioural, intervention, and evidence similarity) with conservative frequency thresholds (≥10 coaches, ≥40% of sample) to identify convergent patterns. By combining interpretative clustering's participant-led cluster identification with systematic classification and cross-case criteria, we developed a methodology for empirically identifying polarities without imposing researcher categories.
This methodological development contributes to interpretative clustering methodology and professional practice research. Our extension demonstrates how interpretative clustering can systematically identify convergent patterns across practitioners while maintaining its participant-led foundation. The nexal/nodal/peripheral classification provides analytic categories applicable to other studies requiring distinction between organising and peripheral constructs. Beyond PCT methodology, this addresses how to identify convergent patterns in practitioner thinking without imposing theoretical frameworks, with potential application wherever practitioners navigate ongoing tensions.
Limitations
Several limitations warrant acknowledgment. First, the sample comprised highly experienced coaches working with leaders facing adaptive challenges. Whether these polarities characterise other coaching contexts, such as team coaching, requires investigation. Second, while PCT methodology systematically elicits constructs, interpretation of clustering patterns involves researcher judgement. We addressed this through rigorous cross-case analysis and triangulation across multiple analytic approaches, yet interpretive studies always involve subjective elements. Third, this study identified polarities characterising coaches’ constructions of their practice but did not examine actual coaching conversations or client outcomes. Direct observation studies examining whether identified polarities manifest in real-time coaching interactions would strengthen ecological validity.
Implications for Practice and Research
Recognising Polarities in Practice
The framework provides systematic criteria for recognising when client challenges involve ongoing polarity navigation rather than problems requiring solutions. When clients present with futures-related challenges, the framework enables formulation that moves beyond diagnostic categories to identify which polarities characterise the adaptive work. For instance, when a coach described a client who repeatedly says “I just need to vent” without forward movement, traditional formulation might diagnose avoidance requiring forward-focused intervention. However, the Temporal Adaptation polarity reveals the client oscillating between present-moment processing needs and future planning capacity, over-emphasising present-focus while experiencing anxiety about future direction. This shifts intervention design from correcting present-focus to supporting capacity for leveraging both present grounding and future visioning.
Similarly, the Strategic Adaptation polarity offers an alternative formulation for what might appear as lack of follow-through. One coach described a leader with clear vision who articulated “all I need to do is hire them, and then I take a back seat,” yet repeatedly developed detailed plans without implementing them when circumstances shifted. Rather than diagnosing lack of commitment, the polarity framework reveals tension between Intentional Direction (the vision and planning) and Responsive Adaptation (adjusting to shifting circumstances), shifting the coaching challenge toward supporting capacity to hold both poles simultaneously. The Systemic Adaptation polarity functions similarly when challenges span individual and collective levels, enabling formulation that recognises imbalances within systemic tensions rather than diagnosing individual pathology.
This formulation approach differs fundamentally from traditional problem-solving models that seek to identify single causal factors and design interventions to address them (Lane & Corrie, 2009). Rather than identifying which pole represents the “correct” perspective, polarity-based formulation recognises both poles as necessary and designs interventions supporting integration. This aligns formulation practice with the paradoxical nature of adaptive challenges (Heifetz et al., 2009), where effectiveness emerges through navigating tensions rather than resolving them.
Future Research Direction
Several productive research directions emerge. Longitudinal studies examining how polarity navigation capacity develops over coaching engagements could illuminate whether clients develop greater comfort with tensions over time and whether coaching effectiveness correlates with increasing capacity to leverage polarities. Cross-context applications testing the framework in other coaching contexts would assess generalisability. Intervention research examining whether coaches trained in polarity recognition demonstrate different formulation quality or client outcomes would establish causal connections. Cultural variation studies could examine whether pole emphasis varies across contexts or whether additional culture-specific polarities emerge. Finally, the framework's structured specification positions it as a potential infrastructure for AI-augmented formulation, though such applications require rigorous validation of pattern recognition accuracy, attention to confidentiality, and clear boundaries between AI-generated hypotheses and human professional judgement.
Conclusion
This study addressed a critical gap in case formulation for coaching by empirically identifying three adaptive polarities that characterise futures-focused practice: Temporal Adaptation (Present-Moment Grounding ↔ Future Visioning), Systemic Adaptation (Individual Agency ↔ Systemic Engagement), and Strategic Adaptation (Responsive Adaptation ↔ Intentional Direction). Through a PCT analysis of 24 experienced coaches, these polarities emerged systematically across diverse theoretical orientations, coaching contexts, and cultural backgrounds. The findings extend Lane and Corrie's (2009) case formulation framework by providing dimensional content for navigating adaptive challenges and demonstrate PCT's utility for empirically identifying polarities in professional practice. In a context where leaders increasingly confront volatility requiring enhanced anticipatory capacity, the Adaptive Polarity Framework provides practitioners with empirically grounded criteria for recognising and working with the adaptive tensions inherent in futures-focused coaching. By making these tensions visible and navigable rather than seeking to resolve them, the framework supports coaches in developing the formulation capability that effective practice in complexity demands.
Footnotes
Funding
The study was supported by a grant from EMCC Global.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.