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Understanding conditions for executive coaching success from the leader's point of view

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Understanding conditions for executive coaching success from the leader's point of view

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Content Understanding Conditions for Executive Coaching Success
from the Leader’s Point of View
by
Dana Kirchman
Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
A dissertation submitted to the faculty
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Education
May 2024

© Copyright by Dana Kirchman 2024
All Rights Reserved

The Committee for Dana Kirchman certifies the approval of this Dissertation
Douglas Eugene Lynch
Marcus Allen Pritchard
Monique Claire Datta, Committee Chair
Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
2024

iv
Abstract
This study examined the experiences of organizational leaders who have received executive
coaching. A richer understanding of lived experience of coaching in organizational context could
improve coaching education and implementation of coaching by organizations. Using
Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory, the study considered reciprocal interactions
between the coaching relationship, the leader’s other close relationships, and organizational
culture. Recommendations for organizations focus on redirecting coaching resources to
modalities that strengthen peer relationships and promote culture change, while allowing leaders
to self-manage one-to-one coaching and discouraging coaching that attempts to fix reporting
relationships. Recommendations for coaching academics focus on improving coaching
curriculum, refining measurement approaches, and conducting further research on coaching and
identity. The study’s learnings about power dynamics in coaching suggest guild structures could
be explored to protect coaches and clients from challenges to ethics and dilution of value.
Keywords: coaching, executive coaching, coach training, leadership development, adult
learning, organizational culture, ecological systems theory

v
Dedication
To the future. Sam and Ben, Alex and Theo, James and Kirsten, James and Charlie, Isaac
and Lou, Addi and Chloe, and generations of learners to come.

vi
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the members of my doctoral study committee, Dr. Monique C. Datta, Dr.
Douglas E. Lynch, and Dr. Marcus A. Pritchard.
Thank you to all the teachers and mentors, in academics, in coaching, and in the arts, who
made this study possible. Viviane Thurm, Margot Gumport, Dr. Terrence E. Maltbia, Laurie
Blitzer, Mark Wollaeger, John P. Schuster, David Herskovits, and David Matthew Prior.
Thank you to my coaching colleagues, doctoral fellow travelers including Nilufar
Gamini, Elizabeth Graswich, and Mollie Singh, and friends including Parisa Jaffer, Jenny
Rosenberg, and Alisa Lessing. Thank you to my dedicated teammates, Melissa Aponté and
Barbara Cadogan.
Thank you to my husband Mark, sister Ronit, parents Ernest and Aviva, and extended
family for your everlasting support.
In memory of my grandmother Rose, who made teaching her life.
In addition to being a doctoral student at University of Southern California, I currently
consult with a coaching certification program at Columbia University and with coaching firms
including Aberkyn and PSFI.

vii
Table of Contents
Abstract.......................................................................................................................................... iv
Dedication....................................................................................................................................... v
Acknowledgements........................................................................................................................ vi
List of Tables................................................................................................................................. xii
List of Figures..............................................................................................................................xiii
List of Abbreviations.................................................................................................................... xiv
Chapter One: Introduction to the Study.......................................................................................... 1
Context and Background of the Problem............................................................................... 2
Purpose of the Project and Research Questions..................................................................... 5
Importance of the Study......................................................................................................... 6
Overview of Theoretical Framework and Methodology ....................................................... 6
Definition of Terms................................................................................................................ 8
Organization of the Study ...................................................................................................... 9
Chapter Two: Review of the Literature......................................................................................... 10
Emergence of Coaching....................................................................................................... 10
History of Leadership Theory.............................................................................................. 12
Types of Coaching ............................................................................................................... 14
Current Trends in Coaching................................................................................................. 16
COVID-19 Pandemic Impact............................................................................................... 16
DEI Coaching ...................................................................................................................... 17
AI and Coaching at Scale..................................................................................................... 19
Theoretical Framework........................................................................................................ 20

viii
Conceptual Framework........................................................................................................ 22
Coaching Microsystem ........................................................................................................ 23
Client–Manager Relationships.............................................................................. 24
Client–Colleague Relationships............................................................................ 24
Client’s Personal Life Relationships..................................................................... 25
Client–Coach Relationships.................................................................................. 26
Coaching Mesosystem......................................................................................................... 27
Trust ...................................................................................................................... 27
Process .................................................................................................................. 28
Feedback ............................................................................................................... 29
Accountability....................................................................................................... 30
Coaching Exosystem ........................................................................................................... 32
Organizational Culture.......................................................................................... 33
External Environment ........................................................................................... 34
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 35
Chapter Three: Methodology........................................................................................................ 36
Research Questions.............................................................................................................. 36
Overview of Design............................................................................................................. 37
Research Setting .................................................................................................................. 37
The Researcher .................................................................................................................... 38
Data Sources........................................................................................................................ 39
Participants .......................................................................................................................... 40
Instrumentation .................................................................................................................... 41

ix
Data Collection Procedures ................................................................................................. 41
Data Analysis....................................................................................................................... 42
Screening Questionnaire ...................................................................................................... 43
Qualitative Interviewing ...................................................................................................... 43
Credibility and Trustworthiness........................................................................................... 43
Research Ethics.................................................................................................................... 44
Chapter Four: Findings................................................................................................................. 46
Participants .......................................................................................................................... 46
Findings: Research Question 1 ............................................................................................ 48
Successful Coaching Expands Self-Awareness .................................................... 48
Feedback Drives Action........................................................................................ 52
Trust is Fragile ...................................................................................................... 56
Discussion: Research Question 1.......................................................................... 60
Findings: Research Question 2 ............................................................................................ 61
Choosing Your Coach Matters.............................................................................. 62
Expectancy of Coaching Drives Value ................................................................. 65
Coaching Reciprocally Interacts with Colleague Relationships........................... 68
Discussion: Research Question 2.......................................................................... 71
Findings: Research Question 3 ............................................................................................ 72
Leaders Have Fluid Attitudes To Identity in Coaching......................................... 72
Organizational Communication Shapes Coaching Topics.................................... 76
External Social and Economic Factors................................................................. 78
Discussion: Research Question 3.......................................................................... 80

x
Summary.............................................................................................................................. 81
Chapter Five: Recommendations.................................................................................................. 83
Thematic Findings............................................................................................................... 84
Thematic Finding 1: Coaching Closely Resembles Therapy................................ 85
Thematic Finding 2: When Positioned Well, Coaching Can Improve
Collaboration......................................................................................................... 86
Thematic Finding 3: Leaders Use Coaching to Cope with Culture, Not Change
It............................................................................................................................ 87
Recommendations................................................................................................................ 88
Recommendation 1: Coaching Educators Should Redefine Curriculum to
Engage What Leaders Value ................................................................................. 89
Recommendation 2: Organizations Should Give Leaders More Control of
One-to-One Coaching ........................................................................................... 94
Recommendation 3: Organizations Should Invest in Team and Group
Coaching Focused on Business Priorities............................................................. 95
Recommendation 4: Coaching Educators Should Create an Impact Assessment
Beyond Satisfaction .............................................................................................. 97
Recommendation 5: Credentialing Bodies Should Transform Coaching
Associations into Guilds....................................................................................... 98
Limitations and Delimitations ........................................................................................... 100
Recommendations for Future Research............................................................................. 102
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 104
References................................................................................................................................... 105

xi
Appendix A: Screening Questionnaire........................................................................................ 137
Appendix B: Interview Protocol ................................................................................................. 140

xii
List of Tables
Table 1: Choices for Implementing Coaching ...............................................................................15
Table 2: Participant Profiles...........................................................................................................47
Table 3: Example Coach Training and Education Programs.........................................................90
Table B1: Interview Guide...........................................................................................................141

xiii
List of Figures
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework ..................................................................................................23
Figure 2: Diagram of Thematic Findings and Recommendations.................................................84
Figure 3: New Coaching Curriculum Model .................................................................................93

xiv
List of Abbreviations
AI Artificial Intelligence
CEO Chief Executive Officer
CHRO Chief Human Resources Officer
DEI Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
GROW Goal, Reality, Options, and Will
GSAEC Graduate School Alliance of Executive Coaching
HR Human Resources
ICF International Coaching Federation
LMX Leader-Member Exchange

1
Chapter One: Introduction to the Study
The rapid growth of executive coaching for leadership development challenges
organizations’ ability to measure coaching success. Executive coaching fosters a helping
relationship between a client and a consultant to raise the client’s and organization’s
performance (Kilburg, 1996, 2001, 2016). Executive coaching focuses on making change in a
business context (Blackman et al., 2016; Grant, 2014), yet also forms part of the broader field of
work and life coaching (Kimsey-House et al., 2018; McLean & Hudson, 2012; Passmore et al.,
2012). Leaders report receiving value from coaching (Grant & Atad, 2022; Spears-Jones et al.,
2021), yet organizations implement coaching differently (Cox et al., 2014a; Joo, 2005; Rekalde
et al., 2015) and may use it to cover gaps in workplace culture (Western, 2012). Coaches
influence C-suites and boards (Hiller & Peterson, 2019; Waslyshyn, 2017), manager–employee
relationships (Louis & Fatien Diochon, 2018), and career outcomes (Van Oosten et al., 2019).
Coaches’ skill gaps in key areas of organization development create risks for
organizations engaging coaches to work with leaders. Gaps in coach competency include
performance management (Blackman et al., 2016), human resource (HR) development
(Bachkirova & Smith, 2015; Hamlin et al., 2009), and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI;
Aguilar, 2020; Hladik, 2016). Demand from organizations focuses on specialized competencies
and skills; for example, forecasts show DEI coaching doubling in the next 2 years, and team
coaching has already doubled between 2018–2021 (The Conference Board, 2021). Although
organizations hope to manage these risks with rigorous standards for coach training and selection
(Gray et al., 2011; International Coaching Federation [ICF], 2020), coach training programs have
varying levels of research integrity (Bachkirova & Smith, 2015; Gebhardt, 2016; Watkins &
Marsick, 2014). Further, coaches, like HR workers, are predominantly White women, limiting

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the lived experience they can share with leaders (ICF, 2020; Johnson-Bailey, 2012; Reid, 2021).
Without a clear understanding of the conditions for coaching success, organizations risk
squandering billions of dollars of investment in coaching (ibisworld.com, 2023; ICF, 2020),
giving psychologically unsafe advice (Edmondson & Lei, 2014), and wasting leaders’ time in an
era when burnout is rampant (Maslach & Leiter, 2021; Moss, 2021). This study analyzed the
drivers of coaching success from the leader’s point of view.
Context and Background of the Problem
Executive coaching in the workplace is an interdisciplinary, fast-growing, and fastchanging field (Grant & Cavanagh, 2004; Hamlin et al., 2009). Executive coaching began to
name itself as a field in the 1980s (Boysen-Rotelli, 2020; Ciporen, 2015; Tobias, 1996), bringing
together organizational psychology, adult education, business consulting, and leadership training
(Bacon & Spear, 2003; Baron & Morin, 2009; Joo, 2005; Passmore et al., 2012; Watkins &
Marsick, 2014). The coaching field grew from a therapeutic tradition focused on insight and a
directive, management-training school of thought focused on performance (Bacon & Spear,
2003; Cox et al., 2014a). Both approaches contribute to the coaching field, though practitioners
often prioritize one style or the other (Bachkirova & Smith, 2015). Compared to research on its
parent fields of business leadership training (Salas et al., 2012) and positive psychology
(Seligman, 1995), executive coaching research remains an emerging field (de Haan et al., 2016;
Jarosz, 2021; Smither, 2011).
Shifting and inexact definitions problematize coaching research and practice (Blackman
et al., 2016; Ciporen, 2015; Joo, 2005). Douglas and Morley (2000), building on Peterson (1996)
and Sperry (1993), defined coaching in the workplace as a developmental process to equip
leaders with the tools, knowledge, and feedback they need to become more effective. Baron and

3
Morin (2008) clarified that executive coaching originally meant tailored one-to-one engagements
where a chief executive collaborated with a specialized external consultant. Yet as organizations
expanded leadership development to build a pipeline of emerging leaders (Charan et al., 2001),
executive coaching also expanded to cover one-to-one developmental work at senior and middle
levels of management (Bono et al., 2009) and team coaching (Hackman & Wageman, 2005).
Kilburg (1996, 2001) focused on the relational aspect of learning (i.e., a helping relationship
between a client and a consultant using behavioral techniques to raise the client’s and
organization’s performance). Although external consultants historically delivered executive
coaching (Kilburg, 1996; Passmore et al., 2012), organizations soon tapped internal HR leaders
to augment their coaching delivery (Power, 2014; Schalk & Landeta, 2017). With disparate
delivery modes, definitions, and processes, coaching research can be hard to generalize.
Financially, the rapid growth of coaching increases the urgency for better research.
Estimates of market size range from $3 billion in global certified coaching practitioner revenue
in 2023 (ICF, 2020) to $14.1 billion in business coaching in the United States in 2024
(ibisworld.com, 2024). By the ICF’s (2020) estimate, the number of certified executive coaches
globally has grown from 15,000 in 2008 to 71,000 in 2020, or a 14% compound annual growth
rate. In addition to self-described professional executive coaches (Schreyögg & Schmidt-Lellek,
2017), other counselors and advisors can and do offer life and workplace coaching without
formal certification (Cowley et al., 2022). Market growth drivers include organizations’ interest
in scaling executive coaching to more employees and their desire to customize coaching
processes to business objectives (Terblanche et al., 2022a). At the same time, a countertrend
shows leaders are seeking and paying for life coaches on their own, without the involvement of
their organizations (J. Wu, personal communication, July 31, 2023). With a fragmented base of

4
corporate and individual buyers, and multiple bodies offering distinct types of certifications, the
coaching market encourages innovation with limited incentives for consistency or standards.
Prior literature has limited data on executive coaching experience from the leader’s,
sometimes called coachee’s, point of view and even less research on systemic influences on the
coachee. Baron and Morin (2008) argued early in the history of coaching for research on
outcomes. Although the field has evolved in the 15 years since Baron and Morin's study,
approaches to measuring coaching impact, value, and effectiveness are still emerging. For
example, although Rekalde et al. (2015) used a Delphi process to generate a set of factors
correlated with coaching success, including the leader’s self-awareness and readiness, the
coach’s ability, and the process used, the study did not define success. In Phillips et al.’s (2012)
study, organizations measured the return on coaching investment by connecting coaching to
specific business goals such as sales improvements. Although Phillips et al. described the
leader’s voluntary participation as a best practice, their study did not focus on the leader’s
personal experience. In de Haan et al.’s (2016) study, perceptions of coaching effectiveness
correlated with relationship strength, use of goals, and the leader’s self-efficacy; effectiveness
was uncorrelated with personality matching of the coach and leader. Gan et al. (2021) noted
coaching worked best when organizational support for the leader was already present. Jones et al.
(2016) conducted a meta-analysis showing positive influence of coaching on organizational
outcomes and leader skill development, especially when coaching included multisource
feedback. More recently, Grant and Atad (2022) conducted a detailed controlled study of
coaching compared to other modes of leadership training, focusing on goal attainment. Their
results support the value of coaching compared to other modes and include leader satisfaction;
however, the results only represent a small group of midlevel managers in Israel. Bhatnagar

5
(2021), fielding a mixed methods ecosystems study, showed the importance of strengths-based
feedback in coaching; however, the study scope addressed only one management team where the
researcher was also the coach.
Vitally, almost no literature addresses cultural topics such as the identity of the leader in
coaching, the coach’s ability to process identity and cultural topics that may not relate directly to
skills, or the experience of leaders as fitting or not fitting within their organization’s culture
(Aguilar, 2020). Similarly, few studies explore the influence of peer and colleague relationships
on the client-coach relationship (Peesker et al., 2021). For a fast-growing, high-cost intervention,
executive coaching offers limited and case-specific data on how leaders integrate coaching with
the rest of their work and personal lives.
Purpose of the Project and Research Questions
The purpose of the study was to understand the conditions needed for coaching to succeed
from the leader’s point of view. This study explored the relationship between the way individual
leaders experience coaching and how organizations expect coaching to work. Informed by
Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecosystem theory, this study explored how the one-on-one relationship
between the coach and client leader interacts with the workplace, social, and cultural settings
surrounding the relationship. Additionally, the study integrated perspectives from critical
management studies to examine the assumptions and power dynamics around coaching and
management (Beck et al., 2022; Louis & Fatien Diochon, 2018; Parker, 2010; Western, 2012).
The following questions guided the study:
1. What characteristics of the executive coaching relationship drive success in coaching
from the client leader’s point of view?

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2. What environmental conditions impact alignment between the organization’s and
client leader’s desired outcomes of executive coaching?
3. How do cultural factors influence the experience of executive coaching for leaders?
Importance of the Study
Studying conditions for executive coaching success is important for three reasons:
providing a framework to offer coaching responsibly, protecting the psychological safety of
leaders in coaching, and maximizing return on coaching. Studies of coaching frameworks have
confined scope to specific countries or sectors (Grant & Atad, 2022; Phillips et al., 2012;
Smither, 2011; Spears-Jones et al., 2021). Because coaching is a one-to-one process involving
vulnerability and sometimes discomfort (Kimsey-House et al., 2018), leaders may experience a
lack of psychological safety that can reduce their engagement at work (Edmondson & Lei, 2014)
if the coach fails to create ethical boundaries. Leaders offered coaching may feel pressured to
take coaching due to the power dynamic between them and their sponsor or HR leader (Louis &
Fatien Diochon, 2018). Further, given the wide range of coach training offerings and the varying
quality of these offerings (Bachkirova & Smith, 2015), a study of conditions of success could
help coach educators ensure their programs train coaches who engage responsibly with leaders.
In a field that is still unstructured compared to professions such as medicine and therapy, data
about the experience of leaders receiving coaching help uphold quality standards.
Overview of Theoretical Framework and Methodology
The study used Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory (or “ecosystems
theory”) to examine the concentric circles of relationships surrounding executive coaching.
Bronfenbrenner’s theory states that human development bears the mark of many layers of
environmental influences, ranging from the direct influence of a teacher to family and

7
community influences, as well as socioeconomic and macroeconomic factors (Bronfenbrenner,
1979; Shelton, 2019). Although Bronfenbrenner’s original work addressed child development,
researchers have applied Bronfenbrenner’s theory in adult-development contexts, such as
counselor training (Lau & Ng, 2014), academic advising (Zhang, 2018), sales coaching (Peesker
et al., 2021), and teacher coaching (Pianta et al., 2021). Ecosystems theory suits coaching
research because it reflects the developmental aspects of coaching (Ciporen, 2015). In using
ecosystems theory to analyze the coach–client relationship, this study broadens the discussion of
coaching success beyond individual goal-achievement frames (Grant & Atad, 2022) to include
sociocultural influences on self-efficacy and collective efficacy (Bandura, 2000, 1986; Vygotsky,
as cited in Cole et al., 1978; Western, 2012).
The study applied a qualitative methodology (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016) to elicit the
meaning participants make of their executive coaching experiences. A field study structure
enabled the engagement of participants from multiple organizations (Johnson & Christensen,
2015). Working in the field centered the individual experiences of people receiving coaching
(Bogdan & Biklen, 2007), rather than focusing on one organization and its cultural models and
settings (Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001). The research included 17 semistructured interviews
(Adeoye-Olatunde & Olenik, 2021; De Fina & Perrino, 2011). Given the agreements of
confidentiality in many coaching engagements (Kimsey-House et al., 2018; Smith et al., 2023),
interviews allowed participants space to make meaning of their experience without fear of
judgment (Kruger et al., 2019). Interviews inquired into the qualities of participants’ coaching
experiences, conditions and factors that generated personal growth and goal achievement, and
influences of organizational culture, personal identity, and socioeconomic conditions on the
coaching conversation.

8
Definition of Terms
The following definitions provide clarity to analyze the emerging field of executive
coaching. As the coaching field has few agreed definitions (Passmore et al., 2012), a
commitment to the specificity of terms underlies this study.
Coaching Agreement
The contract for how, when, and where the coach and client will conduct meetings
together, what activities they undertake, and who constitutes the client (Fielder & Starr, 2008).
Coach Practitioner
Someone who supplies an ongoing partnership designed to help clients produce fulfilling
results in their personal and professional lives (ICF, 2020); someone who helps clients learn to
maximize their performance rather than teaching them directly (Whitmore, 2019).
Coaching
A helping relationship between a client leader and consultant who uses behavioral
techniques and conversation to help the client achieve professional performance, personal
satisfaction, and effectiveness (Kilburg, 2016).
Client
A term that can have two meanings: the recipient of coaching, or “coachee” (KimseyHouse et al., 2018), or the organizational sponsor (Passmore et al., 2012). This study uses
“leader” or “client leader” when describing the coachee, to disambiguate.
Executive Coaching
An experiential, individualized development process building a leader’s capability to
meet organizational goals, conducted through one-on-one interactions with a consulting
professional (Kilburg, 2016; Stern, 2004).

9
Feedback in Coaching
A qualitative or quantitative leadership profile or assessment administered by the coach
about their coachee for developmental learning, such as a series of stakeholder interviews, a 360-
degree survey, or a psychometric instrument (Church et al., 2019; Goldsmith & Silvester, 2018;
Moyle & Hackston, 2018; Sperry, 2013).
Leadership Development
An organizational process of naming people with the potential to lead and building their
skills to lead through training, coaching, or experiential rotations in the workplace (Charan et al.,
2001; Fatien Diochon & Nizet, 2019; Mintzberg, 2019).
Organizational Sponsor
A person or group, usually in HR or organizational management, who supplies the budget
for coaching and oversees the contracting process and coaching goals (Passmore et al., 2012).
Organization of the Study
The dissertation follows a traditional five-chapter model. Chapter One provided a
discussion and definition of the executive coaching field. Chapter Two highlights the relevant
literature in defining and applying executive coaching within an organizational context. Chapter
Two also describes the conceptual framework for the study using Bronfenbrenner’s (1979)
ecosystem theory to analyze the coach–client relationship. Chapter Three details the qualitative
research methodology of conducting semistructured interviews in a field study. Chapter Four
summarizes the findings from interviews. Chapter Five details the proposed recommendations to
maximize conditions for coaching success.

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Chapter Two: Review of the Literature
The study situates the question of coaching success within executive coaching literature,
leadership literature, and ecological systems theory literature. Coaching studies have shown what
drives successful coaching outcomes, including coach–client fit (Passmore et al., 2012), goal
setting (Day et al., 2014; de Haan et al., 2016), feedback (Bozer & Jones, 2018; Day et al., 2014;
Grant, 2014), and support from the client's organization (Kampa-Kokesch & Anderson, 2001).
However, few researchers have focused on how a leader’s perspective differs from their
organization’s (Louis & Fatien Diochon, 2018; Western, 2012). The study centers on leaders as
learners building a developmental relationship with their coach, taking an ecosystems theory
approach (Lau & Ng, 2014; Shelton, 2019). The following review synthesizes executive
coaching literature in five parts: emergence of coaching, history of leadership theory, types of
coaching, current trends in coaching, and a detailed analysis of coaching from an ecological
systems theory perspective. The chapter closes with the conceptual framework and summary.
Emergence of Coaching
Executive coaching in organizations emerged during the 20th century as an
interdisciplinary practice blending leadership performance with industrial psychology. Lewin's
(1936, 1943) theory of behavior as a function of the person and their environment gave rise to
organization development research and consultancy, which sought to help leaders of a company
drive change through culture and engagement (Burke, 2018; Schein & Schein, 2016). Early
studies addressed practices that included management training and coaching together and
sometimes interchangeably, focusing on building internal managers' capability to help their
employees perform (Eliadis, 2023). In the emergent phase, coaching evolved as a skill for
managers such as sales managers to raise their team's performance (Maltbia et al., 2014).

11
Blackman et al. (2016), building on Harris (1999) and Kampa-Kokesch and Anderson
(2001), described three generations of development in coaching specifically: the first, from mid20th-century through 1979, began with individual professionals applying techniques from
organization development and psychology in practice with individual executive leaders; the
second, from 1980 to 1994, involved bringing standards and models to coaching as a
professional service (Kimsey-House et al., 2018; Whitmore, 2019); and the third, from 1995 to
2016, saw the rise of research to synthesize the foundations of coaching (Bacon & Spear, 2003;
Cox et al., 2014b; Kilburg, 2016; Maltbia et al., 2014; McLean & Hudson, 2012; Passmore et al.,
2012; Stober & Grant, 2006) and of professional practice associations such as the ICF,
Association of Coaching, Graduate School Alliance of Executive Coaching (GSAEC), and others
to standardize coaching education and ethical practice.
Since Blackman et al.’s review in 2016, trends suggest a fourth era of coaching research
and practice has begun, emphasizing the measurement of coaching effectiveness (Day et al.,
2014; Grant, 2014; Grant & Atad, 2022; Phillips et al., 2012; Spears-Jones et al., 2021), coaching
within teams and systems (Bhatnagar, 2021; Hackman & Wageman, 2005; Hawkins & Turner,
2017; Lawrence, 2021; Wageman & Lowe, 2019), hybrid workplace coaching (The Conference
Board, 2021), critical examinations of coaching (Louis & Fatien Diochon, 2018; Western, 2012),
and experiments with using artificial intelligence (AI) to help coaching reach a broader audience
(Terblanche et al., 2022b). The focus of research has shifted from determining if coaching is a
field to examining how coaching catalyzes personal growth and organizational change.
Because coaching emerged from multiple academic traditions as well as from the
marketplace and popular press, the term coaching has resisted simple definitions. In addition to
the change management and organization development tradition represented by Burke (2018)

12
and Schein & Schein (2016), scholars link coaching to Seligman's (1995) positive psychology
tradition (Passmore, 2021) and to Bandura's (1986) self-efficacy construct (de Haan et al., 2016).
While the organization development tradition focuses on the environmental part of Lewin's
(1936) behavior theory, the positive psychology tradition focuses more on the person within the
equation, aligned with Rogers' (1951, 1961) person-centered therapy approach. The personcentered approach informed the human potential movement (Stone, 1976), which combined
psychological and spiritual frameworks encouraging individuals to unleash their potential by
transforming their mindsets and behaviors (Erhard, 1978; Robbins, 1992). The type of
mainstream executive coaching encouraged by credentialing organizations (Eliadis, 2023) and
elevated by scholar-practitioners such as Goldsmith (2013) can be considered a bridge or
midpoint between the academic practice of organizational change management and the popular
movements of spiritual self-improvement.
History of Leadership Theory
Understanding executive coaching for leaders requires historical context on the changing
definitions of leadership itself. The past century saw a rapid evolution of beliefs about leadership
and whether people can develop leadership skills, including through coaching (Northouse, 2021).
The leadership theories described in this section derive from large multinational corporate firms
founded in Western countries that exported norms to global partners. As such, the theories
reviewed are incomplete yet influential. Changing theories of what constitutes leadership drive
choices about training and coaching leaders.
Leadership theories developed between 1930 and the present to reflect increasing
complexity as well as increasing belief in individual and group change. Trait theory from the preWorld War II period to the present suggested individuals possessed or lacked leadership

13
qualities, causing them to rise up and influence groups (Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1991). Trait theory
suggested great individuals could shape society. It focused on famous leaders such as Abraham
Lincoln and Mohandas Gandhi and what made them categorically different than followers (Bass
& Bass, 2009). Trait theory led to trait assessments, such as the five-factor personality model
(Goldberg, 1990). Trait theory advised organizations to select leaders rather than developing
them.
Subsequent theories reframed leadership as sets of behaviors or skills that individuals
could learn. Mumford et al. (2000) linked trainable leadership skills such as problem-solving and
communicating effectively to business outcomes. Behavioral theories focused on actions leaders
take, regardless of the skills they may have (Blake & Mouton, 1985). By separating resultsorientation from people-orientation, behavioral models encouraged leaders to seek training for
people management. Similarly, situational leadership (Hersey et al., 1979) and path-goal theory
(House & Mitchell, 1997) advocated adapting behaviors to followers’ needs and goals. Although
somewhat transactional, behavioral models presaged more follower-centric approaches and
coincided with coaching models like GROW (goal, reality, options, and will; Whitmore, 2019),
which encouraged leaders to work together and fill gaps between goals and reality.
Late 20th- and 21st-century leadership theory branched out in many directions, with a
common theme of inspiring and connecting to a group of followers. From the narrower leadermember exchange (LMX) diagnostic (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995) to the more scalable approaches
of adaptive leadership (Heifetz et al., 2009) and servant leadership (Greenleaf, 1977), newer
theories take systemic views of influence across groups of leaders and followers. Leadership
focus shifted from what leaders do to what they say at the symbolic level (Bolman & Deal, 2017)

14
and coaching followed suit, seeking to develop executive presence (Hewlett, 2014) and public
speaking skills (Gallo, 2017).
In the past two decades, existential doubts about leadership have cast shadows on
leadership theory. Global social media shape attitudes, often negative, about political leadership
(Hoewe & Peacock, 2020), and employees readily change jobs for higher compensation
regardless of leadership (Kochhar et al., 2022). Kellerman (2012) asked if the leadership
development industry privileges and pressures leaders to focus on themselves, looking inward
rather than riding the powerful waves of followers’ opinions and needs. Hamel and Zanini
(2022) suggested doing away with hierarchical leadership and adopting humanocracy, an ethos
of flat egalitarian management. Notwithstanding these trends, global organizations drive doubledigit annual growth in leadership training and coaching (The Conference Board, 2021). They
address doubt through increased focus on measuring outcomes (Jarosz, 2021; Phillips et al.,
2012). Organizations that use coaching at least nominally espouse belief in development and
change. This study asked how leaders experience that development day to day.
Types of Coaching
Current coaching practice includes general and specialized work, with specialized types
of coaching differentiated by method or target client segment. General executive coaching, as
taught by ICF-accredited programs, includes one or more of the following factors: a mutually
agreed and contracted relationship between a coach and client leader; a set of goals for behavior
change, self-awareness, or both, established early in the engagement; a cadence of meetings over
a defined period; and a set time to reflect on progress, learning, and insights relating to the goals
(Kilburg, 2016; Kimsey-House et al., 2018; McLean & Hudson, 2012; Passmore et al., 2012).
Specialized types of coaching can include methods such as somatic body awareness (Silsbee,

15
2008), communications (McDaniel et al., 2020), cross-cultural work (Plaister-Ten, 2016), and
executive presence (Hewlett, 2014). In addition, coaching specialties focus on client segments,
such as C-suite leaders (Van Oosten et al., 2019; Waslyshyn, 2017), women (Hewlett, 2014),
salespeople (Peesker et al., 2021), or new leaders (Watkins, 2012). With a set of distinct
specialties branching out from common roots, the coaching field can be represented as a tree
(Maltbia et al., 2007).
Coaching practice combines therapeutic insight-driven practices and business
performance-based practices (Blackman et al., 2016; Kilburg, 2016). To implement coaching,
organizational sponsors face choices along the spectrum from insight-based to performancebased. Table 1 presents the dimensions that outline approaches to implementing coaching.
Table 1
Choices for Implementing Coaching
Dimension Individual insight focus Organizational focus
Coach-to-client ratio
One coach and one leader
focused on personal goals
(Hawkins & Turner, 2017)
Team coaching addressing
common goals
(Wageman & Lowe,
2019)
Coaching content
Developmental capabilitybuilding (Bachkirova &
Smith, 2015)
Performance improvement
(Dotlich & Cairo, 2006)
Theoretical grounding Psychology (Bono et al.,
2009)
Management (Blackman et
al., 2016)
Coach employment status
External third-party
consultant (Schalk &
Landeta, 2017)
Internal employee (Schalk
& Landeta, 2017)
Coaching content
Self-directed by the client
(Kimsey-House et al.,
2018)
Programmatic: aligned to
organizational goals
(Hamlin et al., 2009)

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Dimension Individual insight focus Organizational focus
Confidentiality
Data not shared outside
coach and client (Smith et
al., 2023)
Data shared with
organizational sponsor(s)
(Smith et al., 2023)
Current Trends in Coaching
Executive coaching reflects the business, social, and economic trends impacting client
organizations. Since 2020, three contemporary trends have impacted the coaching market: the
COVID-19 pandemic and its influence on virtual work (Global Workplace Analytics, n.d.;
Jarosz, 2021), renewed DEI commitments (Kendi, 2019; The Conference Board, 2021), and the
debut of large language AI models in the HR space (Abril, 2023; Terblanche, 2023).
Organizations, individual coaches, and coaching firms have responded to these market shifts
with caution and innovation.
COVID-19 Pandemic Impact
The COVID-19 pandemic amplified three trends in coaching: a setting shift to virtual
work and virtual coaching, a focus on crisis leadership, and an openness to discussing stress and
work-life balance. Virtual work increased from 4% of U.S. workers in 2019 to 69% of U.S.
workers in 2020 at the pandemic’s peak (Global Workplace Analytics, n.d.). Postpandemic,
remote work now accounts for 27% of days worked (Barrero et al., 2021) as different industry
sectors adopt different mixes of virtual and in-person work (Lund et al., 2021). The pandemic
changed coaches’ and clients’ openness to virtual coaching (Terblanche, 2023). Similarly, in the
therapy field, practitioners adapted quickly to virtual work and formed working alliances with
patients online, though at some psychic cost to the practitioner (Beet & Ademosu, 2022). Like
therapy, virtual coaching expanded to support people in an unprecedented time.

17
The pandemic experience also increased executives’ and their coaches’ focus on crisis
and stress management. Leaders needed to build new skills and resilience (Hill et al., 2020) to
balance their own and their teams’ burnout (Moss, 2021) and trauma (Hendel & Goulston, 2021)
brought on by the pandemic. Research suggests that coaching helped managers adapt effectively
to pandemic challenges (Jarosz, 2021), such as rapid increases and decreases in the workforce
(Haithman & Huang, 2020). More broadly, the loneliness and stress working adults experienced
during COVID-19 increased employers’ and workers’ interest in mental health, coaching, and
counseling services (Pasquarelli, 2021). By bringing issues of health equity and administrative
racism to the forefront (Heckler & Mackey, 2022), COVID-19 accelerated the development of
organizational antiracism programs (The Conference Board, 2021), including coaching focused
on DEI.
DEI Coaching
Two social shock waves touched the United States in the same period as COVID-19. One
was the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, which traumatized families across the
United States (Sinclair & Starck, 2021) and focused mass media attention on systemic, current,
and historic anti-Black racism in the United States (Kendi, 2019; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995).
The second was the surge of interest in the #MeToo movement, founded in 2006 by Black leader
Tarana Burke (Boyd & McEwan, 2022), to provide a space and language for women, especially
women of color, to name and heal from their experiences with sexual assault. The movement
coincided with research on the disproportionate harm of gender-based violence against Black
women in the United States (Bent-Goodley, 2009).
In 2017, after White actor Alyssa Milano and others used the hashtag #MeToo on social
media to describe sexual harassment in Hollywood, the hashtag came to stand for a broader

18
social movement to hold perpetrators of sexual violence and workplace sex discrimination
accountable (Jaffe et al., 2021). As public discourse opened to discuss racism and sexism, many
workplaces increased their investment in DEI training and coaching (The Conference Board,
2021). In the case of race awareness, DEI initiatives built on work Black thought leaders and
allies have generated since the civil rights movement (Griggs & Louw, 1995; Maltbia & Power,
2008; Singleton, 2015; Vaughn, 2007) and expanded to include consideration of a decolonizing
perspective (Patel, 2015). In the case of gender awareness, DEI work has built on feminist
(Friedan, 1963) and intersectional (Crenshaw, 1989) theory and practice. DEI training continues
to face an uphill battle in the academic community (Dobbin & Kalev, 2022) and in White-led
organizations where antiracist messages may be diluted (J. Miller, 2023). While Dobbin and
Kalev’s (2022) study highlighted gaps in impact of DEI training, one-to-one mentoring fares
better in their analysis and could provide an analogy to coaching.
One-to-one DEI coaching has deepened the impact of training programs by enabling the
personal processing of challenging topics (Aguilar, 2020; ParadigmIQ, n.d.). Some firms have
provided coaching to leaders of color and women to help them maximize their success (Aguilar,
2020), though broader organizational DEI programs emphasize the responsibility of majority
White populations (DiAngelo, 2011) and resist asking leaders of color to do additional work to
conform to White workplaces (Love, 2019; Singleton, 2015). Organizational DEI work invites
discussion of systemic sources of racism (Pantin, 2018) and sexism (Eagly & Carli, 2007) to
build self-awareness (Kendi, 2019). Best practice DEI coaching conversations utilize an
intersectional identity framework, including socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, disability,
religion, and social factors touching non-U.S. populations (Cooper, 2017; Vaughn, 2007).

19
Beyond offering targeted DEI coaching, some HR leaders and coaches stepped back post2020 to reflect on the lack of racial, gender, and age representation in the coaching field (L.
Fletcher, personal communication, May 10, 2022; ICF, 2020; Reid, 2021). Organizations vary
widely on measures of cultural awareness (Holvino, 2008) from monocultural, or low awareness,
to multicultural, or high awareness, with a transitional stage in between. Accordingly, the state of
DEI coaching in organizations varies from building basic awareness to supporting deeper skills
in inclusive leadership (Northouse, 2021; Passmore & Roche, 2022; The Conference Board,
2021). Of the 71,000 ICF-certified coaches, data sources do not state how many have ever
received diversity training post-2020 (ICF, 2020). Analogizing from the medical field, in which
having a doctor of the same race improves outcomes (Alsan et al., 2019), research should address
how the identity relationship of coach and client might affect the results of coaching. Just as
coaching thought leaders began to examine bias and cultural competency more holistically post2020, a focus on AI emerged, raising questions of how bias and assumptions could influence
technology (Celi et al., 2022).
AI and Coaching at Scale
AI represents a new development in the coaching field. Chatbot-powered AI engines
already provide fitness coaching on demand (Achauer, 2023). In 2023, OpenAI released
ChatGPT and GPT4, AI large language models with market-leading capacity to synthesize
information in response to user questions (Harwell & Tiku, 2023). When asked, “Can you coach
me?” ChatGPT replied, “I am a large language model and cannot provide advice,” yet when
asked about common coaching topics such as how to find a job, ChatGPT provided clear
suggestions and to-do lists (OpenAI, 2023). A study on AI and coaching performed before
ChatGPT’s release showed that an AI chatbot performed as well as humans in coaching clients to

20
achieve goals yet less well than humans on coaching for personal insight (Terblanche, 2023).
Given the speed of AI development, investors are funding both human-staffed and AI-driven
coaching startups, expecting the next wave of development to be AI deployed alongside human
coaches (Brighteye Ventures, 2023).
One potential powerful application of generative AI would enable access to coaching for
a wide range of workers beyond executives, as promised by companies like BetterUp
(betterup.com, 2023). Live one-to-one coaching costs hundreds of dollars per hour, and prices
rise with seniority of coaches and clients (ICF, 2020). Reducing coaching costs, whether by
equipping coaches with standard materials or training coaches with AI tools, could help
organizations offer coaching to more employees (betterup.com, 2023). In addition, AI can
recommend follow-up questions during sessions and practices for clients to try between coaching
sessions (Achauer, 2023). In coaching, as in many service industries, practitioners wonder what
roles humans and AI models will play together at work (Abril, 2023). As AI infuses the
workplace, it touches not only coaching but the entire experience of communicating in an
organization.
Theoretical Framework
Bronfenbrenner (1979) created the ecological systems theory of development to analyze
the relationships between developing individuals, the people around them, and the systems in
which they work. Although Bronfenbrenner’s original work focused on children, his framework
describes a learning process applicable to adult development (Lau & Ng, 2014; Shelton, 2019).
Bronfenbrenner (1979) asserted that learning is not a one-directional knowledge transfer from
teacher to student. Rather, as an individual develops, they influence their one-on-one
relationships with teachers, peers, and family members, who then respond differently to the

21
individual (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Bronfenbrenner shifted the study of development by
emphasizing interactions between school, home, and community, reminding educators that
learning does not take place in a vacuum (Shelton, 2019).
Ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1986) posits five levels of relationship
surrounding a developing individual. The first, or microsystem, describes a developing person
involved in a dyadic learning relationship: student with teacher, mentee with mentor, and client
with coach (Bhatnagar, 2021; Hawkins & Turner, 2017; Lau & Ng, 2014). In an organizational
coaching context, the client’s microsystem includes relationships with the leader’s manager (Lai
& Smith, 2021; Louis & Fatien Diochon, 2018) and colleagues (Parker et al., 2018), as well as
personal relationships outside of work (Bunker et al., 2010; Moss, 2021). The next layer, the
mesosystem, describes proximal processes to the learning relationship, in which the learner
makes meaning (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Peesker et al., 2021; Rosa & Tudge, 2013). The
exosystem focuses on social, cultural, and organizational agreements, as well as the multiple
roles each individual plays (Shelton, 2019). As applied to coaching, agreements include how
organizations select leaders to coach (Spears-Jones et al., 2021), how organizations pay for
coaching (ICF, 2020; The Conference Board, 2021), how coach training prepares coaches
(Bachkirova & Smith, 2015; Cox et al., 2014b), and how organizations evaluate coaching (Bono
et al., 2009; Phillips et al., 2012). Bronfenbrenner (1979) further described a macrosystem that
includes economic, political, and cultural influences on learning (Shelton, 2019). In
Bronfenbrenner’s (1986) work, the chronosystem referred to the impact of time on a learner’s
self-awareness as the learner grew and changed. In adult development, a chronosystem view
would invite longitudinal research on leaders who receive coaching one or more times. As this
study focused on one pont in time, the scope excluded the chronosystem. Overall,

22
Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) theory grounds a study of coaching as a developmental activity, not
only as a performance improvement tool.
Conceptual Framework
A conceptual framework applies a theory to an area of study (Grant & Osanloo, 2014).
Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory suggests researchers work in concentric
circles, beginning with the developing person and their relationships (microsystem), then looking
at proximal processes in the mesosystem and sociocultural forces in the exosystem and
macrosystem (Shelton, 2019). Applying an ecological systems lens to leadership development
(Bunker et al., 2010), the client leader who receives coaching becomes the central figure in the
study. The leader’s microsystem includes relationships with their direct manager, peers and
colleagues, and personal life, as well as a relationship with their executive coach. In the
mesosystem, interpersonal trust, coaching process, and coaching feedback mediate between
multiple systems influencing the leader. The exosystem and macrosystem, here combined,
include organizational culture and the external environment (see Figure 1).

23
Figure 1
Conceptual Framework
Coaching Microsystem
The microsystem surrounding a learner includes the learner’s closest relationships
(Bronfenbrenner, 1979), Whether the learner is a child, as in Bronfenbrenner’s original study, or
an adult (Lau & Ng, 2014; Peesker et al., 2021; Shelton, 2019), multiple close relationships
influence the learner’s worldview (Rosa & Tudge, 2013). In this study, where the learner is a
client executive in an organization, the microsystem contains work relationships with a manager
or managers and colleagues (Shelton, 2019). Outside of work, the microsystem includes personal
life relationships that may or may not overlap with work (Horan et al., 2021). Although the
client’s relationship with their executive coach begins artificially when the organization signs a
contract and matches the coach and client (Passmore et al., 2012), the personal sharing within the

24
relationship suggests it behaves as a part of the client’s microsystem (Bhatnagar, 2021; Cox,
2015; Kilburg, 2016).
Client–Manager Relationships
In most organizations, an individual’s relationship with their direct manager plays a
defining part in career growth. Most managers, at a minimum, define business goals,
performance ratings, and development plans for their people (Bolman & Deal, 2017). An LMX
analysis (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995) frames the health of a developing executive’s manager
relationship before a coach enters the picture. In many contexts, managers may present as their
employees’ coaches (Barry, 1992; Ibarra & Scoular, 2019). The manager’s participation and
approval generally precede the launch of an executive coaching engagement (Turner & Hawkins,
2016; Passmore et al., 2012), suggesting the manager relationship influences how clients
perceive coaching (Fatien Diochon & Nizet, 2019; Kolodziejczak, 2015). The manager
relationship can also impact the individual’s level of intrinsic motivation (Sansone & Tang,
2021) to meet development goals, including good faith engagement with coaching.
Client–Colleague Relationships
Organizational leaders’ colleagues make up a microsystem of collaborative and
competitive relationships. The concept of peer competition in U.S. organizations dates back to
President Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet of rivals (Goodwin, 2006). Peer relationships in modern
organizations contain a mixture of collaboration and competition (Goette et al., 2012), making
political skill in navigating these relationships a core leadership attribute (Bolman & Deal,
2017). Peer and direct-report relationships drive organizational leaders’ success in implementing
enterprise-wide initiatives (Watkins, 2012) and can also derail careers (Dotlich & Cairo, 2006;
Goette et al., 2012), making peer and direct-report feedback essential to leadership development

25
(Anderson, 2006). The importance of peer relationships leads some organizations to lean on peer
coaching as a support structure, in addition to or in lieu of executive coaching (Parker et al.,
2018). Yet peer coaching also carries the risk of manipulation or undermining by colleagues
(Bryant & Sias, 2011; Parker et al., 2018). Advice-seeking from peers may concern life at work
and outside of work (Horan et al., 2021). Just as schoolchildren’s peers influence attitudes about
school (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), adult peers influence attitudes about work.
Client’s Personal Life Relationships
A leader’s microsystem includes personal life relationships, whether family, friends,
religious groups, or pastimes. Much of the research on work-life balance in executive leadership
has focused on women (DeSimone, 2020; Kelliher & Richardson, 2019) and heteronormative
settings (Languilaire & Carey, 2017) due to the 21st-century corporate model of extreme work
and constant accessibility, frequently if not always modeled by men (Hewlett & Luce, 2007).
Research on how personal life considerations influence career choices often takes a gendered
lens (DeSimone, 2020). For women leaders and other primary caregivers, who may frame the
deceleration of career progression as a choice (DeSimone, 2020), leadership coaching that
reflects a traditional career power model and fails to address their personal lives may ring hollow
(Hewlett, 2014). Meanwhile, for male leaders and others following a male-modeled career path
(Kelliher & Richardson, 2019), coaches who ask about personal life concerns may not resonate
unless the leader is seeking coaching for personal fulfillment and purpose (Schuster, 2003).
Clark (2000) described a border theory of work-life balance, in which conflicts of values
and priorities arise where work and life overlap. Although working people in the United States
generally spend 44.6 hours per week at work, chief executive officers (CEOs) spend an average
of 62.5 hours per week at work (Porter & Nohria, 2018). Time is therefore a core area of conflict

26
and negotiation between leaders’ personal and professional lives (Horan et al., 2021). Choices
such as how much time to devote to parenting (C. C. Miller, 2023) and whether to move back to
one’s home country after working in international headquarters (Meyer, 2014) challenge
executives to define how they will lead while remaining congruent to their values.
Client–Coach Relationships
A coach who works with an executive leader promises to form a coactive relationship
(Kimsey-House et al., 2018), described as a working alliance (Gessnitzer & Kauffeld, 2015;
Terblanche, 2023). The coaching relationship focuses on learning, like a teacher–student
relationship (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) or trainer–trainee relationship (Lau & Ng, 2014), yet in
coaching, the client drives goal setting to a greater extent than a trainee (Gessnitzer & Kauffeld,
2015). Consensus in coaching literature holds that the coach should approach the client as an
equal partner, cocreating working norms and areas of focus for behavior change (Blackman et
al., 2016; Ciporen, 2015; Kimsey-House et al., 2018; McLean & Hudson, 2012; Passmore et al.,
2012; Stober & Grant, 2006). In framing coaching as a professional service (ICF, 2020),
coaching professionals also draw on the trusted advisor tradition rooted in law practice (Maister,
2002). For client-focused professionals to become trusted advisors, they must put the client’s
agenda above their own and have enough ego strength to challenge the client (Maister, 2002).
Waslyshyn (2017) broadened the description of a coach to a trusted leadership advisor who
performs four key roles: echoing the leader’s core messages, anchoring the leader in lessons
learned previously, holding a mirror of self-awareness up to the leader, and sparking fresh
thoughts and bold actions to help the leader maximize success. Waslyshyn’s and Maister’s
(2001) definitions of an advisory relationship contain more advice-giving than the core coaching
literature yet stay true to the concept of putting the client’s agenda before one’s own. As a coach

27
introduces their advisory role and begins to create a relationship with a client, the coach brings
trust-building tools, processes, feedback, and accountability to connect their relationships with
the rest of the client’s world.
Coaching Mesosystem
The mesosystem, in Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) theory, connects multiple systems to each
other and enables reciprocal influence (Shelton, 2019). In this study, where the developing leader
is at the center, the mesosystem contains activities that mediate the client’s development and,
specifically, their executive coaching. First, trust-building lays the groundwork for a
developmental partnership of coach and client. Next, the process provides guidelines and
expectations. Third, feedback links the developmental focus of coaching to the client’s day-today and future goals. Finally, accountability connects the coach, client, and organization in a
shared negotiation of what constitutes measurable success.
Trust
Scholarship on trust in coaching emphasizes the coach’s skill in creating a safe space for
clients. In Machin’s (2010) study of organizational coaching referencing Rogers’ (1951, 1961)
patient-centered therapy approach, coaches created trust when they showed attentive listening,
nonjudgmental attitudes, empathy, and acceptance. In building trust, coaches utilize skills such
as active listening, engaging clients to cocreate goals, and communicating ethics (McLean &
Hudson, 2012; Smith et al., 2023). Additionally, coaches build trust when they structure the
coaching relationship (Iordanou et al., 2017), motivate clients during times of organizational
change (Grant, 2014), and reinforce accountability to goals (Whitmore, 2019). Zak’s (2017)
neuroscientific study of trust describes behaviors that align with coaching best practices (Cox et
al., 2014b; de Haan et al., 2016), such as challenging a client with healthy stress, showing

28
vulnerability, and encouraging personal growth through reframing. In a structured coaching
engagement, trust-building activities such as setting agreements (Kimsey-House et al., 2018) and
creating a life history map (Dominice, 2000) occur early in the coaching process, setting the
stage for the coach and client to communicate honestly.
Process
Executive coaches work with clients in an outcome-oriented process that has a beginning,
middle, and end (Bachkirova & Smith, 2015; Baron & Morin, 2008; Blackman et al., 2016; Cox
et al., 2014b; Grant, 2014; Kimsey-House et al., 2018; McLean & Hudson, 2012; Passmore et
al., 2012; Stober & Grant, 2006; Watkins & Marsick, 2014). Because executive coaching is a
learning and change process (Bacon & Spear, 2003), the approach executive coaches bring to
leaders and organizations builds on adult learning theory (Cox, 2015; Kolb, 1984). As Kolb
(1984) outlined, a learning cycle moves through four phases, marked by concrete experience,
reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. Although many
organizations have distinct and custom coaching processes, Kolb’s cycle universally defines a
client’s transition from self-observation to action and change.
A coaching process anchored by a behavioral, externally focused perspective invites
clients to articulate a goal and work with the coach to achieve it. For example, the GROW model
(Alexander, 2006; Whitmore, 2019) outlines a coaching process aligned with Kolb’s learning
theory. The first phase, goal, defines a focus for coaching. Next, the reality phase invites the
client to consider their concrete experience of reality as well as their feelings and reflections on
the current reality. The third phase, options, encourages the client to conceptualize possibilities,
whereas the final phase, will, engages the coach and client in planning next steps with a

29
practical, hands-on approach similar to Kolb’s active experimentation (Kolb, 1984; Whitmore,
2019).
A more internally focused view of the coaching process emerges from transformative
learning theory (Mezirow, 1997; Scharmer, 2018). In this view, a disorienting dilemma triggers
individuals to undertake a self-reflective process, prompting them to reframe their mindsets and
adopt new behaviors that better serve their hopes for the future (Ciporen, 2015; Scharmer, 2018).
Examples of disorienting dilemmas for leaders include lack of followership among direct reports
(Day et al., 2014; Goldsmith, 2013; Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995), surprising or negative multirater
feedback (Ciporen, 2015), experiencing burnout (Maslach & Leiter, 2021; Moss, 2021), or
taking on a more senior role that triggers imposter syndrome (Clance & Imes, 1978; Feenstra et
al., 2020). As executive coaching aims to help the client overcome challenges to develop and
grow (Kilburg, 2016), stakeholder feedback grounds the client’s self-reflective work in a
qualitative or quantitative fact base showing where the client’s current strengths lie and what
gaps they should fill moving forward.
Feedback
Feedback tools such as personality tests and 360-degree reviews provide data to ground a
coach’s work with a client leader. A feedback assessment can define behavioral and mindset
changes the leader seeks to make during coaching (Maltbia et al., 2014). Feedback in coaching
may be self-assessed or multirater and quantitative or qualitative (Hawkins & Turner, 2017).
Quantitative self-assessments include commercially available personality tests such as the Hogan
Leadership Series (Hogan, 2007), Hermann Brain Dominance Inventory (de Boer et al., 2013),
DiSC (Sugerman et al., 2011), or CliftonStrengths (Rath & Conchie, 2008), as well as checklists
connected to leadership theories, such as adaptive leadership (Heifetz et al., 2009) or authentic

30
leadership (Northouse, 2021). Researchers have questioned the validity of the Myers-Briggs
Type Inventory (Stein & Swan, 2019), which nevertheless still appears in coaching and training
programs (T. Hackett, personal communication, July 29, 2022). Qualitative self-feedback can
involve values clarification (Kimsey-House et al., 2018), debriefs of critical incidents (Mezirow,
1997; Mitchell & Everly, 1996), and self-directed statements of desired change such as Kegan
and Lahey’s (2009) Immunity to Change map.
Multirater feedback offers the opportunity for the coach and client to hear and interpret
stakeholder perceptions about the client. In collecting multirater feedback, a coach may use
surveys developed by third parties, such as the Full Circle Group (Anderson, 2006) or Center for
Creative Leadership (Lepsinger & Lucia, 2009), or may leverage employee surveys already in
use by the organization where the client leader works (Power, 2014). Qualitative multirater
feedback, such as stakeholder interviews by the coach, broadens the leader’s understanding of
how to improve stakeholder relationships (Goldsmith & Silvester, 2018; Passmore et al., 2012).
Whether the coach uses one or more feedback tools, the coach’s tone and credibility in delivering
the feedback can become a positive or negative emotional attractor (Boyatzis et al., 2015),
influencing the client’s openness to receive that feedback.
Accountability
Accountability in an organizational setting describes a negotiation of responsibility
between an individual exercising judgment and choice, and a constituency or constituencies
whose political approval the individual may seek (Tetlock, 1992). In an organizationally
sponsored coaching relationship, the coach and client negotiate with the organizational sponsor
to define responsibilities and measures of success (Turner & Hawkins, 2016). As part of the

31
coaching mesosystem, accountability mediates reciprocal interactions between the client leader’s
microsystem relationships (Bhatnagar, 2021; Grant, 2014).
In coaching, accountability includes all four types in Romzek and Dubnick’s 1987 study.
First, in a bureaucratic superior/subordinate relationship, the superior uses supervision to enforce
accountability (Romzek & Dubnick, 1987). In coaching, the client leader’s direct manager
defines or codefines the coaching goals and success measures, following up to ensure completion
(Phillips et al., 2012). Given the hierarchical power dynamic built into the manager relationship,
a client leader may not feel empowered to question the goals their manager sets for their
coaching (Fatien Diochon & Nizet, 2019; Turner & Hawkins, 2016). The second type of
accountability is legal accountability, defined by contracts with one member as principal owning
the result and another as agent contracted to perform an agreed scope (Tetlock, 1992). Legal
accountability inheres in contracts between external coaches and the organizations sponsoring
coaching (ICF, 2020), though legal accountability factors in less clearly with internal coaches
employed by the organization (Schalk & Landeta, 2017). Third is professional accountability, in
which an expert upholds the standards of their field when interacting with laypeople (Romzek &
Dubnick, 1987). Professional accountability arises in coaching when coaches recommend the
best process to apply in a given client setting or when coaches face ethical issues such as
protecting a client’s information (Smith et al., 2023). Finally, political accountability
relationships allow system members to hold their representatives accountable to expectations
(Romzek & Dubnick, 1987). Political accountability could affect coaches who, for example, are
internal employees without explicit contracts for each client engagement (Power, 2014); these
coaches’ internal reputations will hold them accountable to the organization.

32
Accountability aligns scope and expectations within the mesosystem of organizational
coaching. For example, in mediating multiple microsystems such as the client’s colleague
relationships and the client’s manager relationship, a coach may suggest the manager delegate
certain stakeholder interactions to the client so the client can gain confidence and experience
running those on a standalone basis (Turner & Hawkins, 2016). Accountability also creates
reciprocal interactions between organizational culture in the exosystem and the leader within
their microsystems. For example, if the organizational culture prioritizes hierarchy (Meyer,
2014), the coach may mirror the culture and engage in deferential behavior toward the client’s
manager (Louis & Fatien Diochon, 2018). Leaders nominated for development as high potentials
(Day et al., 2014) may experience accountability overload (Hall et al., 2017). They struggle to
continue with coaching and its associated goals when time is tight (Passmore et al., 2012). In
considering accountability from a leader’s perspective, some factors will be within the leader’s
control, whereas others, such as the organizational culture and external environment, may not be
within their control.
Coaching Exosystem
The exosystem layer of analysis offers a broader perspective, including cultural, social,
and economic forces (Shelton, 2019) that impact how organizations implement coaching (Cox et
al., 2014b). Organizational culture includes an organization’s artifacts, rituals, and unspoken
assumptions (Schein & Schein, 2016). The external environment, defined as outside the
organization, includes macroeconomic factors such as compensation growth and cost of living,
as well as the technology available to the leader and their colleagues (Navarro & Tudge, 2022).
Acknowledging that no leader leads in a vacuum, this study explored how organizational and
external environment forces shape leaders’ decisions.

33
Organizational Culture
Executive coaching, when sponsored by the leader’s organization, takes on the language
of the organization’s culture. As Gallimore and Goldenberg (2001) observed, cultural settings
and models influence learning. In the case of coaching as learning, the leader’s organization
represents a cultural setting, whereas the language and frameworks used by the coach and
leader’s organization represent cultural models (Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001). Organizational
culture can function as part of the exosystem surrounding the client leader’s coaching work.
Coaching reinforces organizational culture in some cases, whereas in other cases,
coaching can help leaders change their workplace’s culture. Nieminen et al. (2018) described the
interaction of coaching with organizational culture at three levels: culture as context to coaching,
culture as the target of a leader’s efforts for change, and the development of a coaching culture
where the leader moves from being a client to coaching others. Nieminen’s model highlights
reciprocal interactions (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Rosa & Tudge, 2013; Shelton, 2019) between the
client leader receiving coaching and the exosystem of their organizational culture. In a similar
vein, Kolodziejczak’s (2015) study described how coaching reflects and influences company
cultures. At one extreme, if organizational conditions for coaching become inhospitable, the
leader may fail to develop and may attribute the failure to coaching itself (Kolodziejczak, 2015).
At the other extreme, ideal organizational conditions encourage leaders to transform themselves
with coaching and other forms of learning, driving cultural change around them (Kegan &
Lahey, 2009; Kolodziejczak, 2015; Senge, 1990).
Schein and Schein’s (2016) model suggests three levels of organizational culture analysis,
which could apply to coaching implementation. The first level includes observable artifacts of
culture. In coaching, artifacts could include organizational learning agendas, intranet

34
testimonials, and development plans that leaders complete. The second level, espoused values,
could orient a coach toward what the organization considers to be success for their client, for
example, when gleaned through stakeholder interviews (Passmore et al., 2012; Turner &
Hawkins, 2016). The third level, assumptions, may be unstated and unwritten (Schein & Schein,
2016). Examples of assumptions may be that organizations only offer coaching to high-potential
employees as a benefit, or conversely, that coaching signals the impending end of a leader’s
career and functions remedially at best (Baron & Morin, 2008; Blackman et al., 2016).
Goals suggested by the organization for a leader’s development may be transactional or
transformational (Dotlich & Cairo, 2006; McCleskey, 2014; Mezirow, 1997), potentially
mirroring the organization’s change goals (Burke, 2018). To succeed in an organization that sees
itself as a learning organization, leaders need new skills such as asking for help and support and
communicating vision more actively (Senge, 1990). Questions remain around coaches’
qualifications to help leaders build business leadership competencies, especially for coaches
trained in the one-to-one therapeutic style (Bachkirova & Smith, 2015; Gebhardt, 2016).
External Environment
In the globally and technologically connected 21st-century economy, complexity
characterizes the external environment for executive careers (McRae & Aykens, 2022; Snowden
& Boone, 2007; Vasconcelos & Ramirez, 2011). For leaders in many roles, the new normal is a
volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous reality (Aimar & Smith, 2021). Examples of
technology-driven external challenges facing leaders include the future of work, big data, and the
digital divide among generations (Turner, 2022). In addition, geopolitical complexity takes
priority for leaders, with 42% of executive leaders in a recent survey agreeing that geopolitical
uncertainty threatens organizational health (Russell Reynolds Associates, n.d.). As

35
Bronfenbrenner (1979) described in his seminal study, external environments can catalyze
change in the learning microsystem. When applied to coaching, the external environment’s
instability could create similar instability in the learning relationship; for example, if a client
leader leaves their company abruptly due to burnout (Dennison, 2022; Maslach et al., 1997),
experiences sudden traumatic job loss (Gabriel et al., 2013), or simply finds no time for
professional development (Nichols, 2022). As some current trends could increase demand for
coaching, and others could push coaching to the sidelines, more research could help clarify how
the inner life of today’s leaders reflects the external environment’s uncertainty.
Conclusion
A leader’s executive coaching experience contains layers of formal and informal
relationships that influence coaching success. Although an executive coach engages the leader in
an intense one-to-one process to help the leader create change in themselves (Kilburg, 2016) or
their organization (Nieminen et al., 2018), coaching also impacts the leader’s other close
relationships at work and outside of work. As the leader makes meaning of their developmental
feedback (Maltbia et al., 2014; Turner & Hawkins, 2016), their success depends on how they and
their coach navigate trust (Kimsey-House et al., 2018), process (Turner & Hawkins, 2016),
feedback (Anderson, 2006), and accountability (Hall et al., 2017) within the coaching
relationship and across the organization. Organizational culture can accelerate coaching or stand
in its way (Kolodziejczak, 2015), whereas the external environment also shapes the coaching
experience. Although the coach and leader cannot control these factors, this study aimed to help
the coaching field gain focus on what factors maximize the coaching relationship’s success.

36
Chapter Three: Methodology
The purpose of the study was to understand the conditions needed for coaching to
succeed from the leader’s point of view. Chapter Three describes the design of the research study
and outlines the participant profiles. This chapter also summarizes the data collection operations
and instrumentation. The theoretical and conceptual frameworks informed the study design,
research questions, and data alignment to the research questions. Lastly, a discussion of data
analysis, ethical considerations, limitations, and delimitations ensured the appropriate and
responsible implementation of the study.
The study used a qualitative research methodology. As a qualitative study, it explored
human experience in an emergent way through human stories without prejudgment of potential
findings (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Qualitative research suited this study because executive
coaching enlists a leader’s personal narrative (Aguilar, 2020; Schuster, 2003) to define how the
leader wants to transform (McLean & Hudson, 2012; Mezirow, 1997). In addition, because both
coaches and organizations take various nonstandardized approaches to coaching (Bachkirova &
Smith, 2015; Gebhardt, 2016; Kilburg, 2016; Watkins & Marsick, 2014), qualitative inquiry
enabled the study to learn what matters most to participants without making positivist
assumptions (Creswell & Creswell, 2018; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). By using a qualitative
method, this study aimed to identify attributes of coaching that could guide future qualitative or
quantitative research.
Research Questions
The following questions guided the study:
1. What characteristics of the executive coaching relationship drive success in coaching
from the client leader’s point of view?

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2. What environmental conditions impact alignment between the organization’s and
client leader’s desired outcomes of executive coaching?
3. How do cultural factors influence the experience of executive coaching for leaders?
Overview of Design
The study design employed interviews as the primary qualitative methodology, supported
by a brief screening questionnaire. Interview research invites researchers to hear the experiences
of individuals in their own words (Castillo-Montoya, 2016) and to inquire with follow-up
questions about aspects of their experience that resonated (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). This study
conducted 17 one-to-one semistructured, open-ended interviews with organizational leaders who
received executive coaching. Given the confidential contracting around many coaching
engagements (Smith et al., 2023), interviews allowed participants space to make meaning of their
experience (Creswell & Creswell, 2018; Patton, 2015).
Research Setting
The research setting was a field study conducted virtually. A contemporary definition of
fieldwork asks the researcher to build trust and gain permission to access participants’ worlds,
whether virtual, live, or both (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007). A field study structure can include
participants from multiple organizations or geographic settings (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). As
the purpose of the study was to center coaching recipients’ points of view, a field study fitted the
purpose by casting the research net more widely than looking at only one organization. In
addition, a field study allowed discussion of disconnects between the leader’s and their
manager’s or organization’s goals more openly than if their organization had been directly
involved in the study (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007).

38
The field study took place in a virtual setting using the Zoom video meeting platform. A
virtual setting maximizes access to executives who work in remote, hybrid, and in-office settings
and broadens the study’s access beyond the geographic area in which the researcher lives and
works. Given executives’ busy schedules, a virtual setting also offers flexibility to rebook
interviews at short notice and adapt to executives’ travel out of the office. The ease of access to
leaders in a virtual setting and the diversity of leaders engaged by a field study supported the
research questions, which inquired into leaders’ experience of executive coaching and how
dynamics in the leader’s mesosystem and exosystem impacted that experience.
The Researcher
I approach the benefits, limitations, and ethics of executive coaching for leadership
development with an equity lens (Aguilar, 2020; Fatien Diochon & Nizet, 2019). My
positionality aligns with the majority population of White women in counseling and training jobs
(U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021), challenging me to apply a critical view to the field in
which I work. Positionality situates self in “the intersection of power and the politics of gender,
race, class, sexuality, ethnicity, culture, language and other social factors” (Villaverde, 2008, as
cited in Douglas & Nganga, 2015, pp. 60–61). I approached this study as a White cisgender
woman with ability differences both invisible (immune syndromes and obsessive-compulsive
disorder) and visible (two pregnancies, a back injury, and temporary hearing loss). Having
experienced the twists and turns of a career labyrinth (Eagly & Carli, 2007), I understand the
toll perfectionism takes on women leaders (Kay & Shipman, 2014). A feminist perspective
(Nganga & Beck, 2017; Vanner, 2015) empowers me to lead with vision (Ibarra & Obodaru,
2009). My female identity coexists with renewable White and cisgender privileges (Crenshaw,
1989; Love, 2019), such as walking in public without police scrutiny, having higher home values

39
(Pantin, 2018), and receiving respectful treatment from doctors. Privilege forces me to raise the
bar by questioning my assumptions and advocating for action.
My career identity as a helping professional (Hladik, 2016) informs my positionality.
Coming from a family that includes medical doctors, medical researchers, nurses, and therapists,
I am passionate about helping others navigate life’s journey and supporting them to find health
and fulfillment. Initially I had mixed feelings about executive coaching because it is a crossdisciplinary, unregulated field rather than a licensed profession like medicine. With my
family background and educational focus, I hold biases favoring helping professionals. My
incoming bias meant I had to take extra care in listening to clients who had negative
experiences with coaches or who prefer informal mentorship without a professional overlay.
In undertaking this study, I hoped that research focused on coaching could build the field's
credibility and offer best practices for leaders to use coaching for personal and professional
development. This very hope is also the greatest source of my bias.
Data Sources
I gathered data from qualitative interviews with 17 leaders who received executive
coaching while in organizational leadership roles. I used snowball sampling to recruit
participants and a screening questionnaire to validate participant eligibility and collect
demographic data. Criteria for participant eligibility included work experience of 5 or more
years, a leadership role of director or above in their organization, and coaching having taken
place within the past 6 years.
I used interviews as the primary method of data capture. Interviews offer space for
participants to share stories and reflections on their individual experiences (Merriam & Tisdell,
2016). Interviews focused on each participant’s relationship with their executive coach; their

40
interactions with people touched by their coaching, such as coworkers and family members; and
their experience of coaching within a broader cultural context. Interviews took place on video
and audio between July and September 2023, with explicit participant consent to record and
transcribe the interviews. Data analysis included interview transcripts and responses to the
screening questionnaire.
Participants
Target participants for the study were individuals with more than 5 years of work
experience who received executive coaching while employed full-time in executive roles,
defined as director level or above. During the time coaching occurred, the participants must have
had a named manager or managers to whom they reported. The participants’ coaching must have
taken place between 2018 and 2023; the time window allowed for both memory of the coaching
and reflection on how the coaching may have changed their career path. The 2018–2023 period
addressed the time before, during, and after the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the
pandemic drove a shift to remote and hybrid coaching (Terblanche, 2023) and a rise in coaching
on burnout at work (Moss, 2021), a period ranging from pre to postpandemic promised rich
comparative data. The study included participants coached by external coaches (i.e., consultants
not employed full-time by the participant’s organization; Passmore et al., 2012; Power, 2014).
Focusing on leaders working with external coaches created consistency in the study.
I recruited 17 individual participants through snowball sampling (Johnson & Christensen,
2015). Snowball sampling leveraged my network without limiting participation to individuals
known to me. I initially aspired to enroll no more than 50% of one gender and no more than 50%
non-Hispanic White participants. The final study population was 59% female and 70% nonHispanic White participants.

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Instrumentation
I used a semistructured interview protocol (Patton, 2015) developed using the Interview
Protocol Refinement method (Castillo-Montoya, 2016). The method has four stages: aligning
interview questions with research questions, constructing an inquiry-based conversation,
receiving feedback on the interview protocol, and piloting the interview protocol. Two pilot
interviews with leaders who had received coaching, both conducted in March 2023, validated the
level and flow of the interview questions and helped refine the flow of the inquiry-based
conversation. The interview protocol contained five of the six types of questions outlined by
Patton (2015): experience and behavior questions, opinion and values questions, sensory
questions, feeling questions, and knowledge questions. The sixth type of question, background
and demographic, appeared in the screening questionnaire provided with the interview consent
form (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). Appendix A contains the screening questionnaire and
Appendix B contains the interview protocol.
Data Collection Procedures
Data collection for the study proceeded during a 10-week period between early July and
mid-September 2023. The study consisted of 17 interviews of approximately 60 minutes each.
The total of 17 interviews allowed for confidence that the study reached a saturation point
beyond which new interviews would not have contributed meaningful information (Guest et al.,
2020). The 60-minute meeting included 5 minutes of introduction and conclusion to address
process, confidentiality, and follow-up, leaving 55 minutes to explore the interview content.
Interviews took place on the Zoom virtual meeting platform as synchronous, recorded audio
meetings. Virtual meetings on Zoom represented a low-cost way to meet with participants in
multiple geographic areas. Virtual meetings also offered flexibility to reach executive

42
participants outside regular business hours, and to reschedule easily if a participant’s job caused
last-minute changes. Virtual meetings also simplified access to executives working remotely
from their homes. In addition, virtual meetings allowed participants working in offices to choose
private locations for interviews so that colleagues at work could not observe them. The audio
transcription function offered on the Zoom platform provided the primary data capture.
Secondarily, field notes of each interview enabled the capture of nonverbal data such as
impressions of the participants’ affect and body language when describing interactions with their
coach and manager(s) (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Data Analysis
Data analysis synthesizes the collected data from a study (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The
Creswell and Creswell (2018) eight-step process guided the data coding. The first step was to
organize and prepare the data, including completing interview summaries (Rowlands, 2021). The
second step was to read each interview transcript and journal reflective prompts identifying
meaningful content and responses to the reading. The third step of coding included noting
keywords in the data related to interview questions, phenomena explored in the literature review,
and elements of the conceptual framework. The fourth step generated categories of themes
emerging from the data aligned to the conceptual framework and research questions. Following
this categorization, the fifth step created a visual map of the themes to represent findings. The
final three steps completed an iterative process to analyze the findings according to the themes,
revise the data structure, and recode the data (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). Throughout,
individual voices of the interviewees received careful attention.

43
Screening Questionnaire
A screening questionnaire confirmed participants’ eligibility for the study, offered
informed consent, and collected demographic information. The screening questionnaire used
Qualtrics as the technology platform and delivered a registration link by email to access the
questionnaire. The screening questionnaire, contained in Appendix A, contained three sections.
The first section asked about participants’ work and coaching experience. If a participant had
experience fitting the study, they continued to the second section. The second section explained
the study information and asked for informed consent. The third section collected background
and demographic information (Patton, 2015) about each participant. The data collected in
advance by the screening questionnaire helped maximize live interview time to probe
participants’ experiences and stories.
Qualitative Interviewing
The interview questions followed a content block structure, making it simpler to engage
interviewees in a flowing conversation (Castillo-Montoya, 2016) and simplifying postinterview
analysis (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Analysis of transcripts began by coding themes (Creswell &
Creswell, 2018) and sorting themes according to the conceptual framework’s elements. The
inductive work of sorting data into categories allowed reflection on the data while checking
connections to the conceptual framework (Grant & Osanloo, 2014; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Credibility and Trustworthiness
Qualitative research involves subjective perceptions of both the researcher and
participants, increasing the importance of credibility checks (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Alignment of the interview protocol to research questions and the conceptual framework
provided a reviewable approach for participant selection, sampling, instrument development,

44
data collection strategies, and data analysis. The virtual interview modality and snowball
sampling approach broadened the study’s geographic and industry scope, increasing credibility
and applicability (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). Pilot interviews in March 2023 with two
participants fitting the target criteria assessed the interview guide’s effectiveness (CastilloMontoya, 2016; Maxwell, 2013.) Interview summaries provided to participants validated data
integrity (Rowlands, 2021). Before the publication of findings, a review by my doctoral chair and
committee members helped me identify potential omissions or biases to address or remedy.
Research Ethics
Ethical practice in qualitative research requires weighing the potential benefits and harms
of the study (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). In this study, direct beneficiaries include scholars of
coaching, executives who receive coaching from their organizations, and sponsors of coaching
(such as talent and HR groups) within organizations. The study benefits these groups by
providing best practices for coaching organizational leaders, which could drive further research
and implementation of coaching. Secondarily, the study benefits coach certification programs
and certified coaches by legitimizing coaching as a professional field worthy of academic inquiry
(Cox, 2015; Kilburg, 2016). In terms of concerns, attribution of interview quotes to a participant,
or even disclosure that a participant had undertaken coaching at all, could have breached the
participant’s expectation of confidentiality (Smith et al., 2023) and impact the leader’s career
prospects (Van Oosten et al., 2019). Another potential source of harm for participants was
reliving a coaching experience that was negative or even traumatic (Creswell & Creswell, 2018).
Other risks included reputational harm to participants’ coaches, organizations, or colleagues.
Awareness of risks increased commitment to provide participants with an empathetic and neutral
interview setting (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007).

45
Clear protocols for informed consent, confidentiality, and voluntary participation ground
ethical practice to manage the potential harms of research (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). An overt
approach to consent (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007), including a signed consent form (Creswell &
Creswell, 2018), can manage participant impact (Glesne, 2011). I prepared prospective
interviewees for informed consent by sharing an accessible 5-minute presentation of the study
purpose and design along with consent forms. The presentation included a summary of secure
data storage, removal of personally identifying information, and data analysis. On completing the
presentation, prospects received links to an informed consent and registration form, which they
could download for their records if they chose to sign. A screening questionnaire and a 7-day
window between sign-up and interview allowed registered participants to confirm their
participation as volunteers. Participants received no compensation for the study. Confidentiality
required creating pseudonyms for each interviewee and using the pseudonyms in all drafts and
analyses. Participants received summaries of their interviews and had 2 weeks to raise any
comments or concerns (Rowlands, 2021). Given these protections, I interviewed 17 participants
to reach saturation (Guest et al., 2020).

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Chapter Four: Findings
The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand leaders’ experiences and
emotions around executive coaching and identify conditions that influence executive coaching
success. This chapter shares findings from semistructured interviews on each of the study’s three
research questions, aligned to the conceptual framework. Within the framework, participants
discussed their coaching relationships as well as other close relationships, or microsystems.
Interviews also inquired about the mesosystem (e.g., interactions between coaching and other
relationships in the client’s world). Finally, the study addressed exosystem dynamics such as
organizational culture and change and the COVID-19 pandemic. This chapter investigates
leaders’ recollections of coaching’s impact through storytelling.
Participants
Participants in the study included 17 organizational leaders who received executive
coaching relating to their work. Participants all held people leadership roles or HR leadership
roles in their organizations. The participant group included 10 women and seven men. In terms
of race and ethnicity, approximately 30% of participants were not White, including South Asian,
East Asian, Latina, and Black leaders. Four White leaders informally self-identified as Jewish,
though the screener did not ask about religion and others may have had other religious or ethnic
backgrounds. All participants received coaching within the 6-year period between 2018 and
2023, though some also had coaching before that period. Half of the participants had more than
one professional coaching experience. Each participant received a number and subsequently a
pseudonym to provide anonymity. Participant sourcing methods included convenient and
snowball sampling, some by referral from coaches, some by referral from my contacts, and some
by outreach on email, Meta, and LinkedIn. Interviews took place in a 10-week period from July

47
to September 2023, and ranged from 45 to 70 minutes in length. Participants received interview
summaries to review. Table 2 illustrates the participant pool.
Table 2
Participant Profiles
Participant
pseudonym Industry Identity
(ethnicity/gender) Coaching payer
Number of
coaching
experiences
Sponsored
coaching for
teammates
Aileen Tech Asian female Both self and
organization 3 No
Brad Financial
services White male Self 1 No
Charlie Financial
services White male Organization 3 No
Deepika Tech Asian female Organization 3 Yes
Ed Tech Black male Organization 1 Yes
Frank Financial
services White male Organization 1 Yes
Grace Professional
services White female Organization 1 Yes
Holly Professional
services White female Self 2 No
Isabel Tech Latina female Organization 2 No
Jennifer Professional
services White female Both self and
organization 3 Yes
Kara Financial
services White female Organization 2 Yes
Laura Not-for-profit White female Organization 1 No
Mia Tech White female Organization 1 Yes

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Participant
pseudonym Industry Identity
(ethnicity/gender) Coaching payer
Number of
coaching
experiences
Sponsored
coaching for
teammates
Neil Financial
services Asian male Organization 2 No
Owen Financial
services White male Self 1 No
Paul Financial
services White male Organization 1 Yes
Quinn Professional
services White female Organization 2 No
Findings: Research Question 1
The first research question asked what aspects of coaching drive success from the
leader’s point of view. Although coaches pitch intimacy and insight, they must earn a place in
the leader’s life. Because executive coaches present themselves as trusted advisers (Kilburg,
2016; Kimsey-House et al., 2018; Waslyshyn, 2017), the study investigated whether leaders
actually trust their coaches. As Bronfenbrenner (1979) emphasized, learning relationships like
coaching take place in the context of other work and family systems. Interviews yielded three
key findings. First, leaders value coaches who create self-awareness by managing emotions and
pushing them out of their comfort zone. Next, feedback plays a significant role in connecting
coaches, clients, and colleagues. Third, trust in coaching relationships is fragile.
Successful Coaching Expands Self-Awareness
Coaching had the most positive impact when coaches helped leaders build self-awareness
about their behaviors and blind spots. Whether a gentle push or a dose of tough love, 14 of the 17
participants described coaching as a catalyst to self-examination and self-management. Counter
to expectations, participants appreciated the therapy-like aspects of coaching and described

49
coaching as more like therapy than like a colleague or friend relationship. Coaches had an impact
by helping leaders manage emotions and creating healthy discomfort to help leaders learn.
Helping Leaders Manage Emotions
Participants valued talking with coaches about triggers and emotional tendencies that
took them into a reactive mode at work. Mia, a senior leader in HR and operations, described
how she had a “gut level negative reaction” to conflict happening in her workplace. Her coach
“was extraordinarily helpful on behavioral change,” and helped her with how to “manage that
energy and show up differently … how to stay positive as [my company] was a brutal place.”
Even though Mia found her coach “a little too California New Age,” not the type of person she
would choose as a friend, Mia valued her coach’s ability to “cut immediately to core issues.”
Paul, also a senior functional leader, noted self-awareness as a focus of his coaching. Paul
struggled with strong emotions when he faced resistance from stakeholders. His coach urged him
to examine why he refrained from speaking in key meetings, and Paul realized he “clammed up”
because he was afraid of what he might say if he were angry. His coach offered positive
encouragement, practical tools like journaling, and a framework about how to “pause between
stimulus and response.” Both Mia and Paul mentioned their coaches had deep experience, in
Paul’s case with a Master Coach credential. With demanding roles and intense work styles, Mia
and Paul learned to pause and take perspective before responding to colleagues. Although for
these executives, coaching for self-awareness focused on slowing down, other leaders with
different profiles found coaching important to build confidence and amplify their voices.
Two women leaders in tech, Isabel and Deepika, described coaching as a tool to build
self-awareness around imposter syndrome. Isabel recalled crying in a coaching session as she
remembered how stressful she found her first experiences of leading others when she was in

50
school. She said, “I didn’t expect coaching to go back to my childhood,” yet made a deep
connection with the coach by sharing how emotional those memories were and reflecting on how
they affected her today. Isabel remembered her coaching as “the first time I actually got this
picture of me, a little bit more connected, and not something shallow.” Deepika’s experience
unfolded a bit differently; she had advanced at work by delivering results with quiet competence
yet felt uncomfortable with self-promotion. For this reason, Deepika chose a coach who was “a
real New Yorker … really direct,” and who pushed her outside her comfort zone. For Deepika,
this plain-spoken coach met the high bar set by her personal friends and advisors. Normally, she
said, she trusted her friends, or “personal board of directors,” and her husband more than coaches
or HR partners. In this case, Deepika’s coach took a “brutally honest” perspective and
“push[ed]” her to promote her accomplishments, earning her attention. Coaches emerge from
these stories as balancing or equalizing each leader’s more extreme tendencies.
Leaders sought emotional self-awareness beyond work topics. Owen undertook coaching
to reflect on his life purpose after deaths in his family and children going to college. Owen
realized he worked unbelievably hard yet lacked joy. He set a goal to “develop more courage and
empathy … connect with folks more through the heart than the head.” Owen wanted a coach
who would test his assumptions rather than just lend a friendly ear:
A coach is a professional, right? I never had this sort of intellectual framework for what
driv[es] me and how I make decisions. It’s tough when you don’t understand what’s
underlying it. I don’t think just talking things out with a friend is enough.
Owen’s desire for a life change brought urgency to coaching, differentiating coaching from dayto-day conversations he had with friends. Across the study, participants like Owen who were
processing life changes wanted coaches who would actively test their assumptions.

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Healthy Discomfort
Participants wanted their coaches to provide enough push-back and healthy discomfort to
challenge their assumptions. Unlike a personal friendship based on reciprocity and mutual
encouragement, the coaching relationship was a place to “unload” (Deepika), “vent” (Kara),
“deal with it” (Grace), “play out scenarios” (Brad), or “bounce [ideas] off a backboard like a
tennis ball” (Charlie). Several participants said they wanted coaches to push and ask provocative
questions. Aileen said she preferred coaches who asked powerful questions over those who
offered “just suggestions.” Isabel also mentioned “transformational questions to trigger my
thinking.” Charlie wondered if his second coach would have been more helpful if the
engagement was more “taxing.” Although the coach was “like chicken, he’s fine, everybody
likes it,” Charlie believed he could have learned more if his coach held him accountable for more
work in the coaching sessions. In a sense, participants had a role in mind that they wanted the
coach to play. They wanted the coach to sanity-check them and debate with them, yet not to
share the coach’s own views. In defining this role, participants suggested an asymmetry in the
coaching relationship, making it different than a friendship.
Participants cited their own willingness to invite challenge as a key success factor.
Effective coaching required both a coach who was willing to push, and a leader who was willing
to experience discomfort. Brad, who worked with the same coach over a 5-year period and
multiple promotions, talked about his openness to change and the importance of putting in
enough effort to make coaching a learning experience. Likewise, Ed, who sponsored coaching
for his team members and himself, noticed that “those with a clear, open mind. . . who invested
the time and resources” achieved results from coaching, whereas other leaders “were not
amenable to exposing their blind spots” and did not develop. Participant stories also suggested

52
coaches can best introduce discomfort by combining it with positivity, keeping the client in a
healthy stress zone. Holly explained she wanted coaches to help her try new things: “There's a lot
of negative stuff out there, and to carve out the space for yourself to be able to have this time to
do it, I wanted to put more of a positive focus on it.” As Isabel related, “After coaching, it was
easier for me to share, what is going to trigger discomfort, to be open to hear things.” In testing
leaders’ assumptions, feedback gives coaches a tool to link learning back to the client’s everyday
world.
Feedback Drives Action
Feedback underpins coaching success by grounding it firmly in the leader’s reality.
Although self-awareness can develop in a private coach–client bubble, feedback connects to
events and people in the client’s world. Feedback encourages the coach and client to analyze
relationships with the client’s colleagues and manager. Interviews identified three sources of
feedback: personality assessment, direct observation, and 360-degree reports. Across the three
sources, the benefit was having a fact-based framework to speak frankly about the leader’s
impact at work.
Personality Assessments
Several participants valued personality assessments delivered by their coach, though they
barely remembered details. Participants recalled assessments as “this exercise with the numbers
and the spider” (Isabel), “kind of like quadrants of my brain” (Brad), “a psychometric leadership
style thing” (Charlie), and “a test with thousands of questions” (Kara). Charlie, Neil, and Kara
mentioned misplacing their assessment report and Brad recalled the framework yet not the
report. As these leaders recalled, assessments helped them see themselves from others’ point of
view. Charlie found his personality assessment to be “fascinating” because he was “way over

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here on these metrics.” Brad said, “[My coach] will have more data points than obviously I do, I
just have my own data points.” Neil said he and his colleagues were “super skeptical” about an
assessment shared with his team, yet when they saw the coach’s report, “it was incredible. She
broke it all down. She's like, ‘You are a trader. You're good at this. You're not good at this.'” To
make meaning of the data, participants relied on coaches’ verbal interpretation and discussion
more than they consulted written assessment reports.
Coaches’ interpretation of assessments impacted participants’ self-perception. For
example, Kara’s and Charlie’s coaches both said they had never seen someone with quite the
same profile before. For Kara, the coach validated Kara’s feeling like an outlier:
She [coach] said I’ve never seen this before. … Usually people spike on one, maybe two,
but you spike on so many [dimensions]. … It’s both a blessing and a curse, you have a
million things going a mile a minute. ... But you're feeling all of them passionately, really
strongly. And other people are only feeling really one. And there's an imbalance.
Kara’s coach compared her to an average population, framing Kara’s unique profile both as a
superpower and a source of frustration. As a result of the assessment discussion, Kara developed
practices to “put myself in others’ shoes,” which reduced her frustration and helped her
collaborate with colleagues. Charlie similarly felt relieved when his coach noted a rare
combination of introversion and extraversion and a preference for creativity versus rulefollowing. As he joked, “I like to be unique,” Charlie noted that he finally understood “these are
real styles” and that “at the margin this helps me deal with other people. … I might pause a little
in terms of, how do you think about the world.” In discussing personality assessments with
coaches, Kara and Charlie began thinking differently about their interactions with colleagues.

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Increased empathy was an unexpected positive effect of Aileen’s, Brad’s, Mia’s, and
Neil’s personality assessments. Brad learned from his thinking-style assessment that “I come
across maybe a little transactional to people at times.” When Brad learned his detail-oriented
thinking style was only one of four styles, he gave more grace to colleagues who “care more
about the idea … they leave [out] the details.” Although that used to “drive [him] nuts,” he was
able to “reduce the back and forth,” communicating more smoothly. Mia shared how her bias to
action showed up in her personality framework: “I could be to the ceiling Red.” Neil’s coach
used research by Adam Grant to help Neil recognize colleagues’ styles. Although Neil identified
with the data-driven scientist archetype in Grant’s framework, Neil’s colleague presented as an
image-focused politician archetype. Having a framework to interpret his colleague’s behavior
helped Neil deescalate tensions with his colleague. Overall, participants reported their coaching
about personality styles helped improve communication in their colleague relationships.
Direct Observation
Another form of feedback used by coaches was direct observation of leaders in their
environment. Participants whose coaches watched them interact with colleagues or make
business presentations reported insights they could use immediately. Neil’s coach sat on the
trading floor, embedded with Neil’s team. When his coach saw Neil having a sharp exchange
about work quality with one of his direct reports, she pulled Neil aside and shared just-in-time
observational feedback. She said Neil’s tone could demotivate the direct report and asked Neil to
imagine what it would feel like to hear criticism in front of the other traders. Neil said this helped
him because at the time, he genuinely believed his job was to raise performance and fix
analytical errors, and he had not focused on communication. The coach in this case could speak
for junior team members who may not feel empowered to provide upward feedback.

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Direct observation helped both Mia and Kara refine how they communicated at work,
virtually and live. Mia discussed with her coach how she showed up in Zoom meetings; for
example, making sure her camera framed her well and seeing if she had a “warm, relaxed,
friendly expression.” The coach asked Mia to consider how she wanted to show up under times
of stress, and reviewed recordings. The videos helped Mia have a “visual cue for what to strive
for … I didn’t always succeed, but these were good tools.” Kara credited her first coach with
helping her prove to management that she could step up to the next level. In addition to meeting
one-on-one, the coach spent entire days at Kara’s company, enabling him to observe her in
meetings and learn the company culture. The coach watched Kara presenting at a town hall
meeting and afterwards offered her speaking tips specific to her audience. With direct
observation, Kara’s coach could offer targeted feedback she could use immediately to improve.
360-Degree Feedback
360-degree stakeholder feedback, or “360,” aims to shape actionable development goals
for leaders (Passmore et al., 2012). For the nine leaders in the study who mentioned 360s, four
found it moderately useful to accelerate their development. Three leaders found the feedback less
useful because it sounded vague, biased, or both. Two others, Paul and Ed, discussed 360 as
important to include when they sponsored coaching for others yet did not share about their own
360 experience. The remaining eight leaders in the study did not receive 360s, either because
their organization did not fund it or because they self-paid for coaching. In this study, 360s had
mixed results because of how coaches collected and shared the data.
Charlie, Isabel, Deepika, and Kara received useful or moderately useful 360s while
working for Fortune-500 multinational organizations. Charlie appreciated the 360 because it
clarified his impact on peers. For example, the 360 showed that Charlie did more asserting than

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listening in meetings with peers, who felt he left them little room. Isabel recalled receiving
findings about her leadership styles as well as where she struggled. She connected the findings to
patterns of behavior from roles in prior companies and even to her childhood. The benefit of
individual coaching in Isabel’s example was to go deeper on these findings than she could in a
group leadership program. Deepika and Kara similarly found 360s useful to learn how colleagues
perceived them. They could then shift behavior to remedy any concerning perceptions; for
example, expressing more concern for team members or offering more flexibility. Fitting into
organizational culture became an outcome, if not a stated goal, of the 360.
Frank, Grace, and Laura lost faith in their 360-degree feedback processes. Although in
theory, all feedback is useful information, these leaders had experiences that reduced their trust
in the system. For Grace and Laura, the feedback was not surprising because it reflected strong
views they already knew their managers held. The feedback therefore could not stand on its own.
For Frank, the coach collected useful feedback yet overstepped in using it to recommend a next
role to Frank’s managers. For these leaders, 360 feedback reflected the power dynamics in which
they were stuck, with the coach playing messenger between themselves and their manager.
Trust is Fragile
Participants assessed trust between coach and client in stark terms: either they rated trust
as a nine or 10, where 10 was the best, or it was a five or below. Individuals who formed a trustbased relationship with their coach reported a meaningful impact on their development and
outward measures of success like new roles. Those who had lower trust experiences used the
coaching more transactionally or in some cases stopped the coaching. Trust was hard for some
participants to quantify, yet ultimately came down to agreements about information sharing.

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High Trust Experiences
One driver of trust was the leader’s perception of the coach’s commitment to them.
Aileen contrasted two coaches, one she trusted at a 10 and one at a five. The coach she trusted at
a 10 shared an educational background with her; yet more importantly, the coach was
“completely invested in my success.” By comparison, the coach Aileen chose from her
company-sponsored platform remained at a five because the coach “was checking the box,” gave
“suggestions more than questions,” and could not be sure of “coach confidentiality.” Brad also
felt his coach was “vested in my success … genuine, honest.” Brad’s coach built trust by putting
him in the driver’s seat: “It wasn’t pushy, like, Oh, hey, time to do more [coaching].” Brad rose
in his career through several promotions and reengaged the coach each time. Both Isabel and
Neil smiled and lit up during interviews when talking about coaches they trusted. As participants
talked about their coaches, further drivers of trust emerged.
Professional stance, including objectivity, also raised participants’ trust. Holly felt safer
finding coaches with many references and testimonials, ideally from friends. Owen interviewed
several coaches and chose a Ph.D. published author. Ed screened “all the big firms,” avoiding
novice coaches as well as retired employees of his company. Ed sought an external coaching
provider rather than internal coaches at his company because he wanted an “unbiased view” and
honest feedback he could trust. By contrast, Isabel had a coach she rated highly because the
coach worked so closely with others at her company. Isabel felt the coach’s value was in helping
her understand specific colleagues, even given the risk the coach would share information.
Across interviews, leaders who had high trust in their coach answered interview questions about
trust quickly and emphatically.

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Low Trust Experiences
Other participants shared experiences of low trust in their coach, either because the coach
broke their trust or because the coach did not earn their trust in the first place. Some cases of low
trust remained charged for participants years after the experience. One source of low trust was
related to the coach’s financial arrangements. Another related to confidentiality and information
sharing. The third and most serious was overstepping boundaries, in a case where the leader’s
coach undermined the leader’s career by inserting themselves between the leader and their boss.
Financial ethics troubled leaders whose coaches seemed too focused on generating repeat
business from the leader’s organization. As Laura observed, “I think [my coach] just wanted the
contract… she was going to get more business from them, so it was in her best interest to stick
with [me].” Laura ended the coaching engagement early. Likewise, Grace wondered about her
coach’s incentives, noticing “[the coach] always gets the call … she gets the payment. She didn’t
have an approach or a structure.” When Frank’s firm offered him coaching, he interviewed and
rejected a coach who “had way too many clients … he was checking the box, doing business in
volume.” Even in less charged stories, 11 of the 17 participants perceived coaching as expensive.
Charlie compared his company’s coaching contract to a “pre-paid phone card that’s going to run
out,” wondering why the company was “stingy” with leaders they aspired to develop. Unease
about financial arrangements, whether too stingy or too expensive, led to lack of trust.
Leaders in smaller organizations called out coaches whose price exceeded value. As
Jennifer reflected on her time at a startup,
I was so entrenched in [coaching] that I had blinders on…I didn’t see the dark side yet.
The mindset coaching program was $100,000 and I invested part of that on my own,

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$25,000, and my boss invested [the rest], and they would take people’s money… He
wasn’t giving people any tangible results. It felt really gross to me, really unethical.
Although Jennifer reported having both good and bad coaches, her emotions about coaching
skewed negative. Even when her CEO funded coaching, Jennifer wished the money had gone
toward team salaries. She eventually left the organization, and the word coaching made her
uneasy for years. Holly, also in a small company, questioned “why I would be paying for a 15-
minute phone call.” Holly rationed sessions to make the most of them. The cost of coaching also
led Holly and Grace to note that they disliked coaches who appeared too casually dressed or
unprepared for sessions. Taking a different angle, Owen chose a high-priced, universitycredentialed coach to derisk his choice. Listening to participants, the focus on coaching costs
reflected leaders’ sense of investing in themselves.
Lack of clear agreements about information-sharing negatively impacted trust between
leaders and coaches. Quinn and Deepika, who each had more than one company-sponsored
coach, could compare how different coaches addressed confidentiality. Quinn found her first
coach loose about confidentiality: “I had no confidence that things would not be shared…There
were no agreements we made, it was very informal.” Quinn’s coach worked with others in her
organization, a “very political place … I didn’t feel comfortable being fully honest.” Deepika
recalled one coach mentioning casually that the coach’s business partner was coaching her boss:
“If I had found out later, I would have been super annoyed … clearly confidentiality was not a
thing. At least I knew it up front.” The tone of these participants’ stories contrasts with the
learning and growth other leaders experienced.
The most serious breach of trust in the study related to boundaries. Frank says his coach
tried to broker a change of role, discussing it with his manager without Frank’s consent. He

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realized “as soon as [the coach] mentioned a certain type of role to me … all of a sudden [my
manager] was recommending the same thing.” He recalls his coach “pushing to get an answer”
about the role and about whether he intended to exit the company. The coach’s involvement
“made it worse … I didn’t want to talk anymore.” Frank found help by talking to his spouse who
had HR experience. His spouse “reassured me the coach was inappropriate.” Even with this
negative experience, Frank later sponsored coaching for his employees. His conversation with
his spouse reminded him caveat emptor applies to coaching. Even if rare in the interview sample,
Frank’s story shows what conditions limit coaching success.
Discussion: Research Question 1
Leaders experienced coaching as successful when it generated healthy discomfort leading
to self-awareness. Coaches who challenged leaders directly built trust, confirming Zak’s (2017)
assertion linking trust to healthy stress. By contrast, coaches who took bland, people-pleasing
approaches did not earn a place in their client’s inner circle, or microsystem (Bronfenbrenner,
1979). Leaders wanted flexibility to choose their coaches and keep their coaching somewhat
private from their managers, two findings again supporting Zak’s focus on autonomy as a driver
of relationship trust. Leaders who valued coaching found it to be quite personal, bordering on
therapy. Their stories affirmed literature showing coaching and therapy overlap (Crowe, 2017;
Price, 2009). Some participants embodied the lonely-at-the-top archetype, wanting a neutral third
party to talk to (Saporito, 2012). Across the sample, leaders valued coaching that generated
insight and connection as well as coaching that helped them advance in their careers.
Participants mostly welcomed feedback from coaches about their work style and impact
on others, showing curiosity about how to communicate more effectively with colleagues. Their
coaching goals were individually focused, including skill development, self-reflection, and

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achieving career aspirations, rather than collective or company goals. The findings point in a
different direction than the literature on coaching as a goal-attainment activity (Grant & Atad,
2022) or a subset of organizational consulting (Hamlin et al., 2009). If anything, executives in
this study wanted to reclaim the human side of leadership and speak freely about challenges that
connected their personal and professional lives. Participants seemed uninterested in the formal
performance rubrics and development plans that justified coaching in the first place.
Some participants suffered breaches of trust with coaches due to conflicts of interest. In
some cases, the conflicts of interest were financial; in others, they were organizational, relating
to the leader’s manager or HR. For these participants, power dynamics destabilized the coaching
when the coach became a messenger, as suggested by Louis and Fatien Diochon (2018). The
conflict-of-interest examples recall Covey’s (2008) trust equation, in which even a reliable close
advisor loses trust if their self-orientation outweighs client focus.
Findings: Research Question 2
The second research question focused on what environmental conditions in coaching
promote alignment of the leader’s and organization’s goals. Interview questions asked how an
organization’s social networks, or mesosystems (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), shape leaders’ coaching
experiences. Three key themes emerged. First, choosing your coach matters, yet not all leaders
receive a choice. Second, expectancy of coaching, whether set by the organization or learned
through rumor, drives leaders' perceptions of value. Third, coaching reciprocally interacts with
colleague relationships; while coaching can improve peer relationships, it cannot detoxify boss
relationships. Just as Bronfenbrenner (1979) observed connections between the student–teacher
relationship and students’ peers and parents, this study showed how coaching interacts with the
peer relationships and managerial support surrounding the leader.

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Choosing Your Coach Matters
Many leaders in the study had no choice of coach. Some participants reported receiving a
strong push to take a specific coach. Although efficient, the coach-assignment process created
wariness rather than alignment between the leaders and their organization. By contrast, choosing
coaches gave participants a sense of agency. The findings on coach choice support Seligman’s
(1995) finding that psychotherapy outcomes improve when patients choose their counselor. In
relation to coach selection, interviewees highlighted two key topics: the power dynamic of coach
assignment and the criteria leaders would use to choose their ideal coach.
Power Dynamic of Coach Assignment
Participants sensed a power dynamic when organizations preassigned their coaches. One
aspect of power was the organization’s close relationship with the coach. Grace recalled realizing
she had no choice because the same coach served all the requests in her department. She briefly
imagined asking for a different coach yet concluded that was unrealistic. Instead, she “play[ed]
ball,” accepted the coach’s divided loyalties, and used the coach as a channel to management.
“My goal was not to have an amazing coach for me to thrive … it was to get a coach [my
leadership] approved, and that would fix whatever the perceived problem was.” Likewise, Laura
had no choice because her coach was “an extension of the Board.” Laura avoided sharing
“critique[s]” of Board members with her coach. Quinn’s first coaching experience resembled
Laura’s. Quinn’s organization assigned her a coach who was also coaching many of her
colleagues. Quinn perceived the coach as “political” and too tight with her leadership to give
objective guidance. She also noticed the coach’s lack of a structured process, which she
attributed to the coaches relying on relationships over credentials. In Quinn’s, Laura’s, and

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Grace’s recollections, the lack of choice reinforced perceptions that coaches served the
organization, not them personally.
Another aspect of power concerned HR business partners’ involvement in coach
selection. HR partners rarely figured as key confidants in these participants’ stories, yet HR
partners actively drove coach matching. Kara, who began a coaching engagement to improve
colleague relationships, hesitated in recollecting whether she had a real choice of coach:
[I]t was presented to me that this senior executive in HR thought it would be a good
match and that I should meet [the coach] and if I felt comfortable. I could proceed,
otherwise they could introduce me to someone else … but it didn't exactly happen that
way, and so I wound up somehow, assigned a little bit without my understanding. So, it
kind of got picked for me. I never really got the choice. … I remember, though, feeling
like, ‘Whoa, wait a minute. I didn't. Did I agree to this?’
Kara noticed an implicit norm not to challenge HR. Both Kara and Grace believed asking for a
different coach could undermine their reputation with HR during a time when they were already
feeling vulnerable.
A more passive power dynamic arose when organizations randomly assigned coaching to
leaders. Charlie, Deepika, Grace, Quinn, and Aileen experienced coach assignment as a generic
experience: the corporate learning department sent an email saying they had a coach and to
please contact them. The effect of random assignment was to position coaching as an
organizational signal, either that “we are investing in you” (Charlie) or that “you have a
problem” (Grace). Deepika and Quinn mentioned the assigned coaching felt like extra busy
work. Mia, who oversaw coaching for others in her HR role, grew to believe that random

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coaching assignments wasted money: “Leaders should have to proactively want it and say what
they want it for.” Overall, random assignment depersonalized the coaching experience.
Leaders’ Preferred Coach Selection Criteria
Participants clearly stated how they would like to choose coaches. They cited industry
experience and dedicated personal attention as the top two selection criteria. Although most
participants started choosing based on experience, they also indicated that was not sufficient; a
good coach would also give attention and time to treat them as an individual. Some leaders such
as Jennifer and Paul also discussed coach certification, though others such as Ed said
certification would not influence his judgment.
Leaders mostly chose coaches based on industry experience. Owen selected a wellknown psychology professor who had financial services clients like himself. Deepika said that
for a coach to help her as much as personal friends could, the coach would need tech experience
as well as a skill profile, such as communication coaching. Aileen prioritized tech experience: “if
they do not have the expertise, [would] they push me enough to think deeper, to solve the
problem.” With tech experience as a gating factor, Aileen then assessed the coaches’ education
and credentials. The coach Aileen most trusted was a fellow business school alumni who showed
expertise by sharing case examples and readings.
Dedicated attention drove participants’ decision to renew with the same coach. In
addition to tech experience, Aileen mentioned her coach’s following up between sessions and
remembering details of her situation. For Brad and Owen, who both paid out of pocket for
coaching, the quality of their coaches’ attention shone through the interviews. Both leaders
described coaching as a relationship rather than a transaction, providing a much-needed sounding
board to offer empathy and grounding. In a sense, because they were self-paying, they shopped

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for trust. Isabel and Aileen also talked about the caring way their coaches asked about life
outside of work and created nonjudgmental space to discuss ambitions and work-life balance.
None of these leaders described their choice in logical terms; rather, they gravitated to personal
warmth.
Impact of Third-Party Coaching Platforms
Third-party app-based coaching platforms streamlined the coach choice process, though
without necessarily delivering high-quality content. A small number of participants, including
Aileen, Paul, Mia, and Deepika, used platforms contracted by their organization such as
BetterUp and Korn Ferry. Brad and Holly used LinkedIn to search for coaches. Platforms
showed benefits including the ability to find a coach quickly, as Deepika described “dial[ing] up
a coach” for one of her direct reports. Aileen liked being able to switch easily from one coach to
another if she did not like the first one. Brad screened for coaches who had worked with his
company before. Paul said the platform made it easy to compare coach biographies and track
next steps. He engaged the same platform to expand coaching across his department. Ease of
engagement and control of the process emerged as key benefits.
Most participants valued platform readings, resources, and tools less than they valued
coach choice. Mia viewed the platform she used as another layer of administrative busywork.
She said she did not need the links or libraries provided on the platform and focused on the oneto-one sessions with her coach. Deepika and Aileen also said they received platform alerts about
resources and tools yet largely ignored those, preferring the notes their coach provided.
Expectancy of Coaching Drives Value
Expectations of coaching shape the coaching experience. Leaders in the study connected
what they had heard about coaching to what actually happened in sessions. Participants framed

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expectations of coaching at four observable levels: those with no expectations, those with
minimal expectations set by informal peer discussion, those with some expectations set by
organizational onboarding, and those with strong, specific expectations provided directly by a
direct boss or mentor. Whether negative, positive, or neutral in tone, the amount of expectationsetting affected participants’ efficiency in using coaching to meet goals, as well as their
estimation of coaching’s value.
Leaders who came into coaching with no expectations found coaching generally pleasant
yet not always immediately useful. Most leaders in the study had an early coaching experience
with no or almost no expectations. After her company offered coaching as a perk, it took Aileen
a “couple of tries” to find coaches with good personality matches for her. With little to no
onboarding or oversight from her organization, Aileen expected that coaches would give her
tactical tips and directive advice. She learned coaching was more about asking powerful
questions and helping brainstorm what could be possible. Owen had no expectations at first,
though he built up expectations through a lengthy process of interviewing and trying out coaches
before committing. His peers had not engaged coaches, so he had to work harder to learn what to
expect. In the absence of expectations, experience with therapy provided Owen with the best
analogy. For this reason, Owen gravitated to coaches who worked in a relational way versus
coaches with a productized, tech-driven toolkit. In Mia’s case, the absence of expectations
helped her approach coaching as an experiment. The coaching provider set no expectation that
Mia would have to engage them again or involve her management in the coaching. The group of
leaders with no expectations had positive, if sometimes unstructured, experiences.
Leaders with minimal expectations set by informal peer discussion had the most
divergent and sometimes skeptical views of coaching. Frank recalled hearing from peers that

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leaders who had problems received coaching. Because his company’s CEO also engaged a coach
by choice, Frank had to reconcile the negative and positive examples of coaching in his
company. Grace also talked about the “scuttlebutt” on coaching that she heard from trusted
peers. Deepika “used the coach to message her boss” after realizing what the company expected
her to say she learned. Deepika also perceived different peer attitudes to coaching in the two
companies where she worked. In the first company, peers voiced skepticism about coaching,
whereas in the second company, coaching seemed routine. Jennifer and Holly had copious
amounts of peer discussion around coaching, which built curiosity yet also led to mixed
messages because so many types of coaching exist in the market. After trying and interviewing
both good coaches and coaches who seemed fraudulent, Jennifer and Emily adopted a cautious
attitude to coach selection.
Leaders with some expectation set by organizational onboarding appreciated coaching
and took initiative in defining their own coaching topics. Isabel and Charlie both held roles that
fit within well-understood succession plans for their organizations. Both knew leaders at certain
levels received one-to-one coaching. Their organizations congratulated them on receiving
coaching as high potential leaders but left the details of what to expect up to the coaches to
explain. In this two-step process, the second step of the coach defining expectations
differentiated Charlie’s “great’ experience with one coach from his “fine” experience with
another coach. In Isabel’s case, she took more agency to define topics with her second coach
because her first coach showed her how to engage. To define a minimum level of expectation
setting, Isabel’s and Charlie’s cases provide good case examples.
Finally, leaders with positive and specific expectations turned out to value coaching
highly. Brad’s close friend and mentor advised him to hire a coach after Brad failed to receive a

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promotion. The mentor explained how coaches could break down the root causes of Brad’s
performance and help him build skills and awareness of his strengths and weaknesses. The
mentors had hired their own coaches in the past and testified to the benefits. When Brad
subsequently won his promotion, he thanked both the mentor and his coach. In Neil’s case, his
CEO engaged a coach for himself before recommending coaching to Neil. The coach had met
Neil before, and Neil had observed and heard about some of the shifts his CEO had made. As a
result, he associated coaching with career advancement.
Paul’s and Ed’s experiences designing end-to-end coaching programs offer promising
practices to develop expectancy value for coaching. Both Paul and Ed designed structured
coaching journeys for their departments. They staked their own reputational capital on the
programs’ success. Each leader mentioned the effort and detail they put into setting clear
expectations before participants ever met their coaches. In Ed’s example, he designed a program
for a leadership team that all worked together. He created a coaching program roadmap with
milestones and prework. He also set expectations about having an open mindset and asked
leaders to agree to discuss learnings from individual coaching in the full group team sessions. In
doing so, he avoided ambiguity and encouraged transparency. Paul’s example focused on group
cohorts rather than intact teams. He set up gating factors for enrollment, including approval from
the client’s manager and a survey about client expectations of coaching. Paul leveraged a
platform company to match coaches and provide after-action analysis. Paul’s and Ed’s examples
confirm the importance of expectation setting as well as the benefits of team and group coaching.
Coaching Reciprocally Interacts with Colleague Relationships
The objective of coaching for many leaders in the study was to improve relationships at
work. When leaders talked about becoming more effective, follow-up questions revealed they

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were defining effectiveness as relationship-building, influence, and communication. For most of
these leaders, coaching had to produce change in the work environment, not only insight for
themselves. A difference emerged in the study between coaching’s impact on relationships with
peers versus relationships with bosses. Coaching improved peer alignment yet had little to no
ability to improve poor relationships with bosses.
Coaching Improves Peer Alignment
Leaders reported being positively surprised by how their peer relationships improved
after coaching. Peer alignment for most leaders in the study improved more than they expected.
Coaches helped improve peer alignment by offering sounding boards on topics such as role
overlap and competition. Charlie, whose client-facing leadership role had revenue goals that
could conflict with peers’ goals, talked with his coach about peer role overlap:
[We have] lots of overlapping responsibilities. I'm unsure as to where my role begins and
[my peer] ends. So, most of it was less about my individual [work] than it was ambiguity
or overlapping spheres that would be made clear. And then I would say to [my coach] …
look at this crazy yarn bowl. What do I do about it?
Charlie’s coach helped him recognize when he was talking over peers or making decisions alone
that peers expected to make together. Similar themes about peer relationship improvement
emerged from nine out of the 17 interviews. Participants described peer relationships as
becoming more “patient” (Brad), “calm” (Kara), “levelheaded” (Mia), and “productive”
(Aileen). Several leaders said they felt less defensive around peers and better able to understand
multiple points of view. Coaching appeared to help participants transition from leading their own
team to engaging in collaborative peer work across their enterprises.

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Coaches Cannot Detoxify Boss Relationships
Coaching underperformed expectations in improving difficult relationships between
leaders and their direct bosses. Alignment between an employee and their direct manager drives
the leader’s engagement and motivation at work (Rath & Conchie, 2008). For the leaders in this
study, coaching worked best when the leader had at least a neutral relationship with their boss, or
in some cases a positive relationship. Leaders who had a negative or toxic relationship with their
boss could not turn it around with coaching. In some cases, the coach was complicit in the power
dynamic supporting the boss. In other cases, the coach became an empathetic yet powerless
sounding board for the leader’s desire to leave the company. In either case, the addition of an
external voice did not improve alignment.
Comparing participants with supportive or neutral bosses to those with negative boss
relationships shows the impact of bosses on the coaching experience. The participants with
supportive bosses, including Brad, Ed, Kara, Neil, and Quinn, credited coaching with generating
meaningful personal growth as well as advancement in their careers. Those who described their
bosses in neutral terms, including Aileen, Charlie, Deepika, Isabel, and Paul, derived value from
at least some of their coaching, yet kept the coaching process mostly separate from their manager
relationship, using limited touchpoints to update their manager. Of those with negative boss
relationships, including Frank, Grace, Jennifer, Laura, and Mia, only Mia trusted the coach to
help her. Mia had a special case where she selected her own coach; she had no requirement to
align the coach with her boss. For the other four, coaching became fraught with awareness that
their manager did not support them, the coach was accountable to their manager, and they did not
trust the coach. For this reason, all four either ended their engagements or approached them with

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caution. None of the five reported improvements in their manager relationship from coaching or
otherwise. All five left their organization within 6 months to a year after the coaching.
Discussion: Research Question 2
Clear expectation-setting, a key ingredient of coaching success, appeared in short supply
for participants. The literature on expectancy-value theory (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000) suggests an
opportunity to maximize learning by setting expectations and connecting those to outcomes
participants value. However, for most leaders in the study, their organization neglected to set
specific expectations or connect to valued outcomes such as promotion, compensation, or better
work-life balance. Most leaders in the study received little to no information from their
organization and had to ask their coaches what to expect. For example, leaders in the study did
not know who else in their organization used a coach and for what purpose, whose budget
funded coaching, how much the coaching costs, or whether coaching signified a privilege or a
problem. The study revealed an almost total lack of communication about examples of coaching
success or the role of feedback. Only Brad and Neil mentioned examples of success from
mentors who had worked with coaches. The participants’ organizations missed opportunities for
communication and instead whispered about coaching, keeping participants in the dark.
In addition, although alignment between participants and their bosses sounded like an
important benefit or goal of coaching both in interviews and the literature (Kolodziejczak, 2015;
Passmore et al., 2012), direct communication between participants, managers, and coaches rarely
happened. The best examples of coaching alignment between participants and their bosses arose
in cases where relationships were already good or at least neutral. Viewing the study data in light
of LMX theory (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995), the lack of impact could result from attempting to
coach only the member, rather than both the member and boss together. Based on interviews

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with leaders in the study, organizations may want to think twice before recommending individual
coaching to improve relationships with a manager.
Findings: Research Question 3
The third research question asked what cultural factors influence the experience of
executive coaching for leaders. Some interview questions about culture touched on personal
identity, including gender, race, and ethnicity. Questions also addressed organizational culture
and the external environment, representing the exosystem in Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) theoretical
framework. Findings focused on two larger themes and one smaller theme. First, the cultural
relevance of identity in coaching pointed more toward finding a coach with a complementary
identity than a coach with the same identity. Second, organizational culture influenced coaching
differently in larger versus smaller organizations: Participants in large companies felt pressured
to fit into organizational culture, whereas leaders in small companies had more latitude. A
smaller theme concerned the external environment, including occasional mentions of the
COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of economic growth or contraction. Of the exosystem
elements, size of organization appears to have the most impact on leaders’ use of coaching.
Leaders Have Fluid Attitudes To Identity in Coaching
Leaders in the study responded heterogeneously to questions about how their personal
identity related to their coach’s identity. For the most part, participants rejected the idea that they
should work with a coach who had a similar gender or racial identity. Some said they had no
preference, whereas others actively sought out differences as a way of broadening their
perspective. The study asked about gender identity and about racial and ethnic identity, not about
other dimensions of difference such as ability, age, language, or socioeconomic background. Due

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to the small sample size, especially for non-White participants, findings point to opportunities for
deeper research.
Gender Identity
Many participants had active preferences for their coach’s gender, including several who
wanted a coach with a different gender to complement their point of view. Paul said he preferred
women coaches, saying they were less judgmental and better listeners than the men in his
industry. Paul also said he wanted to be a better advocate of diversity and better understand how
to support women’s careers. Holly chose male coaches during times when she was seeking to
win promotions: “I’m working in male-dominated industries … [Male coaches] give feedback on
practicing a conversation … how they are receiving the conversation from their perspective.”
Likewise, Isabel chose a male coach when she was on an upwardly mobile career track, when “I
was not yet a mom.” Later, Isabel worked with a woman coach on work-life topics like “my role
as mother and wife, and women’s leadership in … a male-dominated world.”
Some participants connected gender identity in coaching to their experiences with
friends, family, and therapy. As Owen noticed, “I want to say it doesn’t matter. … [But] I’ve
tried out therapists, and the male feels more fatherly and a woman feels more motherly. They
both bring different things.” Owen ultimately chose an older male coach with fatherly qualities
because of the topics he wanted to explore around purpose and retirement. Charlie described one
of his coaches in positive terms as “wise and fatherly … comforting.” In some cases, women
were tougher on women coaches. Mia said, “Initially … I was dubious. [My coach] is a woman
who’s never had to balance a career with kids.” Likewise, Laura, Grace, and Kara sometimes
referred to their coach as “this woman,” noting they failed to bond with their coach as a friend.
Grace reflected on “the gender aspect,” describing her coach as complicit in a female-dominated

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workplace where “they expect you to use the right tone and spend [most of] every interaction
being obsequiously complimentary.” In many of these examples, leaders describe their coaches
in a gendered way that mirrors dynamics they are working on in coaching.
Another group of participants said they did not care about the coach’s gender, citing their
focus on performance or industry experience. Brad said the coach’s gender was “random – no
preference.” Neil said he wanted coaching to be “clinical and dispassionately professional.”
Frank said, “gender didn’t matter to me … what mattered to me was that they understood how
our business worked.” Quinn indicated having a woman coach was less important because her
company was largely female led. Given the limits of a small study, which did not include gendernonconforming or nonbinary participants, interviews showed the coach’s gender matters to a
subset of leaders who may have gender-related dynamics in their workplace.
Racial and Ethnic Identity
In terms of racial and ethnic identity, most leaders in the study said they did not have a
preference, and some reacted negatively to the question itself. Similar to discussions on gender,
discussions about the coach’s racial and ethnic identity came down to performance. Aileen
expressed surprise at the question about race: “I think the diversity is not really … a factor for
me. What I'm looking for is someone who can resonate with me and …build success.” Deepika
said, “If I’m getting a coach for work, I want them to focus on performance.” Deepika declined
working with a coach who shared her racial and cultural background yet did not have the right
resume: “More than like my identity, I need a coach who …was more senior than me when they
started coaching, who has run a product.” Ed shared his perspective:
As long as th[e] coach is professional and open minded, and doesn't come in with biases,
they're more than able to effectively coach if you allow them to effectively coach. And it

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could be [that] your coach is great, and you are the problem because you come in with
your own biases. Maybe that's why people say that they need a female coach, or a gay
coach, or a Black coach. … No matter how large your bank account is or the color of
your skin. you're going to have human struggles. [If] you cut my hand, it bleeds like your
hand. So, I don't put a lot of stake into, I have to have a coach from this background.
Then to me, you are reaffirming those biases.
Ed emphasized the value of looking for blind spots and testing assumptions. He said that was
why he did not want to focus solely on identity. Ed wanted coaching to broaden his and his
teammates’ perspectives and lift their performance.
Other leaders actively sought a coach with a different identity. Neil, of Asian origin, said
he would not want a coach with the same background: “I don’t want false familiarity. I don’t
want any [advice]. Just because they happen to be brown, it’s not interesting.” Quinn, a White
American, intentionally selected a coach who grew up in China: “I intentionally have chosen
coaches that … bring different perspectives and lived experience than I do, because a lot of my
work is supporting and managing and working with people who are not the same as me.” Quinn
became emotional as she connected these experiences to her personal life: “I’m raising kids of
color, and I don’t know how to do that all the time. Besides the work stuff, I feel like at a
minimum a coach could say, ‘Hey, have you thought about how this [sounds]?’”
Importantly, participants who sponsored coaching for others said they do pay attention to
identity and representation in coach matching. Both Paul and Mia, who led coaching programs
for their organizations, said they worked hard to have a representative pool of available coaches
so everyone could find a match. Mia said having a diverse group of coaches was a “huge deal.”
As Ed noted, an organization could choose whether to provide choices of coaches with specific

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identities. Therefore, more data on racial and ethnic identity is needed to produce conclusive
findings. As this study had a small sample size, future studies would add value to the coaching
field by gathering more data about leaders' views of racial and ethnic identity in coaching.
Organizational Communication Shapes Coaching Topics
The study found differences in coaching topics between leaders in large organizations
and those in smaller startups. Leaders in large organizations used coaching to help them
communicate within company culture, whereas leaders in smaller companies focused more on
skills and personal development. In larger companies, both coaches and leaders engaged in a
project of understanding and managing a specific organizational culture. In smaller settings,
CEOs, chief HR officer (CHROs), and participants themselves drove change.
Leaders in Large Organizations
Leaders in large organizations often received coaching to help them fit into the
organizational culture. These leaders had to decode complex cultural norms to achieve their
goals, so coaching became a worthwhile investment. For example, when Aileen moved from a
Fortune-500 banking role into a large tech company, she noticed her reactive, result-oriented
style did not always mesh well with her new company’s culture of “listening for everyone and
not overstepping, not judging.” Aileen described her coach as a translator who could help
identify where she could shift her language and approach to garner better responses from
colleagues. Grace also moved from a Wall Street role to a consensus-oriented large organization.
She felt like a “fish out of water” and “challenged leadership all the time” until she received
messages through her coach to speak in more collaborative language. Paul credited his coach
with helping him manage the stress of formal taskforces with PowerPoint-heavy meetings. He
needed language to negotiate accountability with stakeholders who piled tasks onto Paul’s team.

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Paul worked on communication strategies with his coach to present persuasively and confidently
while maintaining authenticity. Likewise, Kara’s work with her coach focused on negotiating
accountability and influencing; Kara received a major promotion shortly after completing the
coaching. Success in coaching meant teaching leaders to code-switch.
Leaders with global roles asked coaches to help with intercultural communication. When
Ed took on global responsibility for many thousands of employees, he worked with his coach on
how to manage performance with his direct reports in different countries. He learned about each
country’s communication norms. “In some countries, when [direct reports] say yes, it doesn’t
mean yes, they’ll do it. It means yes, they’ve heard you … and oftentimes they’re saving face
and I need to be cognizant of that.” He debriefed his direct reports’ responses with the coach.
Deepika also leveraged coaching to transition into a new, more senior role in a multinational tech
company. She worked with a communication coach to create proactive blasts and newsletters
that would share her latest thinking with a diverse set of teammates. In the coaching work, she
shifted from communicating priorities directly to a small set of direct reports, to a more
“branded” mass media approach of broadcasting how her team’s strategy fit into the larger
company. Deepika’s investment in communication coaching enabled her teams to move faster
because she no longer bottlenecked information flow. In Ed’s and Deepika’s cases, culturally
adapted communication literally drove performance.
Leaders in Smaller Organizations
Participants in smaller workplaces saw more variation in how coaching connected to
organizational culture. Some leaders, such as Jennifer, Mia, and Laura, worked in small settings
where the culture came directly from one CEO or chair. Although participants’ bosses did
influence their work, none of these leaders said their coaching focused on company culture.

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Rather, they used coaching to build skills. Example topics included how to manage employees,
stay organized, or maintain a positive mindset. Laura’s coach taught her a system of sticky notes
and color codes to manage priorities. Jennifer worked with coaches to help her scale up
marketing and manage a growing employee base. Mia began by working on emotional selfmanagement, yet shifted to talking with her coach about potential transferable skills she could
possibly take to another company. All three leaders worked in smaller company settings where
they perceived the culture as dysfunctional. For these leaders, coaching could be an outlet, or an
escape.
For smaller-company leaders, coaching was most successful when external coaches could
critique the company culture. Neil’s coach, embedded with his team, facilitated sessions to
identify communication gaps without assigning blame or weight to any individual team member.
The coach helped Neil’s team resolve conflict. Quinn also engaged a coach to gain external
perspective on company culture and brainstorm ideas to influence the culture. Her coach offered
strategic as well as personal coaching on how Quinn could juggle client needs with her boss’s
and team’s needs. Coaching allowed Quinn to become more confident as a change agent within
her company as well as with her consulting clients.
External Social and Economic Factors
Participants paid more attention to organizational culture than to external environmental
factors when describing their coaching. The two external factors mentioned were the COVID-19
pandemic and layoffs in the participant’s company. COVID-19 influenced coaching in two ways:
It accelerated a shift to virtual coaching and caused leaders to prioritize ruthlessly, ending
coaching that did not serve. Layoffs increased leaders’ fear of displacement and added to

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leaders’ emotional workload. The strongest coaching relationships in the study persisted through
changes in the external environment.
All but two participants had at least one coaching engagement during or after the spring
of 2020, when COVID-19 caused widespread lockdowns. Due to the pandemic, leaders met
coaches virtually, with both negative and positive effects. Positive impacts of virtual coaching
included convenience of scheduling and access to diverse coaches. Convenience led participants
to continue virtual coaching after lockdowns lifted. Virtual coaching enabled Quinn to stretch her
perspective by engaging a coach originally from China who now lived on a different coast than
Quinn. Brad used virtual coaching to stay in touch with his coach through multiple geographic
moves. He appreciated how his coach modeled empathy and nonjudgmental questioning during
the pandemic. “Leading with questions [helped] when you’re stuck in a one-bedroom apartment
with crying kids, never getting space to yourself.” As in workplaces generally, virtual and hybrid
modalities offered new ways of building relationships.
Negative effects of virtual coaching included strained communication. Kara had a
difficult spring of 2020 living in a large city with strict lockdowns and frail older relatives. When
Kara’s coach called her from a sunny park in a state without tight restrictions, Kara could not
relate. Grace, also in a city and caring for elders at risk for COVID-19, felt alienated from her
coach who worked in a country village and logged onto video calls wearing a tennis dress. Laura
ended coaching during COVID-19 due to a dramatic change in priorities. Keeping her team safe
became Laura’s only goal. The coach failed to offer relevant tools for this new need, and seemed
uncomfortable on video, so Laura first avoided and then stopped the work.
Economic cycles and restructuring in a leader’s company caused change and stress that
spilled over into coaching. In Paul’s case, when his company went through layoffs, he asked the

80
coach to help him talk through decisions affecting his team. Economic pressure affected Grace
and Mia, who felt their colleagues showing more stress as fear moved through their organization,
causing competition among peers for scarce resources. Working in a large tech company with
responsibilities in Latin America, Isabel worked through several economic cycles, some of which
caused role changes she discussed in coaching. Layoffs did not trigger new coaching
engagements, though participants leveraged their existing coaches for support.
Discussion: Research Question 3
The third research question posed by the study took an intentionally broad stance to
inquire about what cultural factors influence the experience of coaching. Within the conceptual
framework, the exosystem (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) included both organizational and external
influences. The study confirmed links between culture and coaching, such as the importance of
stakeholder management (Blackman et al., 2016) and the cultural specificity of communication
(Schein & Schein, 2016). The study also showed that the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated
virtual coaching and weeded out nonessential coaching. The deeper finding of the study is how
leaders, even high potentials, think of themselves as quite separate from their organization’s
culture.
Schein and Schein’s (2016) three levels of culture align well with how participants talked
about culture and coaching. First-level artifacts of culture, such as presentation style and team
meeting norms, came to mind quickly for participants. Kara used coaching to tailor her
presentation style to the executive suite she aimed to join. Paul practiced negotiating with
demanding stakeholders. Deepika tapped her coach to help her set the tone for her team culture,
including meetings, newsletters, and an open-door policy. At the artifact level, coaching clearly
helped leaders code-switch to project signifiers of belonging to the organization.

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The second and third parts of Schein and Schein’s (2016) framework, values and
assumptions, proved harder to isolate. Participants did not mention their company’s official
values or mission. Instead, they talked about unspoken norms such as being cutthroat (Grace),
stuck in the weeds (Laura), or customer-driven (Aileen). Study participants did not talk with
coaches about improving their company. Rather, participants focused on decoding elaborate
unwritten rituals of consensus so they could avoid failure. Apart from Owen, who owned his
firm, and Ed, who took a servant leader approach, none of the leaders suggested they felt loyal,
connected, or like an owner at their organization. Although the company sponsored their
coaching, leaders knew they would leave the organization if their career stalled. In a way, the
greatest assumption overturned in the study was the idea that leadership is a company asset.
With respect to the external environment, findings showed leaders changed their
priorities and goals based on external factors, such as the COVID-19 pandemic or economic
downturns. However, COVID-19 did not change the activity of coaching beyond the shift to
virtual work. Compared to organizational culture, the external environment had lighter influence.
Economic changes at the margin caused participants either to fear termination and work harder to
improve or to seek opportunities outside the organization.
Summary
Interviews showed leaders count coaching as successful when it builds self-awareness
and helps them improve workplace relationships. In addition, coaching helps leaders integrate
into organizational culture, manage complex stakeholder maps, and adopt behavioral codes of a
new role or company. Interviews revealed how mesosystem dynamics (Bronfenbrenner, 1979)
such as trust, feedback, and accountability differentiate positive coaching experiences from
neutral or negative ones. The study exposed some limits of one-to-one coaching to drive

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organizational change, both because participants’ organizations used coaching as a short-term
reward or quick fix, and because participants valued the personal and career development aspects
of coaching more than meeting an organizational goal. To drive change more broadly,
organizations would need to position coaching as an accelerator of peer and enterprise
relationships rather than only individual growth, and to set more specific expectations around the
coaching process.

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Chapter Five: Recommendations
This study explored leaders’ experiences of coaching and identified conditions for leaders
to consider coaching successful. Using a conceptual framework based on ecological systems
theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), the study surfaced connections between leader–coach
relationships and the social, organizational, and cultural networks surrounding them. This
chapter distills findings of the three research questions explored in Chapter Four into three
thematic findings indicating opportunities for reshaping coaching practice. The recommendations
for change respond to leaders' voices by showing how coaching stakeholders, including coaching
educators, organizational sponsors, and coach credentialing bodies, can improve implementation
of coaching to be more helpful to leaders. The recommendations suggest expanding promising
practices, filling gaps, and stopping low-value activities. Together, the recommendations show
how to prune the coaching tree so it can bear more fruit. Figure 2 illustrates the connections
between the research questions, thematic findings, and recommendations. As Figure 2 illustrates,
the first recommendation on redesigning coaching curriculum integrates findings from all three
research questions, as does the fifth recommendation about transforming coaching associations
into guilds. The other three recommendations for change align specifically to each of the three
research questions posed, which in turn reflect the three key elements of the conceptual
framework: the microsystem of one-to-one coaching, the mesosystem linking coaching to
colleague relationships, and the exosystem in which coaching relates to broader organizational
culture and definitions of impact.

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Figure 2
Diagram of Thematic Findings and Recommendations
Thematic Findings
The thematic findings of this study synthesize leaders’ experiences of receiving coaching.
This section links interviews conducted in this study to the literature review and conceptual
framework. Overall, the study, together with prior literature, affirmed the evolution of coaching
from an experimental practice to a common leadership development activity (Blackman et al.,
2016; Passmore, 2021; Turner & Hawkins, 2016). However, strategies for coaching evaluation
and quality management have lagged the field’s growth (de Haan et al., 2016; Jarosz, 2021;
Phillips et al., 2012).
Chapter Four tested assumptions about how organizations manage coaching and how
coaches behave in organizations. Three key thematic findings emerged. First, coaching according
to leaders interviewed closely resembles therapy more than it resembles a management training

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activity. Second, coaching showed strong reciprocal interaction with the leader's existing
network of colleague relationships, especially with peer relationships. Third, a summary of
learnings introduces recommendations for practice.
Thematic Finding 1: Coaching Closely Resembles Therapy
Leaders in the study used one-to-one coaching primarily to reflect on feelings and modify
behaviors. Both activities resemble therapy and counseling, whether with a cognitive behavioral
or psychodynamic lens (Beck, 2020; Crowe, 2017). Although coaching topics focused on the
workplace, the sessions themselves focused on relationships, stresses, and triggers more than
business challenges. Moreover, when coaches departed from counseling and brought in tactical
consulting tools or tips, leaders found the experience unexciting. For example, Aileen, Jennifer,
and Laura found their coaches’ product toolkits and sticky notes underwhelming. Successful
coaching boiled down to leaders looking in the mirror with the coach, owning their part of
workplace dysfunction, and planning to change behavior or in some cases leave the organization.
Participants also described coach–client dynamics similar to transference in therapy
(Ackerman, 1959). Owen and Charlie worked with older coaches who embodied fatherly
wisdom; Paul and Brad chose women they thought would listen well. Isabel wanted a warm
female coach when she faced tensions of being a mother in the workplace. Holly sought out male
coaches when she wanted to present herself confidently. If leaders seek such a personal match, it
becomes hard to argue coaching is just a typical, run-of-the-mill workplace development activity.
Coaching-as-therapy had value to many leaders in the study, yet also carries risks. The
findings support literature that acknowledges overlap of coaching and therapy and advocates for
strong coaching supervision so coaches can help clients manage emotions (Bachkirova & Smith,
2015; Crowe, 2017; Hawkins & Turner, 2017; Schuster, 2003). The findings point in a different

86
direction than literature emphasizing differences between coaching and therapy (Jordan &
Livingstone, 2013; Kimsey-House et al., 2018). Coaching could fail if organizations pitch it too
transactionally; most leaders in the study embraced therapy-adjacent coaching for insight and did
not speak about goal-focused coaching such as the GROW coaching model (Alexander, 2006).
Perhaps the preferences of leaders in the study reflect the leaders' seniority, in that they may
already have goal-setting skills. In any case, the lack of clear communication leaders experienced
around boundaries of coaching and therapy reflects a broader theme of vague expectations.
Thematic Finding 2: When Positioned Well, Coaching Can Improve Collaboration
Almost all leaders in the study recognized benefits to their peer and direct report
relationships from coaching. In ecological systems theory terms, the microsystem of coaching
reciprocally influences the microsystems of colleague relationships. Expertly delivered, honest
feedback drives some of the improvement. Coaches can gather fact-based data in a safe and
objective way in cases where colleague relationships make direct feedback awkward. A coach
using a survey or interviews can increase the speed of trust by making leaders aware of where
they fall short. Once the coach broke the ice, participants said they felt more able to approach
peers and team members to follow up on the feedback. Leaders did not describe feeling as angry
or defensive about peer and team feedback as some did about feedback from their managers.
They largely responded with curiosity and relief to the information.
Motivation to build peer relationships could also explain the positive impact of coaching.
Improving peer relationships benefits leaders by breaking down organizational barriers. Peer
alignment saves considerable time, money, and stress. Like friendships, peer relationships also
provide connection in workplaces that participants described as accountability factories. If work
never stops, at least better communication and alignment could make work more bearable.

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Participants in the study, with some exceptions, did not describe a similar motivation to win over
their managers. Instead, participants with difficult managers described burnout and desire for
balance. With strong resumes, many leaders in the study could and did take their skills
elsewhere. However, they credited coaching with helping them build emotional intelligence,
listening skills, and peer relationship skills that continued to grow throughout their careers.
Thematic Finding 3: Leaders Use Coaching to Cope with Culture, Not Change It
Most leaders in the study expected to use coaching to pursue their career and life goals
rather than to change organizational culture. The sample overall included leaders with strong
personal values and aspirations. For example, Quinn, Isabel, and Mia discussed how to be both
good parents and leaders, and Paul discussed wanting to develop composure and speak up with
stakeholders. Brad and Kara talked with coaches about how to achieve and succeed in new career
roles. Owen talked about what retirement might look like. All these leaders had broad
organizational responsibility, yet did not have a specific scope, time, or expectation around using
coaching for culture change. Deepika, however, actively used coaching to drive culture change
when taking over a new group. However, most participants focused on code-switching to make
the organization work for them in the short term. Their experiences reveal the toll of frequent
role changes, fear of falling behind, and organizations that are so complex they need translation.
Several participants shared with their coaches that they would leave their organization if
their values became incompatible. Some even viewed the organization as toxic. Coaching
practice literature discourages discussion of external job search or labels it unethical (Hamlin et
al., 2009; Smith et al., 2023); however, participant interviews show the reality. If the external
environment changes, either for the better or worse, leaders will move. Perhaps coaching does

88
not retain leaders; it may even accelerate departures by clarifying purpose. Yet arbitrary rules
around discussing whether to leave seem to disempower people nominally called leaders.
Participants clearly said they lacked trust in coaches who were complicit in their
organization's power dynamic, as well as in coaches who lacked fluency in industry dynamics.
They voiced quality concerns about coaches who broke confidentiality and coaches too generic
to be worth their time. Leaders said coaching failed when coaches sold themselves out to
prioritize the organization over the leader, either by breaching confidentiality or chasing fees too
aggressively. More subtlety, leaders felt little lasting impact from coaching when coaching was
boring or generic. Some participants who received coaching three or four times in the study
period began to game the system. A few less fortunate participants had career or financial
outcomes worse than before the coach entered the picture. These leaders experienced stress from
the coaching and began to doubt coaching overall.
At the outset of a coaching engagement, leaders used coach credentials to gauge quality;
yet over time, credentials faded into the background. Coaches had to keep earning trust by
respecting privacy and providing dedicated attention. Platforms and coaching apps made it easy
for some participants to switch coaches, though others had to accept matches made for them by
the organization. From an organizational standpoint, coaching looks both too expensive when
quality is poor, and not expensive enough when delivered with care.
Recommendations
This study found coaching remains a promising yet fragmented and poorly understood
practice, even years after key studies noting the field’s incoherence (Blackman et al., 2016; Cox,
2015; Ciporen, 2015; Joo, 2005). Leaders in the study voiced mixed feelings about coaching.
They described positive outcomes such as developing self-awareness, improving peer

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relationships, and achieving promotions in their careers. They described negative impacts when
coaches broke trust. They also described many neutral or mildly positive experiences with
coaches. Stakeholders of coaching, including organizational sponsors as well as coaching
educators and credentialing associations, should aspire to be better than neutral. Each
recommendation names the stakeholder group that can best implement the recommendation.
Recommendation 1: Coaching Educators Should Redefine Curriculum to Engage What
Leaders Value
Coaching certification today provides only part of the training needed to deliver the types
of coaching leaders said they value. The study showed clients bring delicate topics to coaching
such as impostor syndrome, competitive stress, and lack of purpose. It also showed coaches do
harm when they overstep, such as the coach who pushed Frank to accept a role he did not want,
or the coach who pushed tactical tips when Laura needed support during the COVID-19
pandemic. Coaches do harm when they prescribe rather than listen, as Aileen saw, and when they
grow too close to the organization, as Grace noticed. It would be overreaching to suggest
coaches cannot balance multiple stakeholders. Rather, the examples point to needs for skill
development in two areas: relational skills and organizational awareness.
Today, coach training programs vary widely in curriculum. The class time required for an ICF
associate credentialed coach stands at 60 hours, of which 30 must be synchronous. Associate
credentialed coach accreditation also takes 100 hours of client work (ICF, 2023). A professional
credentialed coach requires 125 hours of class and 500 hours of client work. Only 4% of coaches
are master credentialed coaches, an ICF designation requiring 1,000 hours of client work. Some
academic coaching programs require 1 year or more of study, such as INSEAD, Georgetown
University, New York University, and Columbia University. Yet academic programs cost over

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$25,000 and enroll only 75–100 coaches per year. Many coaches hold no certification (Blackman
et al., 2016; ICF, 2020). Compared to a master of social work degree, which requires 1–4 years
of study and several hundred hours of field work internships (socialworkdegrees.org, 2023),
coaching programs appear light. Further, coach training programs mostly teach proprietary
models, making them hard for organizations to benchmark. Table 3 illustrates offerings.
Although market demand for brief introductory-level courses may continue, coach educators
should turn strategic efforts toward differentiating more substantive advanced offerings.
Table 3
Example Coach Training and Education Programs
Program Type Curriculum topics Hours Modality
Co-Active Training
Institute (CTI) For-profit
Foundational coach
competencies, fulfillment,
balance, synergy
(coactive model)
30–125 In-person and
virtual
Hudson Institute For-profit
Foundational coach
competencies, building
capacity for change,
managing engagements
30–125 In-person
and/or virtual
NeuroLeadership
Institute For-profit
Coaching skills building
on brain training;
knowledge course on
neuroscience
30–125 Virtual
Newfield Network For-profit
Ontological coaching,
power of language,
somatics, emotions,
culture
30–125 Virtual
Columbia Coaching
Certification
Program in
Executive and
Organizational
Coaching
University
Foundational
competencies, thinking
styles, ethics, 360-degree
feedback, organizational
acumen
45–126.5
In-person and
virtual (hybrid)
workshops and
virtual small
supervision
groups

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Program Type Curriculum topics Hours Modality
NYU Master’s in
Executive
Coaching and
NYU Coaching
Certificate
University
Foundational
competencies, coaching
leaders, coaching in
organizations, managing
engagements
> 200
(Master's)
50–200
(Certificate)
Virtual
Georgetown Coach
Certification
Program
University
Foundational
competencies, ethics,
coaching for adult
development, coaching
in systems, identity and
culture, leadership
coaching
148.5 In-person or
live virtual
INSEAD Coaching
Certificate University
Foundational
competencies, ethics,
leadership development,
coaching teams and
groups, coaching across
identity cultures, power
and politics,
organizational change
>125
In-person
workshops and
virtual small
supervision
groups
INSEAD Executive
Master in Change University
Note. NYU = New York University.
Areas of added education should include relational skills derived from clinical
psychology, as well as organizational awareness derived from social science and leadership.
Relational skills include counseling and trauma-informed consulting (Hübl & Avritt, 2023),
delivering coaching and feedback with compassion (Boyatzis et al., 2018), and metacognitive
work on the coach-client relationship (Berry, 2020). Given the cost of senior executive coaching,
it is hard to see how as little as 30 hours of live class time would prepare coaches for difficult
cases. Feedback emerged as such a central driver of participant experience that better training on
feedback delivery would derisk the process and protect participants from traumatizing feedback
(Boyatzis, 2016). Although commercial feedback survey providers offer content training, they do

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not help coaches handle clients' emotional needs or responses or provide support for debriefing
qualitative stakeholder interviews (Goldsmith & Silvester, 2018; Turner & Hawkins, 2016).
Metacognitive training could help coaches build relationship by identifying blind spots in
decision-making (Berry, 2020), including overconfidence bias (Kahneman, 2011) that could
cause a coach to allow their preconceptions to narrow the scope of inquiry before the client
leader's true needs emerge. Overall, coach education programs should teach relational skills with
rigor closer to a social work degree than to a weekend class.
In the second area, organizational awareness, coach education programs should teach
coaches to work within complex systems of internal and external stakeholders (Burke, 2018) and
to identify equity concerns (Aguilar, 2020) and cultural assumptions (Schein & Schein, 2016).
As the conceptual framework shows, coaching does not occur in a vacuum. Leaders in the study
with global roles said handling organizational complexity was a top coaching need. Even leaders
in smaller companies have complex networks of customers, vendors, investors, and government
agencies. A more ambitious curriculum would teach coaches to recognize cultural artifacts,
values, and assumptions (Schein & Schein, 2016) and cultural competency (McBride & Bell,
2013). Such a curriculum would ask coaches to diagnose how their client organizations define
leadership (Northouse, 2021). It would give coaches up-to-date tools for talking with clients
about their identities and lived experiences. Figure 3 illustrates the proposed components of a
new coaching curriculum model.

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Figure 3
New Coaching Curriculum Model
The curriculum model applies Bronfenbrenner’s (1979, 1986) ecosystem theory and the
findings from leaders’ voices in this study to set a new standard for coaching education. Deeper
exploration of the one-to-one relationship, capacity to build feedback-rich team environments,
and consideration of cultural competency would produce coaches ready to maximize their
opportunity with clients. Across the three areas, applying a case method of instruction (Yin,
2017) and an internship requirement similar to the fieldwork in social work programs
(socialworkdegrees.com, 2023) would deepen coaches’ abilities to translate theory to practice.
In addition to enhanced training, an alternative path to coach certification outside the
classroom would help organizations tap experienced mentors as coaches. Completion of a
coaching course does not guarantee the coach has actually led people. Coaching certification also
may not appeal to experienced leaders; for example, if the predominantly White and female

94
makeup of such programs feels unwelcoming (Reid, 2021). An alternative path would ask
prospective coaches to take a written test of ethical guidelines and conduct live coaching
examinations without completing a course. As an analogy, bar admission accommodates a selfstudy option for candidates who do not attend law school (Guback & Gundersen, 2023). A selfstudy credentialing path enriches the pool of coaches for organizations.
Recommendation 2: Organizations Should Give Leaders More Control of One-to-One
Coaching
Organizations should better target, and in some cases reduce, their enterprise-managed
coaching programs and instead let leaders self-manage most one-to-one coaching. Inviting
interested leaders to apply for coaching budgets and letting them choose coaches would increase
relevance and reduce costs. In this study, involvement by bosses and HR directors in coaching
did not add obvious value, and in some cases undermined progress. Reducing and decentralizing
individual coaching would free up resources while treating leaders like adults.
Delegating one-to-one coaching to leaders would increase efficiency, build agency, and
align costs and benefits. From an efficiency perspective, organizations could provide simple lists
of suitable coaches rather than micromanaging. From an agency standpoint (Bandura, 1986),
leaders would benefit from choosing their coach and managing their budget (Seligman, 1995),
and time-poor executives could decline instead of going through motions. For leaders who
manage $5,000,000 to $500,000,000 in net income, a coaching budget of $50,000 makes up as
little as 0.01% and no more than 1% of annual profit. With costs equivalent to a business trip,
leaders can afford to hire a coach they trust.
Organizations should also let go of beliefs that coaches can fix dysfunctional manager
relationships. Participant experience showed little upside to coaching when the boss was not

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supportive. If a leader, or their boss, behaves badly enough to cause a crisis, typical executive
coaching may not work; instead, the literature suggests a performance plan with goal alignment
and documentation or a role change (Brown et al., 2019). Naming dysfunction can be difficult,
yet less costly.
Organizations could then redirect spending from some one-to-one coaching activities into
better mental health networks, as well as into team and group coaching as described in
Recommendation 2. Individual coaching would still make sense for leaders with a defined
learning goal or desire for outside perspective. For example, leaders transitioning from technical
to sales roles who want one-to-one communications coaching could be good candidates, as could
leaders on CEO succession plans being tested for character strength. Some leaders facing career
transitions may seek coaches with therapeutic skills and a trauma-informed background, rather
than being assigned a coach who may not have the right training. Leaders whose key challenges
revolve around team and stakeholder management should be encouraged to take advantage of
team and group coaching that addresses the full system in which these leaders work.
Recommendation 3: Organizations Should Invest in Team and Group Coaching Focused on
Business Priorities
Organizations and their CHROs should invest in team and group coaching to strengthen
peer relationships and thus accelerate business outcomes. In team and group coaching, the
learning focus shifts from testing individual assumptions (Argyris, 1999) to addressing shared
challenges (Hackman & Wageman, 2005; Hawkins & Turner, 2017). Team coaching refers to an
intact working team with shared accountability (Wageman & Lowe, 2019), whereas group
coaching describes a cohort comprised of peers across divisions (Mühlberger & TrautMattausch, 2015; Parker et al., 2018.) Team coaching can accelerate change (Wageman & Lowe,

96
2019) partly because of the transparency of offering feedback with all members present (Schein
& Schein, 2016). Given the high failure rate of organizational change and role of peer mistrust in
that failure (Keller, 2021; Zak, 2017), even a small probability of greater success would justify
focusing on team and group coaching.
The study linked coaching to improved peer communication and collaboration. The most
positive participant experiences featured a coach working with an entire team or observing the
leader on-site with teammates. These positive examples also featured clearer expectation-setting
between the coach, leader, and team. The findings align with the conceptual framework, in which
trust, feedback, and accountability connect peers to each other. Literature shows the benefits of
peer-based coaching extend beyond sessions to improve cross-functional work (Parker et al.,
2018). For these reasons, team and group coaching offer powerful ways to communicate, refine,
and implement strategic business changes while strengthening peer bonds.
Linking team and group coaching to business priorities also reframes the economic
justification for coaching. In substantial change initiatives such as digital transformation,
sustainability transformation, or merger integration, enterprise value at stake reaches
$1,000,000,000 or more (Keller, 2021). If an organization believes coaching might generate a
10% chance of capturing an added 1% of value, or $10,000,000, then investing $1,000,000
annually in team or group coaching breaks even. Furthermore, team discussion holds hope for
actually changing culture (Wageman & Lowe, 2019), whereas individual coaching according to
the study simply helps leaders cope with the stress of the existing culture. By leveraging leaders’
interest in improving peer relationships, team and group coaching could motivate leaders to solve
roadblocks to business and personal performance.

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Recommendation 4: Coaching Educators Should Create an Impact Assessment Beyond
Satisfaction
Coaching is a learning and change process (Kegan & Lahey, 2009; Mezirow, 1997) and
like other adult learning modalities, needs high-quality evaluation techniques (Knowles et al.,
2020; Levin et al., 2017). The Kirkpatrick model, developed to evaluate training (Kirkpatrick,
1959; Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2006), offers a starting point for discussing evaluation. In the
Kirkpatrick model, organizations evaluate training on four levels: Level 1 surveys satisfaction
with a training experience, Level 2 measures recall of content after the training, Level 3 assesses
transfer of training content to the workplace, and Level 4 connects training to business results.
Each level remains independent; for example, training can drive business results at Level 4 even
if participants report low satisfaction with the training at Level 1. For coaching, the interviews in
this study showed leaders can achieve desired outcomes at Level 4 even when dissatisfied with
their coaches at Level 1. Likewise, leaders in the study could not recall their personality test
results at Level 2, yet they all changed behavior toward their peers at Level 3. Based on these
findings, surveys that only measure satisfaction or recall fall short.
Introducing an evidence-based impact survey for coaching validated across multiple
organizations would yield useful and scalable benchmarks. Today, the evaluation landscape
shows divisions between person-centric approaches such as the cube of coaching effectiveness
(Jarosz, 2023) and organization-centric approaches focusing on return to the organization of
coaching investment (betterup.com, 2023). Although private companies conduct their own
surveys, private surveys underserve development of the field, as results for each organization
remain confidential to that company. Comparing metrics horizontally across organizations and

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longitudinally over time would help coaches improve their services, help leaders maximize their
benefit, and help CHROs benchmark their programming.
True impact assessments linked to both personal and business objectives should go
beyond the limitations of person-centered or environment-centered evaluations. For example,
assessment should include both the leader's and their sponsor's view of what changes the leader
made and what business results the leader achieved. Adding an economic dimension to
evaluation of coaching impact could investigate any correlation of business results with
leadership choices. Assessment could even identify placebo effects in coaching. Given many
possibilities for design, an academic research center should steward protocol development,
possibly in partnership with an industry association.
Recommendation 5: Credentialing Bodies Should Transform Coaching Associations into
Guilds
Coaching associations such as the ICF, Association of Coaching, and GSAEC should
shepherd coaching into the next phase of professionalism. Currently, associations provide
community, optional certification, and continuing education. Associations must lead if coaching
is to evolve from a collection of poorly understood services into a profession like law, medicine,
or architecture, or an art like acting. At a minimum, associations should increase ethics oversight.
More expansively, collective representation in a guild would legitimize coaching and improve
equitable compensation.
Ethics around AI need quick action. Interviews for the study showed fast adoption of
data-driven coaching platforms. AI used in platform coaching quickly changes expectations and
realities of data collection (coachhub.com, 2023). Without judging the moral valence of AI,
associations should move quickly to sponsor research about AI and update ethical guidelines. For

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example, if a coach enters notes into an AI system suggesting self-care actions for a client, and
the notes make their way into a performance review or health insurance file, harm could ensue.
The target of ethical oversight should move beyond individual coaches to organizations and
coaching platforms. Associations should ask if it is fair to hold coaches responsible for ethically
managing agreements when platforms preset agreements for them.
Another ethical opportunity area is coaching in small organizations. Study participants in
small organizations noticed uncomfortably close alignment between their coaches and CEOs.
Coaching guilds could set standards for coaching in small organizations by providing audits and
benchmarks, much as accounting boards use generally accepted accounting principles to help
individual accountants push back on aggressive statements by their CEOs.
A more radical vision for coaching associations would be reframing their role as
professional guilds and labor unions. Service industries professionalize or deprofessionalize over
time as attitudes toward conflict-of-interest change (Nanda, 2002). Coaching occupies a gray
area between licensed helping professions, such as therapy, and unregulated management
consulting. Guild admission could distinguish experienced coaches from pure marketers. To
scale and grow the coaching industry, associations may have diluted the meaning of being a
coach. Like the sorcerer’s apprentice, a mythical character who enchants increasing numbers of
brooms to do his work until they overtake him (Zipes & Frank, 2017), associations have cloned
coaches to the point of overflow. However, to justify raising standards with education, guilds
would need to increase coach compensation.
A guild structure could advocate for self-employed coaches to negotiate fees with large
organizations. In the performing arts, the Screen Actors Guild, Writers Guild of America, and
other guilds represent skilled gig workers who benefit from collective action. Recently, guild

100
advocacy has addressed compensation and the use of AI (Zhuang, 2023). Other helping
professionals, such as nurses and doctors, have turned to collective bargaining to combat burnout
and normalize working hours (Jean, 2023). In this study, leader interviews suggest that when
coaches worry about their next paycheck, those coaches cannot give full attention to leader
development and may prioritize organizational desires over the leader. Even if a small
percentage of coaches make questionable judgments because of compensation, the field suffers.
Furthermore, the gig economy of coaching discourages participation by talented leaders who
need health insurance and stable incomes for their families. The gig economy perpetuates
socioeconomic equity, attracting high proportions of retirees and other privileged individuals to
enter an unstable if meaningful field.
A coaching guild could help coaches achieve fair compensation and help organizations
regulate quality. Potential disadvantages of a guild include the legal complexity of aligning with
government authorities. A first step to define purpose and undertake benefit-cost analysis of a
guild would sit well with scholarly groups like GSAEC or a new thought leadership conference.
Limitations and Delimitations
Qualitative studies focus on discussions of individual experiences and therefore are hard
to generalize or repeat (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Limitations of this qualitative study included
participant, setting, and contextual factors (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Participant limitations
included potential recency bias (Scofield & Johnson, 2022). Participants may have recalled
recent coaching experiences in better detail than earlier experiences. Because most virtual
coaching experiences took place more recently than in-person coaching, recency bias could
include more detailed recollections of virtual coaching. Setting the interviews on a virtual video
platform presented limitations in that I could not assess participants’ body language or observe

101
their work environment. Contextual factors such as participant subjectivity also influenced the
work. For example, if participants described their organization as toxic, or their coach as
empathetic, I inquired about the context yet also accepted the participants’ trustworthiness.
Taking a constructivist perspective, I note these limitations on positive data.
Delimitations of the study mean choices made by the researcher (Merriam & Tisdell,
2016). In this study, delimitations included sampling and methodological choices. By focusing
on leaders with 5 or more years of work experience at the director and above level, I chose
participants for consistency and alignment with the conceptual framework. As an example,
executives promoted from manager to leader (Watkins, 2012) must collaborate with peers across
silos, a key activity of the mesosystem in ecosystem theory (Peesker et al., 2021). However, this
choice excluded leaders with fewer than 5 years of experience, such as startup founders, who
may need or value coaching because of their rapid rise. The study also excluded experienced
people leaders below director level who may have distinct coaching needs (Watkins, 2012).
Another delimitation was my choice not to ask participants about their age, the coach’s age, or
how age affected the coaching relationship. Although I did ask participants about gender, race,
and ethnicity, my sample was small (17 participants) and the majority was White. Even when I
paid particular attention to contributions of non-White participants, I faced the delimitation of
small numbers in understanding race and ethnicity as an influence on coaching experience.
In addition, I did not triangulate leader experience with data from their coaches or
managers. The study had participants from industries including financial services, professional
services, not-for-profit, and technology, yet excluded sectors such as healthcare, education, and
manufacturing. Using a qualitative methodology, the study focused on a small number of
subjective reports. This study could function as a first step in exploratory sequential mixed

102
methods research (Creswell & Creswell, 2018; Malloy, 2011), laying groundwork for a future
quantitative study targeting larger populations (Creswell & Creswell, 2018).
Recommendations for Future Research
This study of leader experience creates a path for future qualitative and quantitative
research. The study used an ecosystem theory approach to learn about conditions that contribute
to coaching success for executive leaders. The study elicited personal memories of coaching
relationships, whether positive, negative, or neutral. Four future research areas would deepen the
findings from this study, inquire into drivers of positive or negative experiences, and accelerate
the organizational ability to act on the findings.
First, an expansion of this qualitative study segmented by industry sector and company
size would increase the research’s relevance and transferability. Most participants said industry
experience was an essential factor in coaching success. If different industries have distinct
coaching norms or practices, a subsequent study could learn in more detail what drives success in
each industry. Likewise, the study found meaningful differences between leadership coaching
experience in smaller companies versus large multinationals. Organizations may act more
quickly on studies specific to their industry or company's stage of growth.
Second, a quantitative study using scales developed from this paper would syndicate
valid and reliable measures to assess large groups of leaders. Quantitative research would
compare leaders’ experiences not only across countries and industries but also across types of
leader roles (e.g., marketers, financial officers, and general counsel) and across coaches with
similar or different identities to themselves. It would also lay groundwork for longitudinal
studies of attitudes about coaching. Leader responses to exosystem influences (Shelton, 2019)
such as economic changes, layoffs, public health, and other factors would emerge more clearly

103
from quantitative and longitudinal work with large numbers of participants. Surveying leaders in
detail about coach matching based on gender, race, ethnicity, age, and other identity dimensions
could yield finer-grained results than this study’s limited findings. Overall, as the coaching
industry struggles to self-assess (Phillips et al., 2012), a new quantitative study could tell a
compelling story.
Third, a case study combining data from leaders, HR directors, and coaches would
triangulate findings and provide actionable examples. A case study method (Yin, 2017) mapped
on Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory could contribute original findings if an
organization willingly provided access to their personnel and sanitized documents for review.
Case study research could include an economic analysis of business impact for leaders who
received coaching, or a comparative study of two units where one leader took coaching and
another did not. The roles of HR leaders in coaching bear special examination as they interact
with the power dynamic named by Louis and Fatien Diochon (2018) yet do not figure in that
study. Whether to identify promising practices, lessons learned, or both, case research would
provide a 360-degree feedback report on the process of coaching itself.
Fourth, a literature review of labor and employment structures and ethics agreements in
adjacent fields could stimulate thinking about a holistic economic model for coaching. Research
on labor and employment could help coaches and the leaders they serve by clarifying who pays
for coaching and how the payer relationship influences outcomes. As examples, literature on
labor and employment of therapists and medical workers could provide analogies for how to
manage coach working hours and burnout. Literature relating to accountants could help manage
conflicts of interest. Literature on labor movements would catalyze thinking about collective

104
action to define coaching boundaries. Ongoing investment in literature will move coaching
practice forward.
Conclusion
This study aimed to provide the well-intentioned coaching industry with tough love and a
path for growth. To continue offering meaningful professional help, the industry must challenge
assumptions about coaching and about leadership itself. Leaders can barely move when stuck in
matrixes of alignment and accountability. Even the best coaches can become trapped in the
vortex along with their clients. Organizations should cut leaders free and let them lead teams that
promote connection and results. Reducing the number of low-value coaching engagements and
replacing these with high-impact team coaching will save organizations time and money. For
coaching scholars, revisiting boundaries between coaching, therapy, and mentoring feels urgent,
as does research on equity in coaching. Establishing strong curriculum standards and introducing
guilds would change coaching from being a product to being a calling.
More broadly, the study showed people long for healthy workplaces. Organizations
should reevaluate whether their interventions actually create organizational health. Today, people
called leaders by their organization lack time, clarity, autonomy, and connection. Scaling
commoditized coaching to more so-called leaders would not make workplaces healthier; it would
offer palliative care for workplace relationships already critically injured. Rather than creating a
world where more people simply vent to coaches or chatbots, organizations should return to
basics: making jobs meaningful, reining in difficult bosses, reducing busywork, and increasing
fair pay. As in healthcare, coaches could define success as no longer needing the cure.

105
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Appendix A: Screening Questionnaire
This questionnaire checked that respondents are members of the target population before
scheduling interviews. This questionnaire also provided demographic data to support sampling
and data analysis.
Introduction
This survey is about your experience working with an executive coach in three or more sessions.
Screening Questions
1. Have you received three or more sessions of one-on-one executive coaching from the same
coach between January 2018 and now?
Yes No
If Yes, continue survey.
If No, message appears saying Thank you for participating. You may close this browser window.
2. Were you employed in an organization in a Director or above role during the coaching?
Yes No
If Yes, continue survey.
If No, message appears saying Thank you for participating. You may close this browser window.
Informed Consent
I agree that the data I provide may be used for doctoral research by Dana Kirchman at the
University of Southern California (USC). I understand that my name and personal information
will be held confidential and that my data will be stored securely on a USC server.
Survey Questions
3. Please choose the description that best aligns to your most recent role at work.
Individual contributor: I do/did not manage other workers.
People leader: I do/did manage at least one other worker.

138
4. Please check the description that best aligns to how you identify your gender:
Man/Male
Woman/Female
Non-binary
Agender
Other
Prefer not to say
5. Please check one or more descriptions below that best align to how you identify your race:
White
Black
Asian/Pacific Islander
Native American/First Nations
Hispanic/Latino
Other (please specify) ___________________________
6. How many sessions did you have with your coach?
One session
Two to five sessions
Six or more sessions
7. How long was each of your coaching sessions on average?
30 minutes or less
31 to 60 minutes
More than 60 minutes

139
8. Please check the box that best describes the delivery mode of your coaching sessions.
All in person
All virtual with video and audio
All virtual with audio only
A mix of in-person and virtual
A mix of virtual video and virtual audio
Other (please describe) __________________________________________
9. Please check the box that best describes your coaching.
Provided by an internal coach (employee of my organization)
Provided by an external coach (hired by my organization)
Provided by an external coach (hired by me)
Other (please describe) __________________________________________
10. Would you be interested in conducting an interview about your experience in coaching?
Yes, please contact me by email to schedule
Yes, please contact me by text to schedule
No, I will decline
Not sure, please contact me by email to learn more
Not sure, please contact me by text to learn more
Thank you for completing this questionnaire. If you have answered Yes or Not Sure to an
interview, the researcher will contact you within the next [14 days].

140
Appendix B: Interview Protocol
Respondent Type: Leaders (Director level or above) who received executive coaching
while leading people in an organization.
Introduction to the Interview:
Thank you for agreeing to participate in my study. I appreciate the time that you have set
aside to answer my questions. As I mentioned when we last spoke, the interview should take
about an hour, does that still work for you?
Before we begin, I want to remind you about this study and answer any questions you
might have about participating in this interview. I am a doctoral student at the University of
Southern California and am conducting a study on the conditions for coaching to succeed from
the leader’s point of view. I am particularly interested in conditions for coaching to succeed and
understanding how leaders and coaches manage potential disconnects between the leader’s and
the organization’s desired outcomes for coaching. I am talking to multiple leaders to learn more
about this topic.
Today, I am strictly wearing the hat of researcher. This means the nature of my questions
are not evaluative. I will not be making any judgments on how you are performing as a leader.
My goal is to understand your perspective.
As stated in the Study Information Presentation I provided to you previously, this
interview is confidential. Your name will be anonymous to anyone beyond myself and my
academic advisor. I will use a pseudonym to protect your confidentiality and will try my best to
de-identify data I gather from you. While I do expect to use some of what you say as quotes,
none of this data will be attributed to you. I am happy to provide you with a summary of the
interview before publication, and a copy of my final paper if you are interested. As stated in the

141
Study Information Presentation, I will keep the data in a password protected computer and will
destroy raw data after 3 years.
Might you have any questions about the study before we begin? I have enabled the
transcription and recording settings on Zoom today so that I can capture what you share with me.
The recording is solely to best capture your perspectives and I will not share it with anyone
outside myself and my study committee members. May I have your permission to record our
conversation?
Table B1
Interview Guide
Interview questions Potential probes RQ Key concept
1. Tell me about your
role in the company
where you received
coaching.
What is/was your role?
How long had you been in that role? 1
Respondent
context
2. How did you first
hear about coaching?
Who suggested it to you?
Had you heard about coaching from
others?
2 Expectation of
coaching
3. How long was your
coaching
engagement?
How many months was the
contract?
How often did you meet?
1 Coaching
process
4. How was your coach
chosen?
Did you participate in the choice?
What would you have changed
about the selection process?
1, 2
Coach-client
relationship;
trust
5. If someone asked
you what executive
coaching is, what
would you say?
How does it differ from other
leadership development or training
you have received? 1 Coaching
definition
6. Tell me about your
coaching sessions.
What did you discuss?
How did the sessions feel?
How much did you trust the coach?
1 Relationship,
fit, process,
trust

142
Interview questions Potential probes RQ Key concept
7. Tell me about the
role of others in your
organization in your
coaching.
What was your manager’s role?
What was HR’s role?
Who was accountable?
2, 3 Mesosystem
and exosystem
8. Did you address any
goals in coaching?
What goals?
Who suggested the goals? 1, 2 Outcomes of
coaching
9. Did you receive any
feedback in your
coaching?
What kind of feedback? From
whom?
Who developed the list of people to
solicit for feedback?
2, 3 Mesosystem
and exosystem
10. How did you wrap
up the coaching?
What was your part in wrapping up?
How did you feel about the timing
of wrap up?
1 Coach-client
relationship
11. What did your
family and friends
think about the
coaching?
Who in your personal life did you
talk to about the coaching?
What did they think?
How did that impact you?
2
Microsystem
– role of
personal
life/family
12. How about
members of your
community?
How do members of your
community outside work think
about coaching? (Define
community if needed)
3
Exosystem –
community
outside of
work
13. Give me an
example of how
coaching impacted
your effectiveness.
Could be positive or negative.
1, 2, 3 Measurement
14. How did the
coaching address
aspects of your
identity?
Did the way you identify (gender,
race, ethnicity) come up in
coaching? 3
Cultural/
Social
influences
15. Give me an
example of how
coaching did or did
not change the way
you lead.
What would your team say
changed?
3 Organization
culture
16. What advice would
you give to someone
beginning coaching?
What do you wish you had known?
1, 2, 3 Conditions for
success
Note. RQ = Research question.

143
Conclusion to the Interview:
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with me today! I appreciate your time and
willingness to talk about your coaching experience.
Your participation is helpful for my study. If I find myself with a follow-up question, can
I contact you, and if so, would email be appropriate? Again, thank you for being part of my
study. As a thank you, please accept this small token of my appreciation. (book, gift card)

Abstract (if available)

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Asset Metadata

Creator Kirchman, Dana (author)

Core Title Understanding conditions for executive coaching success from the leader's point of view

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Organizational Change and Leadership (On Line)

Degree Conferral Date 2024-05

Publication Date 04/12/2024

Defense Date 11/20/2023

Publisher Los Angeles, California (original), University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag adult learning,coach education,coach training,Coaching,coaching education,ecological systems theory,executive coaching,human capital management,human resource development,leadership development,OAI-PMH Harvest,organizational culture,succession planning

Format theses (aat)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Datta, Monique Claire (committee chair)

Creator Email dana.kirchman@gmail.com,kirchman@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC113872064

Unique identifier UC113872064

Identifier etd-KirchmanDa-12806.pdf (filename)

Legacy Identifier etd-KirchmanDa-12806

Document Type Dissertation

Format theses (aat)

Rights Kirchman, Dana

Internet Media Type application/pdf

Type texts

Source 20240415-usctheses-batch-1140 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright.

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu