A Critical Review of Executive Coaching Research: A Decade of Progress and What’s to Come

Does executive coaching truly improve organizational performance? What are the critical components of effective coaching relationships? And why do most coaching studies fall short? This comprehensive paper tackles the burning questions in the field of executive coaching. This paper aims to summarize the current state of coaching research and provides a basis for future research, ensuring that subsequent studies build upon previous findings and add to knowledge, rather than merely replicating earlier results. This approach will prevent wasted effort and resources in organizations and research. The paper is divided into three sections. The first two sections review the state of research over the past hundred years, with a greater focus on the past decade, during which coaching research has accelerated at a rapid pace. The paper categorizes recent research into five areas: the nature of coaching, coach behavior studies, client behavior studies, relationship studies, and studies on the impact of executive coaching. The third section considers the future direction research may take. It identifies key questions that the authors believe should be the focus of future research and highlights the work undertaken to support coaching researchers, as published by the Coaching Foundation. Link to the full article >>