What Does the Research Say About Leadership Coaching?

As a coach, psychological theory and evidence matters to me. I used to be a nurse in children’s intensive care and the way to provide the best nursing care is to ensure it is evidence based - that way we knew the interventions we were doing for those babies and children in our care were the best interventions.

Although leadership coaching isn’t clinical, it is professional, and I want to make sure that everything we do together is evidence based.

Let’s focus on what the research says about leadership coaching as an intervention.

What is Leadership Coaching?

Halliwell et al (2023) describe leadership coaching as:

“One-one-one tailored learning and developmental intervention for organisational leaders that uses a collaborative, reflective, goal focused relationship to develop and maintain positive change in personal development and leadership behaviour leading to the achievement of professional outcomes”

I would agree with this description, I would also argue that these benefits reach further than the professional setting too, which is how Amanda describes the impact that leadership coaching had on her:

“my mindset has totally changed into one that not only benefits me, but my team, my colleagues, my family and all those around me!”

What is the Impact of Leadership Coaching

Halliwell et al (2023) found numerous research studies that suggested leadership coaching is considered best practice for leader development. They share that several studies conclude that coaching is associated with “enhanced affective, cognitive, skill based, and individual leader-level outcomes”. They also found that leadership coaching increases emotional intelligence, leadership self-efficacy (confidence), self awareness and self regulation.

How Does Leadership Coaching Support Leadership Development?

What does this actually mean for leaders? Well one of the ways leadership coaching supports leaders is through developing authentic leadership, which has been shown in the research to increase respect and trust in the leader (Neves et al 2018), it has also been shown to impact those people who follow the authentic leader, through increasing their levels of empowerment, job performance and their commitment to the organisation! In other words, it can help leaders to have improved performance and increased effectiveness (Halliwell et al, 2023).

How can I support you?

Are you ready to start leadership coaching so that you can feel more confident in your leadership and have a bigger impact in your role?

Do you have someone in your team or organisation who would benefit from leadership coaching?

Book a free call with me today and let’s chat about how I can help.