Leadership coaching’s efficacy and effect mechanisms – a mixed-methods study

ABSTRACT Due to concerns on the efficacy of formal leader development programmes such as low learning transfer back to the organisation, there has been an increasing shift towards individually owned leader development programmes within organisations. Whilst leadership coaching is one of these and is gaining in popularity, further studies are needed to validate its efficacy and explain its effect mechanisms. Drawing on adult learning theory and utilising a mixed-methods study design, we provide further evidence of coaching’s positive effect on organisational leaders and provide insights into how these occur. Thematic analyses of data obtained from nineteen semi-structured interviews indicate that through the coach supporting, listening and challenging the coachee, leadership coaching assists coachees to increase their self-awareness, confidence, clarity and focus, and adopt a wider perspective, and assists to explain coaching’s positive effect observed in our pretest-posttest study of 70 coached leaders. Combined, these results indicate leadership coaching closely resembles the ‘practices and discoveries’ facilitating intentional change and transformative learning which have been associated with desired and sustained change and provides strong support for coaching’s efficacy as a leader owned development intervention.