Research reveals secrets of a great executive coach

What makes a great executive coach? Do we have any research that proves that executive coaching provides value? Or what makes a coach effective?

Coaching has bloomed into a big industry in the past decade. In 2017 ICF estimated coaching to be a $1.08 Billion industry that would likely grow to $1.38 Billion in 2022.

At Science of Working, the focus is on research-based knowledge, so we’ll explore executive coaching more deeply by reviewing a research study on the topic of coaching psychology and how research can inform coaching.

Executive Coaching and Coaching Psychologists

In an earlier article we looked at the practical definition and description of executive coaching. Now we’ll look at research that describes the requirements for an effective coach and how psychologists contribute to coaching.

In their article “A Practice Analysis of Coaching Psychology: Toward a Foundational Competency Model” from the Consulting Psychology Journal, Vicki Vandaveer, Rodney Lowman, Kenneth Pearlman and Joan Brannick describe research completed by two American Psychology Association (APA) groups to investigate how psychologists are participating in the coaching world.

Purpose of research

This research stemmed from an interest of two psychology organizations wanting to know more about the growing field of coaching psychology. The Society of Consulting Psychology (SCP; Division 13 of APA) and Society of Industrial Organizational Psychology (SIOP; Division 14 of APA) sponsored this research.

The primary goal was to create a competency model of coaching psychology. This model would then inform the development of training programs for coaching psychologists, set some standard expectations, provide input for possible credentialing and identify additional research areas.

Although this research focuses more on the coach and supporting elements, executives and talent management professionals can learn from it as well. This data-driven survey information unveils some of the critical traits for an effective coach and a strong coaching engagement.

Definition of coaching psychology

Coaching psychology is a subset of executive coaching in which the coach is a trained psychologist. The research described it as:

“An area of professional practice and research within psychology, coaching psychology is an individualized process of professional development in which a psychologist works with individuals one-on-one to help them enhance their effectiveness in their organizational roles and environments. Coaching psychologists may also work with leadership teams to enhance their effectiveness in leading together”.

In this context, the coaches are psychologists, but they are not acting as therapists. Therapists, also known as clinical psychologists, are required to have specialized training and licensing. Coaching psychologists do not necessarily have a license. They might have a PhD (research-focused doctorate) or a PsyD (application-focused doctorate) or a Master’s degree (application-focused).

Research Overview

Vandaveer and the research team took several steps to build their final “Foundational Coaching Psychology Competency Model”.

Step 1: They conducted a literature review to understand existing coaching research.
Step 2: They interviewed 27 top-rated coaching psychologists to get some foundational information.
Step 3: Based on the two previous steps, they created a Practice Analysis Survey (PAS) that had 7 sections and 31 items about coach skills and coaching engagements. 342 coaching psychologists completed the survey.
Step 4: Using results of the survey and other data, they created the Foundational Coaching Psychology Competency Model.

Research Findings

The research showed that psychologists are a good fit for coaching and bring a unique skill set. In this survey, the researchers examined how coaching psychologists practice coaching. This allowed for documentation of current practices as well as a way to compare with the practices of coaches with other types of training such as International Coach Federation (ICF) training.

Coaching psychologists share many attributes with non-psychologist coaches and also offer some unique knowledge and skills.

Finding 1: Coaching psychologists serve a variety of organizations and clients

Survey results indicated that 82% of the coaching psychologists worked with large for-profit organizations. In addition, 42% of them worked with small private companies; 41% served non-profits; 28% served public sector jobs and 24% worked with academic institutions.

Within those organizations, 84% of the coaches worked with mid-level managers and 77% worked with senior executives. Coaches also worked with business owners (32%), line managers (31%) and individual contributors (25%).

It is likely that the range of organizations and clients for coaching psychologists mirrors the range of non-psychology coaches.

Finding 2: Coaching psychologists apply a variety of psychological principles

Coaching psychologists use their education and knowledge of human behavior to guide their coaching.

In the interviews, the coaches cited cognitive behavioral theory as a key principle. The cognitive behavioral approach focuses on re-framing thoughts in a positive way in order to change behavior. Thinking and related behavior change are a key part of training for all psychologists.

The survey (N=342) reinforced the use of cognitive behavioral theory by 47% of the coaching psychologists. Coaching psychologists also leverage other psychological principles such as leadership theory (72%), emotional intelligence (55%), organizational theory (51%), behavioral psychology (45%) and positive psychology (44%).

The depth of knowledge into human behavior and psychology differentiates coaching psychologists. The deep training provides a variety of theories and approaches that can be matched to the client’s needs.

Finding 3: Critical factors provide for a successful coaching engagement

As coaching psychologists enter into coaching engagements, certain factors help them have a successful interaction. These success factors likely apply to all coaches – whether or not they have a psychology degree.

Based on the interviews (N=27), the coaches cited quality of the coach (59%), the coaching relationship (48%), client readiness (41%), clarity of goals (30%) and context (26%) as critical success factors.

Quality of the coach: The quality of the coach is important and applies to expertise, knowledge, and skills. It also applies to personal attributes in the coach such as self-management (the coach controlling his or her own emotions and reactions).
Coaching relationship: Coaching relationship refers to the quality and strength of the relationship between the coach and client. There must be trust and a sense of rapport to ensure an effective working relationship.
Client readiness: Client readiness measures the coachee’s openness to the experience of being coached, learning, practicing and developing. As discussed in an earlier article, some people show more willingness to be coached and more motivation, openness and self-awareness.
Setting goals: Setting goals for the engagement remains important. Goal setting generally occurs for the overall engagement and for each individual session. It helps the conversations stay focused and helps measure success.
Context: The coach must also understand the context of the organization. The client works inside a complex organizational system with workplace norms, expectations and job-related constraints. All of these factors affect performance and the coach must recognize their impact.

Finding 4: The research identified eight broad dimensions of coaching engagements

The research identified eight broad dimensions of coaching engagements. Similar to critical success factors, these dimensions should apply to most coaches and they follow the typical cycle of an engagement. The eight dimensions are:

Needs analysis and client qualification
Contracting (agreements, processes, boundaries, payment, etc.)
Assessments
Feedback
Goal setting and action planning
Plan implementation and coaching
Measuring impact
Terminating engagement

Finding 5: Coaching psychologists use assessments

The survey showed that many of the coaching psychologists use assessments in their coaching engagements. Although not measured in this research, I suspect that psychologists are more likely to use assessments than non-psychologists. Psychologists receive extensive training regarding individual assessments that can benefit coaching engagements.

Most coaches use interviews, which is a form of assessment, in their process – both with the clients and with related colleagues like the client’s boss. These interviews become a verbal 360 that provides valuable insight for the coaching engagement.

The coaching psychologists also employed assessments such as: commercial personality assessments (58%), multisource/ 360 feedback surveys (54%), climate surveys (34%), cognitive assessments (29%) and style assessments (29%).

Finding 6: Coaching psychologists share developmental methodologies with other coaches

The survey outlined the frequency of use of 23 different coaching methods and techniques – most of which would be used by coaches of any background.

82% of the coaches used conversational techniques like active listening and powerful questions. Goal setting (75%), self-reflective homework assignments (72%), brainstorming (67%), feedback and consultative problem solving (65%) were also frequently used techniques.

60% of the coaching psychologists also reported using cognitive re-structuring techniques which is related to cognitive behavioral theory (see Finding 2).

Finding 7: Coaching psychologists share personal attributes with other coaches

Being an effective coach requires certain personal attributes. Coaching is all about the client – not the coach. The coach needs to bring expertise to the engagement, but also be able to leave behind their own issues.

Since coaching requires trust, 98% of the coaching psychologists in the survey indicated that integrity and honesty is a key attribute for an effective coach. Self-awareness (self-reflection, self-monitoring, self-control) also ranked high (98%) as important, because this helps the coach keep their own issues from impacting the engagement.

Other key factors include professional credibility (96%), adaptability (96%), critical thinking (96%), openness (96%), empathy (95%), judgement (94%) and self-confidence (94%).

A sense of humor can also be important (82%), because we might as well enjoy the journey!

Only 52% of the participants indicated that industry-specific experience is important. For executive coaching, the intent is generally to improve leadership skills, deal with stress or manage transitions. For these engagements, the industry is not usually relevant.

Industry knowledge gains importance for other types of engagements like strategy consulting or business process improvement. Although some coaches also do that type of work, it is a separate skill set.

Applying this research

If you are a coach:

Leverage best practices: This research shares a wealth of knowledge about effective coaching. Compare your practices to the ones described here. Are there new techniques you could add?
Broaden your knowledge base: Consider some of the areas in which coaching psychologists have special knowledge such as cognitive behavioral theory. Do some research and add that knowledge to your repertoire.
Consider assessments: As a coach, are you using assessments in your practice? If not, consider learning more and possibly adding some. Assessments provide another source of data to encourage self-awareness. Sometimes the impact of seeing results in black and white on a written report will get a client’s attention in a way that conversations will not.

If you are looking for a coach:

Understand the advantages of a coaching psychologist: When looking for a coach, start with your goal in mind. You might find that a coaching psychologist matches your needs – especially if you want assessments, deep psychological principles and an expert on behavior change.
Interview multiple coaches: Find a coach who has expertise and experience. Just as importantly, choose a coach to whom you feel a connection. The coach will challenge and push you. To be open to this discomfort, you need to trust the coach and feel a sense of rapport. You might prefer a psychologist to a non-psychologist or vice versa. One coach’s scientific approach might appeal or maybe you prefer a folksy approach. Only you can determine which coach will fit best with your needs and interests at the time.
Be open to the process: You need to mentally be ready for the coaching engagement. That includes active participation in the sessions, opening up in conversations and practicing new behaviors between sessions. The coach cannot save a coaching engagement in which the client resists the process.

Assessment of research

The research – the interviews, survey and resulting competency model – provided significant value for the field of coaching psychology. It documented current practices and set expectations for going forward.

From a practical perspective, coaches can leverage the information to improve their own practices. It also provides a start to bringing more rigor and a research focus to the field of coaching which has been lacking in the past.

Research details

V. V. Vandaveer, R. L Lowman, K. Pearlman, J.P. Brannick (2016) “A Practice Analysis of Coaching Psychology: Toward a Foundational Competency Model”, Consulting Psychology Journal, Vol 68, 2, 118-142. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cpb0000057

Coach Training World, June 26, 2019, “10 Trends that will Impact the Future of Coaching“

Research factors: real-world sample, interviews, practice analysis survey, competency model

Researchers

Vicki Vandaveer, Vandaveer Group

Rodney Lowman, Alliant International University

Kenneth Pearlman

Joan Brannick, Brannick HR Connections