The Efficacy of Executive Coaching in Times of Organisational Change

Executive coaching is often used in times of organisational change to help executives develop the psychological and behavioural skills needed to focus on reaching their work-related goals whilst simultaneously dealing with the turbulence associated with organisational change. Despite its widespread use, little research has explored the impact of executive coaching during periods of organisational change. This within-subject study used both quantitative and qualitative measures to explore the impact of executive coaching during a period of organisational change on 31 executives and managers from a global engineering consulting organisation. Participation in the coaching was associated with increased goal attainment, enhanced solution-focused thinking, a greater ability to deal with change, increased leadership self-efficacy and resilience, and decrease in depression. The positive impact of coaching generalised to non-work areas such as family life. Recommendations are made for the measurement and design of executive coaching programmes.