Measuring Coaching Outcomes

At The Bailey Group, our commitment is to improve the performance of organizations by enhancing the skills of the people and teams we coach. Linking the impact of executive coaching to business results, however, is a measurement challenge. Coaching outcomes are not as easy to quantify as sales or profits. The best way to illustrate the connection between coaching, leadership effectiveness, and business outcomes is by demonstrating a chain of impact.

Research shows that the chain of impact from coaching leads to improved leadership effectiveness which in turn leads to tangible business impacts such as increased productivity, higher quality of work, retention of key employees and improved customer service. The less tangible, but equally important, business impacts include improved relationships and team work, higher job satisfaction, and reduced conflict (McGovern, Lindemann, Vergara, Murphy, Barker, Warrenfeltz, 2001). While it may be difficult to measure a direct link between coaching and many of these tangible business impacts, we can measure changes in the qualities of effective leadership that lead to such business impacts.

In our work with leaders across many industries and organizations, we have found that effective leadership qualities typically fall into three categories:

Maturity

Understanding the role of personal beliefs in one’s leadership choices and being aware of the blind spots that get in the way of leading effectively. Moving beyond self-awareness to self-management by developing the skills necessary to address barriers to effective leadership and maximize one’s core strengths.

Versatility

Recognizing one’s own natural style as a leader and learning the complementary skills necessary to diagnose the situation and choose to use either a forceful style (taking stands, making judgments, leading personally) or an empowering style (showing compassion or flexibility, encouraging collaboration, empowering others).

Relationship-Based Leadership

Motivating others to excel in their work and inspiring commitment to the organization’s goals. Achieving greater business results by engaging employees in their work, collaborating with others, and building high performing teams.

Effective leaders consistently demonstrate the qualities of maturity, versatility and relationship-based leadership. Yet within each organization, the nuances of these qualities may vary based on the unique organizational culture, demands of the job, and nature of the work to be done. To measure the impact of coaching on leadership effectiveness, it is critical to gain agreement between the coach, client, and the client’s leader on which qualities to enhance and develop and what success will look like.

At The Bailey Group, we begin the link between coaching outcomes and business outcomes by working with our clients and their leaders to outline expectations for coaching early in the process. We identify the qualities of maturity, versatility and relationship-based leadership that are required for leaders to succeed within their organization. This alignment of expectations for effective leadership provides direction for the coaching engagement.

During the coaching process, development goals are designed to meet these expectations and enhance the qualities of effective leadership. The coach and client work together to achieve development goals by designing actions plans that are connected to business initiatives and include business measures for success. Linking coaching expectations and business outcomes reinforces that this is a business initiative, not just a development initiative.

Coaching at its best is a collaborative process between the coach, the client, and the client’s leader or other stakeholders in the leader’s success. Soliciting feedback from these key stakeholders throughout the implementation of the development goals is essential to reinforce the change effort and ensure alignment of behavior changes to business objectives.

Linking coaching outcomes to business outcomes becomes much easier when the coaching process is designed to:

• Clarify expectations for leadership effectiveness
• Identify development goals to meet these expectations
• Initiate new behaviors linked to successful achievement of business objectives
• Include key stakeholders in evaluating the client’s progress

At the close of the coaching engagement, measuring the impact of coaching can be achieved by evaluating the client’s progress in leadership effectiveness and development goal fulfillment. Success is measured by evaluating the coaching experience from the perspective of both the client and their leader in these areas:

• Satisfaction with the coach
• Satisfaction with the coaching process
• Progress on development goal achievement

As we continue to develop our process for measuring coaching outcomes, we would like to solicit input from you about your coaching experience. If you have been involved in a coaching engagement with The Bailey Group or elsewhere, we invite you to confidentially share your perceptions of your experience with your coach, the coaching process, and the impact of coaching on your leadership effectiveness. Stay tuned for the collective results in our next newsletter as we continue our efforts to link coaching outcomes to business outcomes.