Are your leaders working on professional development goals with an executive coach? If you’ve allocated part of your leadership development budget to executive coaching, you may wonder exactly what you’re getting in exchange for that investment.
For many HR and L&D leaders, executive coaching can feel like a “black box” where results are hard to quantify. Not only is there often a time lag between when coaching begins and when you start seeing results, but reporting on specific coaching outcomes is also complicated by the need for confidentiality. Without clear professional development goals guiding the process, it becomes even harder to quantify the short- and long-term value of coaching engagements.
Despite the fact that 87% of HR leaders agree that executive coaching delivers high ROI, measuring its full impact remains a challenge. The key is aligning coaching with goals that link individual growth to organizational priorities. In this post, discover how to turn coaching into a structured, goal-driven investment with measurable business outcomes.
When Executive Coaching Drifts Away
At IMPACT Group, we sometimes meet with LD leaders who say they can’t be sure how effective their existing executive coaching program is. We hear clients say, “Executive coaching has degraded into ‘lunch with Jim.’” They believe they are paying for meetings, but they’re not sure what comes of these sessions. Coaching engagements can drift when there’s a lack of clear objectives, resulting in missed opportunities to build and sharpen leader competencies.
The Problem: Coaching Without Clear Professional Development Goals
Executive coaching is often introduced as a perk for high performers or as a reactive measure for leaders facing challenges. According to Mercer research, the top reasons companies hire executive coaches include navigating a new executive role, leading major transformations, succession planning, and addressing team dynamics.
These are all valid reasons, but coaching must be aligned with clear development goals to ensure a strong ROI. Without a structured framework, insights gained during coaching may not translate into broader organizational improvements.
When executive coaching lacks this alignment, you risk encountering these outcomes:
- Coaching outcomes become harder to measure.
- It’s more difficult to demonstrate coaching ROI to the relevant stakeholders.
- Executives may not achieve the expected skill development.
Without goals that are tied to specific outcomes, it’s hard to quantify progress and justify continued investment in coaching.
What About Confidentiality?
The tension between confidentiality and accountability adds another layer of complexity. While you want visibility into coaching progress and results, you also need to respect the confidentiality between each executive and their coach.
IMPACT Group seeks to adhere to best practices of the International Coaching Federation (ICF). ICF defines confidentiality standards as “the coach’s duty to not disclose any information obtained during the course of the coaching relationship without the express permission of the client.”
At IMPACT Group, we believe striking the right balance means taking a structured approach that protects privacy while attaining enough visibility to measure coaching success. We want to showcase to the employer the progress that the executive is making toward agreed upon goals, but to always avoid the “meat and details” of private conversations without the executive’s permission.
Shifting the Mindset: Coaching as a Strategic Development Tool
A recent HR.com survey found that 62% of large companies have had coaching programs in place for five years or more. Regardless of your program’s longevity, there are new opportunities to gain greater value and ROI from each coaching engagement. In fact, you can achieve the greatest impact from coaching by treating it as a strategic investment aligned with organizational priorities.
For maximum effectiveness, design executive coaching around these three essential questions:
- What are the specific professional development goals for this engagement?
- How can the manager actively support and reinforce those goals?
- How can the organization measure the broader impact?
Answering these questions transforms coaching from an isolated experience into a structured process that aligns individual and organizational priorities. You can build this framework by developing and tracking the right professional development goals through these core actions:
Goal Setting
Define professional development goals that connect the individual’s growth to specific team and business objectives. Examples might include improving cross-functional collaboration, enhancing team coaching and mentoring abilities, or building change management expertise.
Manager Involvement
Create feedback loops that respect confidentiality while also reinforcing progress in the coaching relationship. Managers can support goal achievement through regular check-ins, modeling desired behaviors, and taking a leader-as-coach approach.
Progress Tracking
Use observable behaviors and key performance indicators to track progress. Examples include team engagement scores, retention rates, and achievement of broader team goals. Some organizations look at how the executive’s 360 degree feedback has evolved over time – always remembering that complex, human behavior change does take time.
The Payoff: From Individual Development to Organizational Impact
When executive coaching is structured around professional development goals, the benefits go far beyond individual growth. They ripple across the whole organization, resulting in:
- Leaders aligned with strategy: When leaders build skills tied to business priorities, they make smarter decisions that move the company forward. And when they lead with a coaching mindset, their teams are four times more likely to make good decisions, according to McKinsey.
- Higher employee engagement and accountability: Coaching helps to build confidence and a commitment to succeed, which translates into stronger team performance and improved accountability across the organization. Research shows employees with effective managers are 2.5 times more engaged.
- A measurable return on professional development spending: Setting clear goals and tracking progress makes it easier to show real results and justify your investment.
- A dynamic coaching culture: Leaders who embrace feedback and growth set the tone for a coaching culture that values learning and continuous improvement. Studies link strong coaching cultures to higher performance, retention, and engagement.
Achieve Measurable Results From Executive Coaching
Coaching should never feel like a black box. It should be a tailored, strategic investment tied to professional development goals and your organization’s success. IMPACT Group offers executive coaching services that accelerate leadership effectiveness and align individual growth with your company’s strategic priorities.
Ready to build a coaching program that delivers measurable impact? Book a call with us to discuss how leadership development coaching can drive results for your organization. We coach leaders at all levels – from first-time managers to executive leaders.
