Executive Coaching

An Outcome Study

Wasylyshyn, Karol M.

¹Leadership Development Forum.

²Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Karol M. Wasylyshyn, 210 West Washington Square, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106.

Karol M. Wasylyshyn is president of Leadership Development Forum, a management consulting firm specializing in applications of psychology in business. She is a member of the coaching faculty in The Wharton School's Advanced Management Program and an adjunct professor of clinical psychology at Widener University and was appointed to the University's Board of Trustees in 1995. Since 1982, Wasylyshyn has profiled and coached hundreds of senior executives from every global sector. She is also in clinical practice.

Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research 55(2):p 94-106, Winter 2003.

While executive coaching continues to mushroom as a practice area, there has been little outcome research. This articles presents the results of a study that explored factors influencing the choice of a coach, executives' reactions to working with a coach, the pros and cons of both internal and external coaches, the focus of executive coaching engagements, indications of successful coaching engagements, coaching tools executives favored, and the sustainability of coached executives' learning and behavior change. The author also raises a question about which executives are most likely to benefit from this development resource and presents a typology for gauging this issue.