Executive Coaching: A Review and Agenda for Future Research

The use of executive coaching as a developmental intervention for managers has increased dramatically during the past decade. Consequently, there has been a burgeoning practitioner literature on the topic of executive coaching. Empirical research on executive coaching, however, has lagged far behind, and theoretical work on the processes underlying effective coaching has been limited. In this review, we investigate the construct of executive coaching and examine how coaches’ professional training, client characteristics, and types of coaching impact the effectiveness of this intervention. The article concludes with an agenda for future research on this emerging form of management development.