What Is Leadership Coaching and How Does It Help Companies?

By Linda C. Ashar, J.D.  |  08/04/2025

Firestone® Tire Company founder Harvey S. Firestone once said, “The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.” These words still ring true today.

To become the best possible leaders, many executives utilize the services of leadership coaches, also known as business coaches.

The Benefits of Leadership Coaching

At its core, leadership coaching (also known as business coaching, strategic coaching, or executive coaching) is a transformative process that develops a leader’s clarity and confidence, as well as the ability to guide others with integrity and insight. Leadership coaching programs help leaders develop their deeper purpose and unlock untapped potential in themselves and their employees.

In practice, traditional leadership development programs are highly personalized. Through focused, one-on-one sessions, a skilled coach becomes a trusted partner – someone who helps leaders reflect, recalibrate, and reach new levels of growth.

These sessions do not offer ready-made solutions – they seek to draw out the leader’s own insights, wisdom, and capacity for change. The coach’s personalized focus allows leaders to address specific, real-time challenges they face in the business world, such as:

• Navigating organizational change
• Improving team dynamics
• Enhancing their decision-making strategies or communication styles

Leadership coaching clearly cannot be a one-size-fits-all template. Every leader brings a unique mix of experience, pressure points, and aspirations.

A good leadership coach tailors the approach to the individual leader’s personal perspective, values, and challenges. Skilled leadership coaching enables people to achieve their fullest potential as effective leaders.

Leadership Coaching Brings Value to the Business Environment

The role of coaching has become even more vital for meeting the demands of today’s world of constant changes and digital disruption. It’s no surprise that the global leadership coaching market is booming.  

According to Coherent Market Insights, research predicts that the global leadership coaching market will reach $105.69 billion in 2025 and grow to $206.08 billion by 2032. This increase reflects a growing recognition that leadership today isn’t just about hard skills, but also about emotional agility, adaptability, and people-first thinking.

Leadership coaching is utilized and valued across all industries. The coaching process fosters growth and satisfaction for leaders, both personally and within their organizations.

One significant benefit of leadership coaching is self-reflection. Leaders often operate under high pressure and may not take – or recognize the need for – the time to step back and examine their behaviors, choices, or thought patterns.

The type of executive coaching that is provided to leaders offers a safe, structured space to examine habits, mindsets, and blind spots that may be limiting progress. Because people often lack objectivity about themselves, a coach offers an outside perspective that reveals a leader’s strengths and areas for improvement.

This honest, nonjudgmental feedback creates self-awareness, which is a foundational element of emotional intelligence and drives meaningful behavioral change. With their enhanced understanding provided by leadership coaches, leaders are better equipped to:

• Recognize blind spots
• Respond to feedback constructively
• Make more conscious decisions

All of these factors are critical in driving organizational success.

Emotional Intelligence Powers Coaching and Effective Leadership

Emotional intelligence (EI) – our ability to manage emotions in ourselves and others – is central to effective leadership. Coaching sharpens EI. 

As entrepreneur and leadership guru Mercy Matsika aptly puts it, EI is the “silent engine behind great leadership. It enables a leader to connect, influence, and inspire. An emotionally intelligent leader is not just managing tasks, but also managing people, energy and emotions.

“When a leader is self-aware, empathetic, and emotionally grounded, they’re better positioned to build trust, handle pressure and respond to challenges with clarity rather than chaos. In today’s dynamic world, technical skills get you in the room, but [EI] keeps you relevant and effective.”

Simply Psychology writer Mia Belle Frothingham agrees that EI is central to successful leadership. She notes that EI is “a fundamental element of compassion and comprehending the deeper reasons behind other people’s actions.”

Dr. Mary Kay, a prominent leadership coach, emphasizes that leaders who are grounded in their values are more likely to act ethically, stay true to their purpose, and inspire others. These qualities are essential to build trust with teams, customers, and stakeholders.

Coaching supports leaders in intentionally cultivating this capacity for emotional intelligence. In concert with EI, coaching helps leaders develop and align their personal values with their professional roles. This personal and professional development fosters authenticity and integrity that carries through work and relationships.

Coaching Helps Develop Key Leadership Skills

Leadership coaching supports the development of key competencies. For example, communication is one of the most targeted areas in coaching scenarios.

A coach can collaborate with a leader to improve that leader’s clarity and influence in messaging. Coaching also helps executives to build rapport with team members or manage difficult conversations with empathy and authority.

 In addition, coaching helps leaders to sharpen strategic thinking by using scenario analysis applicable to the leader’s challenges, big-picture planning, and anticipatory thinking.

Other core competencies for leaders that are responsive to coaching include:

• Conflict resolution
• Management skills
• Delegation
• Adaptability
• Resilience
• Leadership styles

Coaching Builds an Intense, Confidential Relationship for Senior Leaders

The coaching process typically begins with an intake session or assessment phase. During this phase, personal or business goals are clarified, and a baseline is established for professional development and ongoing support. The assessment phase may include:

• Personality assessments (sometimes involving self-assessment tools)
• 360-degree feedback
• Interviews with stakeholders
• An assessment of leadership challenges

Then, the coach and leader work together to develop a personalized coaching plan that addresses the leader’s specific needs and goals in a structured and consistent way.

Coaching sessions involve ongoing dialogue, support, and accountability. The coach acts as a sounding board in this collaborative process.

Meetings can be in-person, virtual, or a combination of both. These leadership training meetings are generally structured to maintain a schedule, usually biweekly or monthly.

An effective coaching relationship evolves over time, deepening as trust builds. Gradually, the leader becomes more willing to confront blind spots, explore values, and take intentional risks in pursuit of growth.

The coach’s approach involves active listening, powerful questioning, constructive feedback, and action planning. A good coach will challenge the leader’s assumptions, reframe problems, and encourage experimentation with ideas, frameworks, and strategies.

Leaders are often given reflective or behavioral coaching assignments to pursue between coaching sessions, so that they can apply insights in real time and come back to their coach to review and analyze what occurred in their organizational culture. This iterative learning process promotes behavioral change and enhances the long-term sustainability of leadership development.

Throughout this process, confidentiality is paramount. The coach creates a safe space for honest reflection, which enables leaders to explore their vulnerabilities without fear of judgment.

Leadership coaching is also grounded in supportive, clear-sighted evaluation and constructive advice. Within this comfort zone, the leader can explore inwardly, apply discoveries, and grow.

Real-Life Examples of Coaching Leaders

There are examples of executives who have benefited from leadership coaching to make a positive impact or their organizations and perform better in the business world. Their companies include:

• Google/Alphabet
• Microsoft

Google/Alphabet

When Eric Schmidt became CEO of Google® in 2001, he was already a highly accomplished executive. However, Google board member John Doerr insisted that Schmidt hire a coach.

Initially skeptical, Schmidt said to Doerr, “I don’t really need a coach. I’ve been an experienced CEO for many years. I’m not a kid.” Doerr replied, “Tennis players have coaches, and maybe you need a coach, too.”

Schmidt hired Bill Campbell and later attested that Campbell helped him become a more effective leader. According to Schmidt, “The one thing people are never good at is seeing themselves as others see them. A coach really, really helps.”

Sundar Pichai, the current CEO of Google and Alphabet®, was also a mentee of Bill Campbell. According to Justin Bariso, one way Campbell assisted Pichai was in discerning methods for breaking stalemates in decision-making.

Google illustrates a major corporation’s belief in the value of leadership coaching and demonstrates that even high-profile, experienced leaders like Schmidt and Pichai can materially benefit from coaching. These two extraordinarily successful leaders now endorse leadership coaching as a means to gain an external perspective that challenges assumptions and broadens self-awareness.

Organizations that incorporate leadership coaching programs as part of their leadership development strategy often see transformative results. Whether through formal executive coaching programs, internal coaching pools, or leadership training for managers, the benefits multiply when coaching is scaled across all levels of the organization.

Microsoft

According to Quarterdeck, Microsoft® has taken this concept to the next level with its Model-Coach-Care Framework. Managers model the behaviors expected of employees instead of the traditional issuing assignments and criticizing employee performance.

Essentially, this leadership model is a seismic philosophical shift from the traditional, impersonal task-and-results focus of management to an enlightened emphasis on care and growth of people – the talent who are the business’ critical assets.

As Quarterdeck observes, “Caring ensures that employee wellbeing remains central to management practice” and is viewed as the linchpin of Microsoft’s successful framework.

The key steps to implement leadership coaching with organizational goals include:

• Identifying high-potential talent for early intervention and growth
• Training managers to use coaching skills in day-to-day leadership
• Creating a feedback-rich culture that values learning over perfection
• Ensuring alignment between coaching goals and business priorities

Google and Microsoft illustrate that support for coaching from senior leadership is critical. When top executives champion coaching and demonstrate a growth mindset, the impact of what they learn will move throughout an organization.

ROI Proves the Value of Leadership Coaching

According to Right Management, “50% of organizations report insufficient buy-in from senior leaders as a significant barrier to establishing or improving their coaching culture. To overcome this, stakeholders need evidence that coaching improves leadership skills, team performance and overall business outcomes. Measuring progress builds confidence in the program.”

In addition to outcome metrics, organizations should value the impact of storytelling. This storytelling involves using testimonials and leader narratives to bring data to life and showcase coaching’s real-world value.

Writing for Sharpist, Danial O'Dwyer reports that measuring leadership coaching’s return on investment (ROI) should overwhelmingly reduce the doubts of skeptics. According to O’Dwyer’s research, “organizational investment in senior-level coaching produces an average ROI of nearly six times the initial cost.”

Calculating the Value of Leadership Coaching Programs

There are several ways to evaluate the value of coaching. To justify investment in coaching, organizations increasingly measure ROI using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Common metrics include:

• Improvements in current leadership style and competencies (pre- and post-coaching assessments)
• Goal achievement
• Employee engagement scores and team performance
• Retention rates, especially of high-potential, skilled employees with leadership potential
• Career progression or promotion of coached leaders
• Cultural health assessments
• Feedback from peers and direct reports
• Workforce surveys

Combined with these quantifiable measures and data studies, anecdotal evidence plays a powerful role in capturing coaching’s impact on an organization. Anecdotal evidence can include:

• Stories of transformation
• Behavioral shifts
• Improved relationships in the organization

Choosing the right coaching model depends on the organization’s size, budget, and strategic needs. Options range from hiring external coaches for senior executives to training internal leaders in coaching methods.

Some companies use virtual coaching platforms to make coaching more scalable and accessible. Others utilize more traditional leadership programs that bring in an expert speaker. 

When evaluating coaching providers or programs, organizations should consider:

• The credentials and experience of the coach
• The methodology and theoretical grounding of the coach’s approach
• Customization of the program to the organization’s context
• Cultural fit of both coach and program with the organization’s business and workforce
• Integration with the organization’s talent and leadership

Leadership Coaching Still Faces Hurdles to Acceptance

Despite its obvious benefits, leadership development programs can face hurdles. Common challenges include:

• Skepticism about leadership coaching’s value
• Time constraints for leaders
• A lack of defined goals
• Inconsistent managerial support

These barriers can be addressed through ensuring clear communication with leadership and leadership buy-in. Leadership coaching can become part of a broader strategic plan or cultural strategy that embeds emotional intelligence and human potential into corporate values and identity.

Leadership Coaching Makes a Difference in the Rapidly Changing Business World

Leadership coaching is not a new-age luxury; it is a strategic imperative. In our digital, demand-driven world, leaders and organizations must innovate and adapt quickly and lead ethically. Strategic leadership coaching develops the kind of leaders who can meet these challenges.

As business environments become increasingly unpredictable, leaders must balance analytical rigor with empathy. Leadership coaching provides a framework to cultivate that balance. By enhancing self-awareness and emotional intelligence, building critical skills, and fostering ethical leadership abilities, effective coaching empowers individuals, creates ethical leaders, and transforms organizations.

In making coaching a core element of leadership development, an entire organization can unlock the power of both individual leaders and the best talents and essential skills of their subordinates. As Google and Microsoft have shown, leadership coaching has proven to be an investment in the successful continuity and growth of their businesses.

The Bachelor of Business Administration at APU

For adult learners interesting in improving their business skills for today’s business world, American Public University (APU) provides an online Bachelor of Business Administration. Courses in this degree program include topics such as operations research, leading in the technology age, and the basics of business. Other courses involve leadership and motivation and the principles of supervision.

This academic program also offers a choice of multiple concentrations, so that students can choose courses that align with their professional goals.

The Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP®) has awarded this business administration degree program with specialty accreditation. This accreditation demonstrates that this academic program has met standards for high quality according to higher educational professionals.

For more information about this degree program, visit APU’s business and management degree program page.

Firestone is a registered trademark of Bridgestone America, Inc.
Google is a registered trademark of Google, LLC.
Alphabet is a registered trademark of Alphabet, Inc.
Microsoft is a registered trademark of the Microsoft Corporation.
ACBSP is a registered trademark of the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs.