A new wave of research is changing the conversation about executive coaching. The 2025 ICF Global Coaching Study found that 87% of organizations now report a positive ROI from coaching, and that coached leaders show retention rates around 6.75 times higher than their uncoached peers. That isn’t a small marginal lift. It’s a different category of outcome.

The findings line up with a 2023 meta-analysis by Erik de Haan and Viktor Nilsson, published in the Academy of Management Learning & Education, which examined 39 randomized controlled trials covering 2,528 participants. They found a moderate, statistically significant effect across leadership and personal outcomes. Coaching, when done well, doesn’t just make people feel better. It changes what they actually do.

In my work with executive teams over the last decade, I’ve watched both the hype and the skepticism. Some boards write coaching off as a soft expense. Others throw it at every senior hire and hope for the best. Both approaches miss what the research is now telling us in clearer terms than ever before.

Coaching changes behavior, not just mood

This is the finding I want every CHRO to hear. The de Haan and Nilsson meta-analysis showed that the strongest effects of coaching aren’t in self-reported satisfaction or feeling supported. They’re in measurable behavioral change. A 2023 paper published in Frontiers in Psychology, focused specifically on randomized control trials, found significant effects on self-efficacy, psychological capital, and resilience. Those are the underlying capabilities that drive how a leader handles a tough decision, a difficult conversation, or a six-month strategy shift.

If your coaching program is being evaluated only on engagement scores, you’re under-measuring the thing that matters most.

The onboarding window most companies miss

One pattern I keep seeing: organizations bring in coaches for executives who are already struggling. By that point, you’re remediating, not developing. The newer research is pretty clear that coaching has its biggest impact when it’s paired with transition. The 2025 ICF study found that organizations using coaching during leader transitions reported a 22% increase in internal promotions and notably higher retention.

The first 90 days in a new role is when patterns get set. New executives are learning the politics, building their team, deciding what to tolerate and what to confront. That’s the window where a coach is worth the most. Waiting until someone is in trouble means paying coaching prices for therapy outcomes.

Pair coaching with a business goal, not a personality trait

A coaching engagement that starts with “help her be more strategic” almost always underperforms one that starts with “help her land the integration of the new acquisition by Q3.” Specificity matters. The ICF research consistently shows that coaching tied to a real business outcome produces measurably better results, including the 5 to 7 times ROI multiples that get cited in headlines.

When I’m setting up a coaching engagement for a client, I push hard on this. What’s the business deliverable this leader needs to produce in the next two quarters? What capability gap is in the way? Coaching that hangs around abstract development goals tends to drift. Coaching pinned to a real outcome produces both behavioral change and visible business results, which makes the engagement easy to renew and easy to justify.

Stop treating coaching as a reward, or a punishment

Two cultural patterns I see undermine even the best coaching investments. The first treats coaching as a perk handed out to the favored few, which creates resentment and turns it into a status signal. The second treats it as a corrective measure, so being assigned a coach feels like being put on a watch list. Both kill the quality of the engagement before it starts.

The healthier pattern, and the one the 2025 research supports, is making coaching part of the standard development infrastructure for senior leaders. Teams led by coached leaders show, on average, nine-point engagement gains over one or two survey cycles, according to ICF data. That’s a team-level return, not a personal favor.

Where this leaves leaders right now

If your organization is going to invest in coaching this year, the research is pointing toward a specific approach. Tie it to transitions. Pair it with a real outcome. Measure behavior and not just satisfaction. Normalize it across the senior bench. The data is now strong enough that you don’t have to guess about whether coaching works. The question worth asking is whether yours is set up to deliver what the research says is possible.

If you’d like to talk through whether coaching is the right move for your team, or how to structure an engagement that actually produces results, I’d love to hear from you. Work with me here.