The Impact of Professional Coaching on Emerging Leaders

R Brown, L Varghese, S Sullivan, S Parsons International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring 2021

Coaching is a well-established developmental tool for senior managers and leaders, but almost no research has examined the value of coaching for young, emerging leaders. This paper presents two studies examining the impact of leadership coaching among university students. Study 1, a waitlist-controlled experiment, revealed that students who worked with a professional coach (compared to those in the waitlist group) exhibited larger changes in leader identity, self-concept clarity, humility, sense of purpose, satisfaction with life, and psychological distress. Study 2 supported the validity of these changes through observations of growth by peers, underscoring the developmental value of coaching for young, emerging leaders.