Business Management

Researchers have concluded that executive coaching lacks significant, reliable empirical research (Kampa-Kokesh & Anderson, 2001; Kilburg, 2004, Wasylyshyn, 2003). Individual executive coaches have contributed to the professional literature articles and books outlining their protocols, techniques, and deliverables. Their provisions are needed in order for the field of practitioners to define this consultative method and its components.

As executive coaching gains a stronghold on tried and true developmental practices, the requirement for rigorous research on core competencies and related training of them has emerged. Researchers must also assist in resolving or clarifying the disparity that has developed between the variety of protocols, methods, and techniques in executive coaching and offer a means to validate practitioners' claims (Brotman et al., 1998; Wasylyshyn, 2003).

Kleinberg (1996), who is an executive coach with a background in psychology, argues that executive coaches who do not possess rigorous psychological training deliver more inefficiency than proficiency. In the event an executive is experiencing psychological difficulties, which have gone undiagnosed or untreated, coaching may add insult to injury. Additionally, many self-styled executive coaches know little about business and/or coaching. Executive coaching provides executives with the opportunity to develop their leadership skills along with interpersonal skills, and become more skillful in leading teams of people through organizational upheaval and business transformation (Neimes, 2002).

Kilburg's (1996a) classic review of the literature revealed that there existed more than ten years ago a paucity of empirical data, as applied to the art and practice of executive coaching, to support the techniques and approaches coaches use. Today, the breadth of research does not equal the coaching industry demand (Kampa-Kokesh & Anderson, 2001; Kilburg, 2004; Wasylyshyn, 2003).

Judge and Cowell (1997) presented a snapshot of those who have become coaches, how they are coaching, who is being coached, and why they are being coached. In a survey of 60 professional coaches, the authors suggested that executive coaching is a derivative of executive development programs.

Regarding the coach's experience through the conduit of methodology, Judge and Cowell (1997) made an interesting yet unsubstantiated statement: "One factor that differentiates coaches is the level of assessment they perform. The best coaches conduct 360-degree assessments of the executives, which includes surveying and interviewing all the people with whom the executive interacts regularly" (p. 74).

Other means of data gathering experienced by the coaches in the study included observation in the workplace, peer assessment, and gaining input from clients (Peterson, 1996). Some coaches, presumably not the best, interviewed clients in relation to leadership, behavioral issues, and the performance of informal assessments. The researchers noted that this less robust methodology might have been sufficient depending upon the client's ability for accurate self-assessment.