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This chapter explores the international field of leadership coaching from a sociological perspective. The fundamental features of the leadership coaching industry are outlined using primary data collected from in-depth interviews with leadership coaches, ethnographic observation of coach-training workshops, and secondary data analysis of global coaching surveys. Leadership coaching is defined and contextualized within the field of leadership studies as well as within the broader international coaching industry. The issue of certification is examined along with an overview of the global demographics of who is involved in leadership coaching as practitioners and clients. The goal is to explicate how and why leadership coaching has emerged as a professional field and to offer insight into how leaders around the world are being trained and developed for various leadership roles in their communities.

This chapter aims to examine the ways coaching and mentoring are currently leveraged to deliver leadership development in higher education institutions. By exploring the variety of coaching and mentoring approaches and their deployment at different levels and across different institutions we are able to indicate opportunities for further enhancing leadership development in the sector through coaching and mentoring. The chapter examines peer-reviewed articles, sector reports and insights from key informants crafted into mini case studies. Mentoring emerges as a default approach to leadership development, in particular at early career stages and where inclusivity and diversity feature as part of leadership development programmes. Coaching is evident at the senior levels and offers a wider range of individual leader, senior team and organisational leadership development opportunities. Our cases highlight the range of responses and sophistication of coaching approaches and practices, from the highly embedded to other more piecemeal examples. The findings emphasise the importance of empirical research in this area to better understand and inform the sector of the wider benefits and opportunities of coaching and mentoring in supporting leadership development. Opportunities to support greater inclusivity and diversity in leadership should consider coaching approaches and practices too. This exploration of coaching and mentoring identifies why shifts towards coaching may be evident. It challenges those in the sector – researchers, people management and organisational developers, as well as senior leaders – to adopt more integrated and embedded coaching and mentoring initiatives to support the sector in addressing its current challenges.

Despite the interest in leaders' identity work as a framework for leadership development, coaching psychology has yet to expose its active ingredients and outcomes.

To do so, the authors reconcile published systematic literature reviews (SLRs) in the field to arrive at a more thorough understanding of the role of identity work in coaching. A total of 60 eligible SLRs on identity work and coaching were identified between 2010 and 2022. Four were included in the data extraction after selecting and screening, and the full texts of 196 primary studies reported therein were analysed.

Amongst the coachee-related factors of effective coaching, the coachee’s motivation, general self-efficacy beliefs, personality traits and goal orientation were the most frequently reported active ingredients, and performance improvement, self-awareness and goal specificity were the most frequently supported outcomes. The analysis indicates that leaders' identity work, as an active ingredient, can be a moderator variable for transformative coaching interventions, while strengthening leadership role identity could be one of the lasting outcomes because coaching interventions facilitate, deconstruct and enhance leaders' identity work. Further research is needed to explore the characteristics of these individual, relational and collective processes.

This study adds value by synthesising SLRs that report coachee-related active ingredients and outcomes of executive coaching research. It demonstrates that the role of leaders' identity work is a neglected factor affecting coaching results and encourages coaching psychologists to apply identity framework in their executive coaching practice.

Medicine is undergoing dramatic changes that will alter its basic organizational structure. The integration of evidence‐based medicine, patient centered care, and the electronic medical record into medical practice will necessitate innovative approaches to management.

A review of the literature was undertaken to assess the current state of leadership coaching for physicians and non‐medical health care leaders. Different models of leadership coaching are described and examined.

Leadership coaching has been an underutilized resource in health care executive training. The use of coaching methods has been of great utility for physician and non‐medical managerial leadership. Health care leaders will need to develop interpersonal and emotional intelligence competencies in order to successfully run increasingly complex organizations.

To encourage further quantitative studies of coaching in the health care field. Such studies would be significantly helpful in elucidating those approaches to coaching that yield the best results. Encouraging the greater use of leadership coaching by medical executives can be of potentially important benefit to the successful operation of their institutions.

The purpose of this paper was to determine what experienced school leaders learned through participating in a three-year leadership initiative, called the Leadership Learning Community (LLC), that helped them coach less experienced leaders to lead school improvement efforts.

Data were collected and analyzed using a qualitative design throughout the three-year initiative.

The findings indicate the LLC leadership coaches learned to accept and navigate the leaders' developmental and contextual needs, practiced and honed their coaching skills and recognized their own developmental needs.

These findings address the paucity of research on leadership coach learning and development.

The Snyder Leadership Legacy Fellows is a year-long program for undergraduate students entering into their final year at Kansas State University. Students are selected from across the university each spring to deepen their knowledge of leadership, connect with mentors to explore the transition from student to professional life, elevate their passion for service, and experience real-world opportunities to exercise leadership skills. Snyder Fellows experience personal and professional development rooted in Hall of Fame Football Coach Bill Snyder’s 16 Goals for Success. The ultimate goal of the program is to develop change agents on campus, in the community, throughout the state and beyond. An important component of the program is providing the students with leadership coaches that meet with the students once a month, focusing on transitioning to career or graduate school and leadership challenges students are facing. Over time the structure of the coaching has changed and lessons have been learned. This work examines how coaching can benefit students and lessons learned from coaching as part of a co-curricular student leadership program.

This study followed four novice principals in two urban school districts through one or two years of their leadership coaching experience. The purpose of this study was to determine principals’ perceived benefits of the coaching experience, principals’ beliefs regarding the most beneficial attributes of a coach, and the match between these findings and the core leadership practices that most dramatically impact student achievement.

This study followed four novice principals in two urban school districts through one or two years of their leadership coaching experience.

Principals in this study appeared to have had a successful coaching experience in part because of: the coach's knowledge of curriculum, schools, and districts; the practicality of the experience; and the coach's ability to collaborate and shape the thinking of principals without being authoritative or intrusive. Principals experienced success on the job as identified by the student achievement on state tests and their advancement to district principal leadership roles.

The focus of the coaching in this study appeared to be centered on the core leadership practices noted to have the most impact on student achievement. The results revealed that the skills sets and knowledge of a coach are critical to the coaching experience. The general effects of a coaching focus on core leadership practices may also play a significant part in principal success; however, more research is needed to make a full determination.

This paper aims to report on a case study conducted in a private medical partnership of more than 50 specialist physicians where the researcher applied a leadership coaching model grounded in existential philosophy. The paper asserts that existential leadership coaching can be a novel and effective means to address leadership development needs in the unique context of a professional partnership.

The qualitative phenomenological study used a bounded case study design using four purposively selected specialist physicians who were involved in four individual structured coaching sessions over an eight-week period. Data came in writing from participants in the form of reflective questions before and after the coaching, and note-taking on index cards during the coaching process. Data also came from the coach/researcher as a participant observer in the form of note-taking and a reflective journal.

Findings indicate that working with perceptions of leadership in existential coaching conversations can provide a mechanism for members of a partnership to find greater purpose, and choose how they can contribute better to leadership development in their collective. Findings indicate that the process of imaging the perceptions of fellow partners can unlock the identification of and choice for developmental actions and contributions to the collective.

For the selected qualitative design, the researcher as the participant observer provided advantages such as insider access and depth of engagement. The study was limited to a small sample in a particular time and context. Findings are thus viewed in the light of this unique case.

Such a qualitative phenomenological case study provides glimpses into the lives of real-life leaders and offers the coaching, academic and medical fraternities an insider understanding of leadership development in the case of professional partnerships.

The paper points to a mechanism which may be a means to unlock potential and facilitate leadership development in the context of professional partnerships.

There is limited empirical literature on the effectiveness of leadership coaching in healthcare settings. The purpose of this paper is to explore the efficacy of leadership coaching for individuals implementing strategic change in the Australian public health system.

Using a within-subjects (pre-post) design, participants (n=31) undertook six one-hour coaching sessions. Coaching was conducted by professional leadership coaches. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected.

Participation was associated with significant improvements in goal attainment, solution-focused thinking, leadership self-efficacy, perspective-taking capacity, self-insight and resilience, and ambiguity tolerance. There were significant reductions in stress and anxiety. The benefits of coaching transferred from the workplace to the home. Many participants reported being able to use insights gained in coaching in their personal lives, and reported better work/life balance, less stress and better quality relationships at home.

Few studies have provided evaluation of leadership coaching in healthcare setting. Leadership coaching in the public health system may be an important methodology for facilitating goal attainment and fostering resilience in this vital social sector, benefiting workers in the health services, their families and ultimately their patients and the broader community.

This paper adds depth to our understanding of how coaching works by exploring the experiences of 14 aspiring school principals who received one-to-one leadership coaching as part of a leadership development programme.

This study adopts a phenomenological approach. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with the participants. Thematic analysis was used to code the data and identify themes.

This paper reports on four themes based on the experiences of the participants: having time to reflect, feeling safe to explore, focussing on what's important for me and experiencing positive emotions.

The findings are unique to the participants who volunteered to take part in this study and therefore not representative of a general population of aspiring educational leaders. Further research is needed into the possible benefits of coaching to support educators undergoing leadership training.

The findings raise a potential dilemma within the teaching profession about the use of educators' time; while they need to give time and attention to multiple stakeholders, they also need to protect time for their own development and self-reflection. Based on the reported experiences of the participants in this study, it is recommended that coaching be considered a component of professional development for educational leaders.

This paper adds to the growing research base for coaching in education, providing a unique insight into the experiences of aspiring school principals who received one-to-one leadership coaching as part of a leadership development programme.