Can Executive Coaching help with leadership skills?

Yes! But executive coaching only helps when it leads to changes in how you lead, not simply how you think about leadership.

In my experience, the most valuable changes often begin with recognising the gap between your intentions and your impact. You may intend to create urgency, encourage discussion or move a project forward. Your team may experience something quite different: interruptions, shifting priorities and deadlines they have had no opportunity to influence.

Executive coaching, when delivered by a credible subject expert, can help you recognise that gap and do something positive about it. But it requires you to be clear on a specific outcome to be achieved, a willingness to be accountable and a commitment to practising different behaviours between coaching sessions.

A good conversation is not the same as better leadership. The value comes from what changes afterwards.

What Can Executive Coaching Change in Practice?

One senior executive I coached was unaware of how their impulsive communication and decision-making affected their team.

The executive regularly spoke over people and interrupted colleagues to share their own views. Decisions were made quickly, but often without sufficient consideration of risks, opportunities or the impact on the people responsible for delivering them.

Yet another “urgent priority” would arrive with an unrealistic deadline imposed rather than agreed.

The team consisted of passionate senior subject experts. Yet they had begun to dread meetings with their leader.

They expected not to be listened to. Important matters would not receive enough discussion, and their expertise would be overlooked. Eventually, they withdrew emotionally and settled into simply “doing their job”.

The leader was not aware of the impact she were having. Nobody had dared to tell her.

That raises an important question: how can someone change a pattern they do not recognise?

Making the Leadership Pattern Visible

At Summit, we underpinned this executive coaching programme with the EQ-i 2.0 emotional intelligence assessment.

The assessment highlighted low-range impulse control alongside difficulties with self-awareness. These findings gave us a structured starting point for exploring the leader’s behaviour rather than relying on a general conversation about “being a better leader” or a personality based assessment.

We used the report to explore the triggers behind what had become an automatic way of communicating and behaving.

The focus was not on labelling the executive. It was on helping them recognise what happened in particular situations and consider the choices available to them.

As their self-awareness improved, their impulsive behaviour began to reduce.

Changing the Experience of Being Led

Healthier, more structured and collaborative meetings replaced the previous disruption.

The team members willingly began contributing ideas again. People openly raised risks rather than keeping their concerns to themselves. Day-to-day communication became more timely and constructive.

The improvements extended beyond the meetings themselves. The team began achieving more in less time, with more projects delivered right first time.

This is what makes leadership development meaningful to me. The change was not simply that the executive understood themselves better. Their colleagues experienced a different way of being led.

How Does Executive Coaching Turn Awareness Into Action?

Awareness was the starting point in this executive coaching programme, not the finishing line.

The assessment report provided detailed information that helped me create a bespoke, structured coaching programme. Our work consistently returned to developing the executive’s ability to pause and consider:

1. What options are available?

2. Which opportunities deserve further exploration?

3. What risks need to be considered?

4. How will this decision affect the team’s existing commitments?

5. What timeframe is challenging but realistic?

6. What does the team need to deliver the required standard?

These questions were particularly relevant because the original problem involved flawed decisions being made and communicated too quickly.

Practising Between Coaching Sessions

Alongside the coaching sessions, the executive completed what I describe as “mini workouts”: specific development commitments to practise in their day-to-day work.

Each commitment built on previous sessions. The aim was to proactively put learning into practice, not leave it in a notebook until our next conversation.

This distinction matters. Understanding that you interrupt people is different from changing how you participate in your next meeting.

The work between sessions is where the executive has the opportunity to make that change real.

What Should You Look for in an Executive Coach?

Summit's view is that an executive coach should bring more than an ability to ask questions.

When you are investing in support for a particular leadership challenge, you should expect relevant expertise, constructive challenge and a clear commitment to progress.

Relevant Experience and Specialist Knowledge

We believe a coach should bring real-life experience of successfully addressing the kind of issue you are inviting them to help resolve.

A generalist who “does a bit of everything” would not be my first choice for a specific, consequential leadership challenge.

A sounding board can be useful. But you should be clear whether you are buying a sounding board or specialist support with the depth to help you achieve a defined outcome.

Ask prospective coaches to explain their relevant experience and how it connects to your situation.

A Willingness to Challenge—and Be Challenged

Your coach should be able to challenge your thinking positively and constructively.

They should also welcome challenge from you.

For me, that willingness needs to work in both directions. You should be able to question an interpretation, disagree with a suggestion and ask why a particular approach is relevant.

Getting along matters, but agreement should not be the measure of a successful coaching relationship.

A Commitment to Specific Progress

“I feel like I’m making progress” is not enough on its own.

I want executive coaching to focus on specific progress that can be tracked. Depending on the agreed outcome, that might mean examining whether a leader listens without interrupting, involves colleagues before committing to deadlines, or gives risks sufficient consideration before making decisions.

Agree what improvement needs to look like at the outset. Then return to that throughout the engagement.

In the case described here, the meaningful changes included more collaborative meetings, renewed team contributions, more open discussion of risks and improved project delivery. Those were the outcomes that mattered, not simply whether the executive enjoyed the sessions.

A Focus on Value, Not Prolonging the Engagement

My position is straightforward: an executive coach should aim to deliver the value and outcome required as quickly as is realistically possible.

They should not drag out sessions or slow progress to protect a fee.

Ask how the coach will review progress with you and how you will both recognise when the agreed work is complete.

Are You Ready to Benefit From Executive Coaching?

Choosing the right coach is only part of the decision. You also need to consider what you are prepared to bring to the project.

My advice is to appoint an executive coach only when you:

• Have a specific outcome you want to achieve.

• Are open to being held accountable for your commitments.

• Are willing to examine your impact, including feedback that may be uncomfortable.

• Will put in the work between sessions to turn learning into action.

You do not need to arrive with every answer. But you do need to be willing to participate actively in creating the outcome.

Before appointing someone, speak with them. Check their credentials and relevant experience. Explore how they work and whether you could build an honest, constructive relationship with them.

Do not choose an executve coach simply because they appear on the first page of Google.

The question is not just, “Can executive coaching help with leadership skills?”

It is, “Does this coach have the expertise to help me achieve the change I need, and am I prepared to do my part?”

Read about how an executive coaching programme with a Head of IT delivered immense value here.

Read about how an executive coaching programme with an under-pressure Operations Director, delivered a rapid turnaround here.

CEO client testimonial video can be viewed here.