By Dr. Michele D'Amico, PsyD, CPC, CELC, clinical psychologist and executive coach, Los Angeles · Published October 27, 2026
You've read the books. You've taken the courses. You've listened to your mentor's advice.
And yet something still isn't working. Maybe your team nods in meetings and then does its own thing. Maybe you're the smartest person in the room and somehow the least trusted. Maybe you just got promoted and feel like everyone is waiting for you to fail.
r maybe you work in HR, and you're the one these problems land on. The VP whose team keeps quitting. The high-potential manager who isn't quite ready for the next role. The executive everyone quietly works around.
This is usually the moment people start asking about executive coaching. Then they find out how little the term actually tells them. Anyone can call themselves an executive coach. Some are former executives, some are consultants, and a few, like me, are psychologists.
Before I became an executive coach, I earned my PsyD in Clinical Psychology. Over more than 16 years, I've coached leaders at Disney, Uber, and Salesforce, and at dozens of small and mid-sized companies. Here's what executive coaching really is, how it works, and how to tell whether it's right for you or for a leader you support. If you're in HR, there's a section written just for you near the end.
The short answer
Executive coaching is a structured, one-on-one partnership that helps a leader change the specific behaviors holding back their performance, their relationships, and their team. It's goal-driven, confidential, and usually runs three to twelve months. Progress is measured by what other people notice, not just by how the leader feels.
It isn't therapy, training, or consulting. A good coach doesn't hand you answers. They help you see your own patterns clearly, choose what to change, and practice the new behavior until it sticks.
Every business challenge begins, and ends, with behavior.
What is executive coaching? A working definition
The International Coaching Federation (ICF), the field's largest professional body, defines coaching as "partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential."
Executive coaching applies that partnership to people who lead: executives, directors, founders, and high-potential managers. The "client" is often two parties at once. One is the leader. The other is the organization paying for the work and hoping to see results.
Psychologists have studied this work for decades. In 1996, the American Psychological Association's Consulting Psychology Journal devoted a special issue to it. In the foreword, psychologist Richard Kilburg described executive coaching as an emerging competency in consultation. Today it's a mainstream leadership tool. The ICF's 2025 Global Coaching Study, conducted by PwC, counted a record 122,974 coach practitioners worldwide and $5.34 billion in annual revenue.
How executive coaching differs from other kinds of support
Leaders often have plenty of help around them. Here's where coaching fits.
How executive coaching works, step by step
Every coach works a little differently, but a strong engagement has a clear shape. Here is one way that I structure mine. Keep in mind, coaching engagements differ depending on the client’s needs.
A free 30-minute consultation. An honest conversation about what's going on and whether I'm the right fit. You get answers, plus some free advice, with no pitch and no pressure.
A 60-minute clarity session. We narrow in on the specific challenge and the behaviors driving it. As a clinical psychologist, I listen for what others don't hear: the pattern under the problem.
Assessment and stakeholder input. Depending on the goal, this may include validated assessments, a 360-degree review, or interviews with the people who work most closely with you. Their view of you is data, and it's often the most useful data we have.
A customized program. We pick one or two behaviors that matter most and build a plan around them. Monthly sessions, clinical debriefs, and support between sessions keep the work moving.
Practice, feedback, and follow-up. You try the new behavior in real meetings and real conversations. Your stakeholders give short, regular feedback about what they see changing.
Measurement and real change. Near the end, we check progress with the same people who rated you at the start using a third-party survey. Change counts when other people notice it.
How long does it take? Real behavioral change takes time. For individuals and business owners, I ask for a three-month minimum, because the work is focused and narrow. For organizations, I ask for at least six months.
The measurement step comes from Marshall Goldsmith's Stakeholder Centered Coaching, a method I'm certified in. Goldsmith's process has leaders agree on the behaviors to change, involve key stakeholders, and then run a short two-to-six-item mini-survey with those stakeholders within six months. The point is simple: a leader's own sense of progress isn't enough. The people around them have to see it too. I do not always use this method. Once again, it is tailored to the client’s needs.
What leaders actually work on in executive coaching
The industry doesn't matter much. I've worked across entertainment, tech, financial services, and nonprofits, and the problems are always human. Most engagements land on one of these:
Executive presence. Being taken seriously in the room, especially after a promotion or in front of a board.
Communication and buy-in. Getting people to act on decisions, not just nod at them.
Delegation and trust. Letting go of the work that got you promoted so your team can grow.
Emotional intelligence. Reading the room, managing your own reactions, and responding instead of reacting.
Difficult conversations and conflict. Saying the hard thing clearly and keeping the relationship intact.
Blind spots. Habits that others see clearly but you can't, like interrupting, dismissing ideas, or avoiding conflict.
Transitions. A new role, a first leadership job, a founder becoming a CEO, or leading through a reorganization.
Stress and resilience. Sustaining performance through change without burning out yourself or your team.
Notice what these have in common. They're not knowledge gaps. Most leaders already know they should delegate or listen more. The gap is between knowing and doing, and that gap is behavioral. That's why new training programs often fizzle: they teach the skill but don't change what drives the behavior.
Does executive coaching work? What the research says
Short answer: yes, with a moderate effect that holds up across rigorous studies. Here's the evidence, from strongest to most illustrative.
37 randomized controlled trials. In 2023, Erik de Haan and Viktor Nilsson published a meta-analysis using only randomized controlled trials of workplace coaching. Across 2,528 participants, they found a statistically significant, moderate effect on leadership and personal outcomes (g = 0.59). They also noted that effects were larger on self-reported outcomes than on observed ones, which is a good reason to measure change through other people's eyes.
20 executive coaching trials. A 2023 meta-analysis in Frontiers in Psychology by Andreea Nicolau and colleagues pooled 20 randomized trials of executive coaching specifically. The largest effects were on behavioral outcomes, with significant gains in self-efficacy, goal attainment, psychological capital, and resilience.
Learning and performance. A 2016 meta-analysis by Rebecca Jones, Stephen Woods, and Yves Guillaume found that workplace coaching had positive effects on organizational outcomes, including skills, attitudes, and individual results.
Five outcome categories. A 2014 meta-analysis from the University of Amsterdam by Tim Theeboom, Bianca Beersma, and Annelies van Vianen found significant positive effects on performance and skills, well-being, coping, work attitudes, and goal-directed self-regulation.
A CEO's endorsement. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Fortune that the best advice he ever got came from investor John Doerr in 2001: get a coach. He resisted at first, then worked with Bill Campbell for years, a story told in Trillion Dollar Coach.
The honest caveat: de Haan and Nilsson also found signs of publication bias, meaning positive studies may be more likely to get published. Coaching isn't magic. It works best when the goals are specific, the leader is willing, and progress is measured by the people affected.
Why a psychologist's lens changes executive coaching
Most coaching certifications teach frameworks for goal-setting, accountability, and leadership skills. Those are useful. But they don't always explain why a smart, successful leader keeps repeating the same pattern, or what's driving their resistance to change.
That's where psychology comes in. I use many of the same assessments and frameworks other coaches use. The difference is that I pair them with a clinical understanding of human behavior. In practice, that means three things:
Finding the root, not the symptom. "Communication problems" are rarely about communication. They're about fear, trust, status, or an old story about what happens when you're wrong. Change lasts when we work at that level.
Recognizing when coaching isn't enough. Researchers Anthony Grant, Linley Curtayne, and Geraldine Burton have estimated that 25% to 50% of coaching clients have clinically significant stress, anxiety, or depression. Most coaches aren't trained to spot that. In a well-known 2002 Harvard Business Review article, psychologist Steven Berglas warned of the very real dangers of executive coaching when coaches miss deeper psychological issues. When someone needs clinical care, I say so directly.
Seeing the whole system. Leaders don't behave in a vacuum. Team dynamics shape what people do. When Google studied 180 of its teams in Project Aristotle, it found that psychological safety mattered most to team effectiveness. That's a set of leader behaviors, and behavior is what coaching changes.
This matters most when an organization has already tried training or consulting and the problem persists. Those situations are almost always behavioral, and they call for clinical-level pattern recognition.
Who benefits from executive coaching?
Coaching works best for people who are functioning well and want to perform better. It may be the right fit if any of these sound familiar:
You were promoted for your expertise and now lead people who used to be your peers.
Your team can't communicate, and meetings end without real decisions.
You have a brilliant-yet-impossible executive whose behavior is driving good people away.
People keep leaving, and exit interviews point to the same leader or team.
You're a founder whose company has outgrown the way you used to run it.
You feel underestimated or invisible, even though you're surrounded by signs of success.
You've read the books and taken the courses, and you still feel stuck.
If you're in HR, you've probably seen these patterns show up in exit interviews, engagement surveys, and 360 reviews long before anyone says the word "coaching."
If what you're feeling is spilling into every part of your life, such as sleep, appetite, or your relationships at home, start with a licensed mental health professional. Coaching can come later or alongside it. If you or someone you lead is in crisis, call or text 988 in the U.S. to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
How to choose an executive coach
Coaching is unregulated. Psychology Today notes that coaches aren't licensed by states and that no training is required. So the burden of checking falls on you. Ask every coach you consider:
What's your training, and in what? Coaching credentials, psychology training, or both? Each brings something different.
How do you measure progress? Look for a coach who measures behavior change through stakeholders, not just session satisfaction.
What happens if you see something beyond coaching? A good coach knows their limits and has a referral plan.
Who else is involved? Clarify confidentiality and what, if anything, gets shared with your manager or HR.
What does a typical engagement look like? Ask about length, session frequency, and support between sessions.
Can I talk to you first? Fit matters. You'll be telling this person things you don't tell your team, so trust your read of the first conversation.
For HR: how to make executive coaching pay off
HR professionals are often the ones who recommend coaching, choose the coach, and answer for the results. After years of partnering with HR teams, here's what I've seen separate engagements that change behavior from engagements that just fill a calendar.
Decide whether coaching is the right tool
Coaching fits best when the problem is one person's behavior, the stakes are high, and the leader is worth investing in. It's a poor fit for a skills gap across a whole team, which training handles better, or for a structural problem, such as unclear roles or broken incentives, which no amount of coaching will fix.
One rule I hold firmly: coaching shouldn't be a last stop before an exit. If the decision to let someone go has already been made, coaching wastes their time and your budget, and it teaches everyone else that coaching is a warning sign. Position it as an investment in leaders you want to keep.
Set it up with three-way agreement
The strongest engagements start with a meeting between the leader, their manager or sponsor, and the coach. Together, you agree on the goals and how progress will be measured. Then the roles stay clear:
Confidentiality matters more than most organizations realize. What a leader says in sessions should stay between the leader and the coach. What gets shared is progress against the goals everyone agreed on. Without that line, leaders hold back, and the coaching stalls.
Measure what matters
To show results to your executive team, set a baseline before coaching starts. Use the same stakeholder ratings at the end. Remember the de Haan and Nilsson finding above: self-reported gains tend to run larger than observed ones, so stakeholder ratings give you the more credible number. Where it makes sense, connect behavior change to indicators you already track, such as retention on the leader's team, engagement scores, or promotion readiness.
Give it enough time. For organizations, I ask for at least six months, because real behavioral change doesn't happen in a few sessions.
Look beyond one-on-one coaching
When the same pattern shows up across a leadership team, one-on-one coaching may not be the most efficient answer. Group coaching, workshops, and strategic planning sessions can build shared language and change team-wide habits at a lower cost per leader.
Questions HR should ask a prospective coach
What will I hear from you during the engagement, and what stays confidential?
How will you measure progress, and what will the final report include?
What experience do you have with leaders at this level and in our industry?
What happens if you see signs of a mental health concern?
Can you offer group coaching or workshops if we want to scale this?
"If you are looking for clarity, a way to reframe an obstacle, and a path forward, I highly recommend Michele." — Alma Robles Apodaca, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, sHRBP
What an engagement looks like in practice
Here's a composite example, drawn from common patterns rather than any single client.
The new VP who couldn't let go. A director at a mid-sized tech company is promoted to VP of Operations. She was the best problem-solver on the team, and she still is. That's the problem. She rewrites her managers' work at midnight, joins every escalation, and wonders why her team seems disengaged. Her CEO says she isn't "operating at the VP level" yet.
Clarity session. We discover that she isn't a control freak. Early in her career, a public mistake by her team cost her a promotion, and she promised herself it would never happen again. Her over-involvement is a protective habit.
Stakeholder input. Interviews with her CEO, two peers, and four direct reports all point to the same two behaviors: jumping in too fast and not letting her managers own decisions.
The work. We pick one goal: delegate decisions, not just tasks. She practices asking "What do you recommend?" before giving her own view and agrees on clear check-in points instead of constant monitoring. In sessions, we work on the anxiety that rises when she steps back.
The result. At the halfway mark and the end of an engagement, there is a mini-survey, her direct reports rate her noticeably more empowering, and two managers are running projects she used to run herself. She's leaving the office before 7 p.m. for the first time in years.
No new skill was taught. She already knew how to delegate. What changed was the behavior and the belief driving it.
Ready to find out if coaching is right for you and your organization?
If your team can't communicate, you have a brilliant-yet-impossible executive, people keep leaving, or your career feels stuck, those are the challenges I solve. And if coaching isn't what you need, I'll tell you straight.
If you're in HR or talent development, I'm glad to talk through a specific leader or a broader leadership program. Organizational engagements run at least six months and can combine one-on-one coaching, group coaching, workshops, and strategic planning.
Book a free 30-minute consultation. It's an honest conversation about what's going on and whether I'm the right fit. No pitch, no pressure. You can also call me at (818) 621-9129.
You can also explore my executive coaching programs, coaching for women in leadership, and The Founders Collective, a mastermind for founders limited to 10 members.
Change the behaviors. Change your business.
About the author. Dr. Michele D'Amico, PsyD, CPC, CELC, is a clinical psychologist and executive coach in Los Angeles and the founder of Vetta Leadership. She holds a Marshall Goldsmith certification and has coached leaders at Disney, Uber, and Salesforce, as well as dozens of small and mid-sized businesses. Her work has been featured in Inc., Forbes, and on KTLA.
References and further reading
Berglas, S. (2002, June). The very real dangers of executive coaching. Harvard Business Review.
de Haan, E., & Nilsson, V. O. (2023). What can we know about the effectiveness of coaching? A meta-analysis based only on randomized controlled trials. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 22(4).
Goldsmith, M. Steps in the coaching process: Coaching for behavioral change. Library of Professional Coaching.
Google re:Work. (2015). Understand team effectiveness (Project Aristotle).
Grant, A. M., Curtayne, L., & Burton, G. (2009). Executive coaching enhances goal attainment, resilience and workplace well-being: A randomised controlled study. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4(5), 396–407.
International Coaching Federation. About ICF (definition of coaching).
International Coaching Federation. (2025, September 16). Coaching industry continues global growth with $5.34 billion USD revenue (2025 ICF Global Coaching Study).
International Coaching Federation. Let's talk about mental health and mental illness.
Jones, R. J., Woods, S. A., & Guillaume, Y. R. F. (2016). The effectiveness of workplace coaching: A meta-analysis of learning and performance outcomes from coaching. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 89(2), 249–277.
Kilburg, R. R. (1996). Executive coaching as an emerging competency in the practice of consultation. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 48(2), 59–60.
Lashinsky, A. (2009). Best advice I ever got: Eric Schmidt. Fortune.
Nicolau, A., Candel, O. S., Constantin, T., & Kleingeld, A. (2023). The effects of executive coaching on behaviors, attitudes, and personal characteristics: A meta-analysis of randomized control trial studies. Frontiers in Psychology, 14.
Psychology Today. Coaching: Essentials.
Schmidt, E., Rosenberg, J., & Eagle, A. (2019). Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell. Harper Business.
Theeboom, T., Beersma, B., & van Vianen, A. E. M. (2014). Does coaching work? A meta-analysis on the effects of coaching on individual level outcomes in an organizational context. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 9(1), 1–18.