The Authentic Leadership Qualities of Business Coaches and its Impact on Coaching Performance By Anthony Gatling and William F. Harrah, International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring

Special thanks to Deb Elbaum, MD, CPCC, ACC for translating this article.

Studies about coaching usually focus on the impact of the coaching process on the client. This study differs in its approach. Its primary focus is examining the coach -- namely, the extent to which a business coach believes he or she has authentic leadership (AL). The study also examines coaching effectiveness, namely, how effective the coach perceives the coaching to be.

Authentic leadership is a leadership style that incorporates the following qualities: greater self-awareness, balanced processing of information, an internalized moral perspective, and relationship transparency. To assess AL in their sample of 96 business coaches, Gatling and Harrah used the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire.
Coaching effectiveness is defined as the extent to which a client's personal and professional business goals are achieved through coaching. Coaching effectiveness was measured by asking coaches how long it took for the client to make significant advances toward his or her goals.

The results show that not only does the AL of the coach impact the client's behavior, the coach's AL is important to the client's success. AL was found to be a significant predictor of coaching effectiveness equally for personal and professional goals. Interestingly, of the four qualities comprising AL, only self-awareness was statistically significant in predicting coaching effectiveness.

In light of these results, coaches might wonder how they can expand their own self-awareness. The authors suggest that coaches engage in their own 360-feedback process and spend time in personal self-reflection. This offers the opportunity to better know one's own values, emotional triggers, personality traits, attitudes, and approaches to different coaching interactions.

To maximize the other qualities of AL, the authors suggest that coaches establish a warm and competent first impression; look at their clients' issues from different perspectives; and discuss ethical and values-based decisions with their clients.

As coaches, we all have an opportunity for ongoing personal and professional growth. This study confirms the importance of continuing to do our own internal work, so that our clients may benefit as much as possible.

Director Comment: We all need to heed the call for authenticity and develop ourselves. However, from a research perspective a limitation of this study is that the coaches assessed their own client’s progress. What we need to know is – did other stakeholders also perceive a shift? From a practical perspective, this is inspiring work.