On What Criteria Are Coach and Executive Matched in Executive Coaching?
When an organisation sets up an executive coaching programme, the topics discussed most are scope, duration and budget. How many executives will take part, how many sessions will be held and on what timeline the process will conclude are all clarified. Each of these decisions is necessary. Yet the decision that determines the outcome of the programme usually falls outside these headings: which coach the executive will work with.
Moving quickly through this step usually reflects not indifference on the organisation's part but the fact that its technical dimension is not visible. Scope and duration are discussed internally, while who the coach will be is positioned as a detail left to the provider.
Matching is the least visible step in the programme. In most organisations it passes in a single sentence: a suitable coach is assigned. Executive coaching, however, advances through a working relationship established between two people. The quality of that relationship affects the result directly, regardless of the programme's scope or length. Where the match is poorly made, the executive attends the sessions, the schedule runs, reports are produced, yet no observable change in behaviour emerges. The programme appears complete while its return remains limited.
Matching carries this weight because executive coaching rests on enquiry rather than on the transfer of knowledge. Unless the executive sets out their own decision making style, the relationship they have with their team and the areas they find difficult, the process stays on the surface. Whether that openness is established is decided in the first sessions, and it depends largely on the person sitting opposite.
There is an understandable reason why organisations move quickly through this step. Matching produces no measurable output and appears difficult to compare. Discussions of scope and duration rest on concrete figures, whereas the choice of coach is assumed to offer nothing beyond a curriculum vitae to evaluate. In fact this is a decision that can be handled against defined criteria, most of which are drawn from the objective of the programme itself.
In this article we examine the effect of the matching decision on programme outcomes, the criteria applied in the selection and where the organisation stands in relation to that decision.
How the Match Determines the Outcome
In executive coaching programmes, the first two or three sessions set the character of everything that follows. In those sessions the executive reaches a conclusion about what the work means for them. On the positive side of that conclusion, they begin bringing subjects of their own choosing to the agenda. On the negative side, the sessions become the discharge of an obligation the organisation expects of them. The difference between the two has less to do with the coach's competence than with how the relationship is established at the outset.
That threshold is visibly higher among senior executives. Chief executives and C level managers speak with a great many people during the day, yet the number of people with whom they can share an area of difficulty is limited. They hold one position towards the board and another towards their team. For executive coaching to serve a purpose at this level, it has to open a space that no relationship inside the organisation provides. Where no conviction forms that the person opposite can hold that space, the sessions turn into general conversations about management.
Another point shows the weight matching carries: what the programme means for the executive. Executive coaching is a block of time an executive with a full agenda sets aside on a regular basis. Once that time becomes the easiest appointment in the organisation to postpone, the programme has effectively stopped. Sessions hold their place in the diary only when the executive sees a return from them, and the first sign of that return usually appears in the earliest sessions: seeing a subject already on their mind from an angle they had not reached before. That single experience is what protects the schedule in the months that follow.
Where a programme covers several executives, matching also becomes a question of capacity. In engagements running concurrently within the same organisation, having one coach work with several executives looks practical at first. A coach working with executives inside the same structure, however, soon comes to hold the organisation's internal dynamics, and the confidentiality boundary becomes harder to maintain. Proceeding with different coaches for executives on the same reporting line is therefore established practice.
The consequences of a poor match are usually noticed late. The executive completes the programme and offers nothing negative in the satisfaction review, yet the organisation observes none of the behavioural change it expected. At this point the programme itself is questioned and the conclusion is drawn that executive coaching produces no return for the organisation. The difficulty lies not in the method but in the first decision of the process. We addressed how the organisational outcomes of a programme are tracked in our article How Are the Organisational Outcomes of Executive Coaching Measured?; matching is the first step that feeds that measurement. For this reason matching is treated not as an administrative detail of the programme but as its first technical decision.
Executive Coaching: The Criteria Applied in the Selection
The first subject raised in matching is usually sector experience. The coach is expected to know the sector in which the executive works. That expectation does not hold in every case, and two situations need to be separated.
Sector knowledge is useful where the agenda carries a high technical load. For an executive working in a regulated field, one whose decision speed is governed by the workings of production, or one operating within a stakeholder structure specific to the sector, having to explain the context afresh in every session wastes time. Where the agenda concentrates instead on delegation, conflict within the team, decision making style or the relationship with the board, sector knowledge ceases to be decisive. In these areas a coach who knows the sector too well may complete the executive's account too early and weaken the enquiry. What matters is that the coach knows the level, not the sector.
Alignment of level is the criterion with the least room for flexibility. Work with an executive at chief executive level requires familiarity with the weight of decision making, the isolation that comes with it and the nature of the relationship with the board. That familiarity is built not through theoretical knowledge but through having held comparable responsibility or having worked at that level over a long period. The long standing management experience of our consultant team is therefore not a preference but a precondition of the work.
The third criterion is the fit between the coach's approach and the executive's agenda. Some engagements proceed within a defined framework and measurement structure, others through more open ended enquiry. An agenda aimed at a concrete behavioural change in the short term and one concerned with a role transition or the redefinition of leadership identity call for different approaches. This fit is secured by clarifying the executive's agenda sufficiently at the preliminary stage.
The fourth criterion is the chemistry meeting. This means the executive holding a short preliminary conversation with two or three candidate coaches and stating their own preference. The purpose is not to measure liking. It is for the executive to form their own view about whether they can speak openly with the person opposite. Leaving the choice to the executive also settles ownership of the programme: an executive who makes their own selection approaches the work as their own decision rather than as something assigned by the organisation. That difference shows directly in the level of openness in the first sessions.
How the criteria are applied also affects the result. Limiting the number of candidate coaches put to the executive to two or three offers a genuine choice without turning the selection into a comparison exercise. The information shared with the executive about those candidates goes beyond a summary of their background: the levels at which the coach has worked, the types of agenda they have experience of and how their approach is structured are all set out beforehand. Without this, preliminary meetings leave the executive deciding on first impressions alone.
How the coach maintains their own working discipline also enters the assessment. Proceeding with a coach who receives regular supervision, works within a defined ethical framework and has set out their confidentiality practice in writing bears directly on the credibility of the process, particularly at senior level. This heading often goes unasked, yet where the information an executive shares comes to rest is decisive from the first day of the programme.
The fifth criterion is whether the coach has worked with a comparable agenda. The agenda of an executive moving into a new role differs from that of one who has held the same post for years and now has to rebuild the relationship with their team. The first concerns visibility, setting priorities and taking over a new team. The second involves reviewing an established way of working, which takes longer to shift. For executives in family owned organisations, the relationship between ownership and management moves to the centre of the agenda. Prior work with a comparable agenda shortens the time it takes to find direction in the opening months.
Finally, being able to continue with the same coach throughout, and to schedule sessions at reasonable intervals, forms part of the selection. Where a coach with a heavy diary has to spread sessions widely apart, the context has to be re established at the start of each one and continuity weakens. The language in which the work is conducted belongs under the same heading; choosing the language in which the executive expresses themselves most comfortably has a direct bearing on the depth of the enquiry.
Where the Organisation Stands in This Decision
The organisation's role in matching usually settles at one of two extremes. At one end the organisation assigns the coach directly and informs the executive. At the other it withdraws entirely and leaves the selection between the executive and the provider. Both lower the quality of the match. In the first, the executive's ownership is never established; in the second, the organisation's expectations of the programme are not reflected in the selection
at all.
The arrangement that works is one in which the organisation defines the agenda and leaves the preference to the executive. The organisation sets out clearly what need gave rise to the programme and in which area change is expected. The provider identifies candidate coaches suited to that definition. The executive meets them and makes a choice. This three part structure preserves the organisation's expectations and the executive's ownership at the same time.
What makes this structure work is the three way meeting held at the start of the engagement. A representative of the organisation, the executive and the coach come together, and the need that gave rise to the programme, the area in which the organisation expects change and how the executive's own priorities align with that expectation are discussed openly. The objectives agreed at the end of the meeting are set down in writing. The same meeting establishes the boundaries of confidentiality: it is made clear from the outset that the content of sessions will not be shared with the organisation, and that only the functioning of the work and progress against the objectives will be reported. In programmes that begin without this boundary being addressed, the executive carries the possibility that anything they say may reach the organisation, and openness never takes hold.
Another situation arises in practice when the executive already knows one of the proposed coaches personally, from inside the organisation or from the sector. This is not an obstacle in itself, though the nature of the relationship matters. Where there is a current business relationship, shared board membership, or a history in which the coach has held decision making power over the executive's career, the distance that enquiry requires cannot be established. An acquaintance that is distant and professional, on the other hand, usually speeds the work along.
The second point at which the organisation takes part is the review stage after the work has begun. Whether the match has been well made becomes apparent through a short review following the first three sessions. Confidentiality is preserved in that review; the content of the sessions is not shared. What is assessed is how the work is functioning.
The points considered at the review stage fall under the following headings:
• Whether the executive arrives at sessions with subjects of their own choosing
• Whether sessions are held regularly against the schedule, and how often they are postponed
• Whether the executive's expectations of the work have become clearer since the first sessions
• Whether the areas addressed in the sessions overlap with the agenda the organisation defined
• The executive's own view on continuing the work
Recording the match strengthens the organisation's later programmes as well. When the profile of coach engaged for each type of agenda, how the work progressed and the extent of progress against objectives are gathered into a short record, the organisation begins over time to see what form of matching works for its own executives. That accumulation allows selection in second and third programmes to be made more quickly and more accurately.
A negative picture under these headings does not mean the programme should end. When reviewing the match, and changing it where necessary, is defined as a normal part of the process, the cost stays low for both the executive and the organisation. Positioning such a change as a correction rather than a failure is a choice about how the organisation approaches the programme, and it shapes the quality of later matches as well.
Programmes in which the match is well made produce a further result: the executive begins to see the work as a practice belonging to their own development. Executives who carry a similar form of enquiry into the relationship with their team after the programme ends are what allows the approach to spread within the organisation. Whether the effect of executive coaching extends beyond a single person depends largely on that transfer.
Whether executive coaching produces a return for the organisation depends as much on how this first decision is made as on the scope of the programme. A match in which the agenda is clearly defined, alignment of level is observed and the preference is left to the executive establishes the ground that carries the rest of the process.
At E&E Group we have provided executive coaching support to more than 2,000 executives in the work we have carried out since 1992. We design our programmes together with our consultant team's long standing management experience and the assessment work we conduct with Harrison Assessments. To review your executive coaching programmes with us, you can get in touch.
