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What Is the Active Ingredients Equation for Success in Executive Coaching?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2015

D. Douglas McKenna  and
Sandra L. Davis
D. Douglas McKenna*
Affiliation:
The Oceanside Institute
Sandra L. Davis
Affiliation:
MDA Leadership Consulting, Inc.
*
E-mail: [email protected], Address: The Oceanside Institute, 3866 Oceanside Ave., Greenbank, WA 98253.
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Abstract

In this response, we address commentator concerns about the generalizability of the active ingredients of psychotherapy to the science and practice of executive coaching. We discuss four ingredient that may make a difference: (a) client characteristics, (b) goals or success criteria, (c) role of the organization, and (d) contextual knowledge of the executive coach. We explore how each of these differences is likely to affect the weighting of the four active ingredients in the equation for predicting executive coaching outcomes. From this analysis, we re-affirm our hypotheses that the active ingredients are generalizable to coaching and hold promise for strengthening research and practice. We conclude by highlighting the efforts of several commentators to extend and deepen our hypotheses to other areas of leadership development.

Type
Response
Information
Industrial and Organizational Psychology , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , September 2009 , pp. 297 - 304
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology 2009 

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Footnotes

*

MDA Leadership Consulting Inc., Minneapolis, MN.

Order of authorship is arbitrary; both authors contributed equally to this article.

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