What Does an Executive
Coaching Intervention Add
Beyond Facilitated Multisource
Feedback? Effects on Leader
Self-Ratings and Perceived
Effectiveness
Levi R. G. Nieminen, Ryan Smerek, Lindsey Kotrba,
Daniel Denison
Multisource ratings and feedback are now central components of many
leader development programs. Research evaluating the outcomes of
multisource feedback (MSF) underscores the importance of facilitation
strategies that help leaders to interpret and use their feedback throughout the
development process. Scholars and practitioners have recommended
executive coaching as one such facilitation strategy. However, there is little
empirical basis to substantiate the benefits of executive coaching beyond
other less costly strategies, most notably feedback workshops with groups of
leaders. This quasi-experiment followed 469 managers from a large
government agency participating in a 15-month leader development
program. Changes over time in MSF ratings of leadership behaviors and
effectiveness were compared for two groups of leaders. The first group of
uncoached managers participated in a feedback workshop shortly after the
premeasure MSF, and the second group participated in the feedback
workshop plus several sessions with an executive coach thereafter. Results
indicated that managers in both groups improved similarly as rated by direct
reports, peers, and supervisors, whereas only those managers who received
the executive coaching improved according to self-ratings. Specifically, the
executive coaching intervention had a unique positive effect on managers’
HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY, vol. 24, no. 2, Summer 2013 © Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.21152 145
The authors wish to acknowledge Nathalie Castaño and Ashley Guidroz for their contributions
to an earlier version of this manuscript.