Is Executive Coaching Worth It? How GCC Organisations Measure the Return

Is executive coaching worth it for a leadership team in the GCC? Many people who ask have already met the usual answers. Providers quote returns of several hundred percent, sceptics point the other way, and the sessions themselves tend to receive warm feedback without anyone being able to say what changed in the business.

That gap between enthusiasm and evidence is the real difficulty. It is more noticeable in the region, where senior appointments can be broad in scope and quick in pace, and where a leader who stalls in the first year can be costly in ways that never appear on a spreadsheet.

This guide takes a narrower view. It sets out what independent research says about executive coaching, explains why headline ROI figures deserve caution, and describes how organisations in the Gulf can build measurement that answers the question with their own data rather than someone else's average.

Is executive coaching worth it? What the independent research shows

The evidence points to a cautious yes. The main reviews cover workplace coaching in general, not executives alone, and they report a moderate effect on individual outcomes without establishing any specific financial return. That distinction matters for anyone who has to justify the spend.

A meta-analysis in The Journal of Positive Psychology pooled 18 studies of coaching in organisations. It found significant positive effects on performance and skills, well-being, coping, work attitudes and goal-directed self-regulation, with effect sizes running from 0.43 for coping to 0.74 for self-regulation. A later meta-analysis in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology looked only at coaching delivered by internal or external coaches in workplaces. It reported an overall effect of 0.36 on organisational outcomes, which is small to moderate by conventional benchmarks. It also found that effects differed by coach type, being stronger for internal coaches than for external ones, but not by delivery format or the number of sessions. Neither review is limited to executives, so both describe workplace coaching in general.

A small field study points in the same direction. A study in Public Personnel Management followed 31 managers in a municipal agency in the United States. A conventional training programme raised productivity by 22.4 percent. The same managers then received eight weeks of one-to-one executive coaching, and the study reports an 88.0 percent gain, a significantly larger result than training alone. Because training came first and coaching second, the coaching gain may partly reflect the earlier training. It was also a single agency with a small group, and the study dates from 1997, so it is illustrative and not a rate that another organisation should expect.

Taken together, this research describes workplace coaching in general and applies to senior leaders only by extension. The field study was run in one American agency, and the meta-analyses pool studies from many settings, so none of them can state the return a specific Gulf organisation will see. That figure has to come from the organisation's own measurement.

Why should headline ROI figures be treated with caution?

Because a coaching ROI figure is only as reliable as the method behind it. Figures built on benefits that participants estimate for themselves, or drawn from small groups, describe what those participants believed they gained and not what a typical engagement delivers. A figure of several hundred percent may be accurate for the case it came from and still be a poor planning assumption.

The deeper issue is attribution. An executive who joins a new team, inherits a stronger market or gains a more supportive chair may improve for reasons unrelated to coaching. The ROI Methodology from the ROI Institute treats isolating a programme's effect from other influences as a required step, and its published standards advise choosing the more conservative option whenever an estimate is uncertain. A headline figure that does not explain how it isolated the effect should be read with that in mind.

Regional statistics add a further problem. Surveys from North America or Europe can carry assumptions about salaries, replacement costs and labour markets that may not transfer to the Gulf. And any regional figure quoted without a traceable original source should be treated as unverified until the underlying study can be found.

What does a return look like in a GCC organisation?

In many cases it appears as faster effectiveness in a new role, retained senior talent, sounder decisions and stronger working relationships across stakeholders, not as a direct line in the accounts. These are the outcomes a sponsor is likely to look for.

Several features of the regional context shape what is worth measuring. Where organisations are government-linked, family-owned or part of larger regional groups, executives often answer to several stakeholders at once and decisions move through relationships as well as reporting lines. National development agendas reflect a wider emphasis on national talent: Saudi Arabia's Human Capability Development Program, a Vision 2030 realisation programme launched in 2021, aims to build citizens' capabilities. Where employers are developing national leaders, the quality of leadership transitions can become a practical concern. Regional headquarters of multinational companies can add another layer, because teams may be multicultural and the executive may need to translate between a global centre and local expectations.

Because these pressures cluster around transitions, the measurable questions tend to be specific. How quickly did the executive build credibility with the board and peers? Did team engagement hold through the change? Were the first-year priorities delivered? Coaching designed for this window, such as C-suite transition coaching, gives a natural before-and-after comparison, since the start date and the goals are clear.

How do you set a baseline before coaching starts?

Agree two or three specific outcomes between the sponsor, the executive and the coach, then record where each one stands before the first session. Without a starting point, later improvement becomes a matter of opinion. The baseline does not have to be elaborate, but it does have to exist and be written down.

Three sources usually cover it. The first is business or team data linked to the goal, such as engagement scores, attrition in the executive's team, delivery against milestones or the time decisions take to move through the organisation. The second is multi-rater feedback, where colleagues rate observable behaviours, which can be repeated after nine to twelve months to see whether others have noticed a change. The third is structured self-awareness data. Psychometric assessments, such as the Hogan assessments and the EQ-i 2.0, describe strengths, risks and development priorities in a consistent format, which gives the coaching conversation a reference point and the later review something to compare against.

The reporting arrangement deserves equal attention. An executive needs confidentiality to speak candidly, and a sponsor needs enough information to judge progress. A workable arrangement is that the coach reports progress against the agreed goals and attendance, while the content of sessions stays private. In organisations where trust and personal standing carry weight, settling this in writing before the first session prevents misunderstanding later.

Which measures show whether coaching is working?

Observable behaviour change reported by colleagues is a more reliable early signal than satisfaction scores, and movement in the business measure tied to the goal confirms it. Satisfaction scores alone say little, because a pleasant series of sessions does not guarantee that anything changed in the executive's day-to-day work.

The five levels used in the ROI Methodology offer a practical structure: reaction, learning, application, impact and ROI. Adapted to coaching, they look like this.

• Reaction. The question to ask is whether the executive found the work relevant and credible. Example evidence is a short check-in after the first sessions.
• Learning. The question to ask is what the executive now understands or does differently. Example evidence is self-assessment and coach observations against goals.
• Application. The question to ask is whether others can see the new behaviours. Example evidence is repeat multi-rater feedback and sponsor and peer conversations.
• Impact. The question to ask is whether the target business measure moved. Example evidence is engagement, retention, milestones and stakeholder feedback.
• ROI. The question to ask is whether the monetised benefits exceed the full cost. The evidence is the calculation described below.

Calculating a full ROI takes effort, so it is reasonable to reserve the fifth level for larger or more strategic engagements and track the first four for the rest.

How long does it take to see a return?

As a planning assumption, behaviour change can start to show within a few months, while business measures such as engagement or retention tend to take longer to register. A review plan should reflect both timelines instead of judging everything at one point.

The field study above reported its gains after an eight-week coaching phase, but executive roles tend to move more slowly. A decision taken in month two may take several quarters to show in team results. A workable plan sets interim markers, such as stakeholder feedback at three months and a repeated multi-rater review at nine to twelve, and keeps the impact and ROI judgement for around the one-year point. Reviewing too early understates the effect, and reviewing too late lets other changes in the organisation blur it. Where an engagement is tied to a transition, the first-year calendar often supplies natural checkpoints, such as the first board cycle, the first budget round and the first full performance review.

How do you calculate the return without overstating it?

Isolate how much of the improvement coaching caused, convert that improvement into a money value, total the full cost, and compare the two. At each uncertain step, choose the conservative estimate. The result may be a smaller number than a brochure suggests, but it is a more defensible one.

Isolation can use a comparison group, trend analysis or estimates from the executive, the sponsor and the executive's team about how much of the change they attribute to coaching. Conversion to money should use values the organisation already accepts, such as the cost of replacing a senior leader or the value of output from a team. Fully loaded cost includes coach fees, assessments, the executive's time and any internal coordination. Benefits that cannot be credibly converted, such as improved trust with a board, are reported separately as intangibles and not forced into the calculation. ROI as a percentage is net benefits divided by costs, multiplied by 100.

A short example shows how the adjustments work. The figures are hypothetical. Suppose a programme costs 200,000 in total, and twelve months later a regional team's output has improved by a value of 500,000. The executive, sponsor and team agree that 60 percent of the gain is due to coaching, and they are 80 percent confident in that estimate. The adjusted benefit is 500,000 multiplied by 0.6 and then by 0.8, which equals 240,000. The net benefit is 40,000, so ROI is 20 percent. That is a modest figure, but it is one a finance director can examine and accept.

When is executive coaching not worth it?

It is usually not worth it when the goal is vague, the executive is not choosing to take part, or the problem sits in the organisation instead of in one person's behaviour. In those cases the sessions may be pleasant and the measures will not move. Asking is executive coaching worth it in general is less useful than asking whether this goal, for this executive, in this organisation, justifies the investment.

Five patterns recur.

• Unclear goals. Without a defined outcome, coaching becomes an interesting conversation with nothing to review.
• Coaching used as a remedy or a quiet signal. When colleagues read an appointment as a warning, candour drops and so does the chance of change.
• Structural problems. A coach can help a leader work within unclear governance, conflicting incentives or an overloaded structure, but cannot repair those conditions.
• An absent sponsor. If nobody reviews progress against the goals, the work loses its connection to the organisation's priorities.
• A poor match. Accreditation, such as ICF credentials, signals training and experience but not fit. The executive needs to trust the coach, and the coach needs to understand the regional and organisational setting well enough to ask useful questions. A preliminary conversation can show whether that is likely.

So, is executive coaching worth it for your organisation?

It is worth it when the goal is specific, the executive is willing, a sponsor stays involved and the organisation measures the result honestly. Under those conditions the research supports a moderate positive effect, and the organisation's own data can show whether the cost was justified. Without them, no benchmark makes up for the gap.

Before committing, five questions are worth settling in writing. Is the goal stated as a behaviour or a business measure? Has a baseline been recorded? Who sponsors the work, and when will they review it? What will be reported to the sponsor, and what stays confidential? What will count as success at six and twelve months, and what happens if it is not reached?

Organisations that can answer those questions are in a position to judge the return from their own evidence, which is a firmer basis than an average drawn from another market or another decade.