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Coaching is one of those domains that feels right, but is rarely measured — which is why I was so curious about the work Asia Jarosz is doing with the Alliance for Coaching Effectiveness. The Alliance conducts qualitative and quantitative research to understand the mechanics of what makes coaching effective in order to improve outcomes in the workplace.
Since meeting Asia, I’ve enjoyed digging into her research, including her 2023 paper “The Cube of Coaching Effectiveness.” But what I've really appreciated was her positive, outgoing nature and her genuine appreciation of everyone she meets. Until you have the chance to meet her in person, here’s Asia in her own words.
Integrating Coaching and Learning
I’ve been conducting research in the field of coaching for nearly a decade. My education is in social science, and I’m fascinated with why people behave the way they do. I’ve always believed in the value of coaching for professional and personal development, so I decided to connect the dots and explore how coaching shapes learning habits and interpersonal interactions.
What makes your research compelling?
The ability to verify and apply theoretical research in an organizational, practical setting has always been paramount to me. This is more to me than just learning how to be a good coach. I’m interested in the broader organizational impact when coaching becomes part of the culture, particularly when a coaching mindset is adopted by people leaders. When coaching capabilities exist, they enhance learning, well-being and the overall performance of teams and individuals.
What’s one important coaching trend that has caught your attention lately?
Coaching is becoming increasingly specialized in areas such as career coaching, diversity and inclusion coaching, wellness coaching, and even productivity coaching. Leadership coaching is being approached with a narrower focus on areas such as frontline managers, leaders of leaders and executive coaching. The key for coaches is to develop in-depth capabilities to guide these more specialized conversations and self-discovery.
How do you see organizations leveraging group coaching?
I’m seeing a greater integration of learning and coaching. Many firms are kicking off coaching cohorts with micro-learning to accelerate group dialogue and discovery using shared language. Coaching is now seen as a core organizational learning strategy, not just an individual intervention to correct lagging performance. As a scientist, my observation is people appreciate learning in small cohorts as an effective approach to growing talent. Group coaching fosters trust and open communications, and a sharing of diverse perspectives — essential for creating an inclusive culture and a sense of belonging.
When Coaching Becomes Part of the Culture
How do you describe a coaching culture?
I think of culture as accepted behaviors and norms that happen frequently, broadly and organically across an organization. In cultures that value coaching, the ability to coach is viewed as a desired skill set and embraced as an important tool to motivate and grow talent. An effective coaching culture is grounded in emotional intelligence as well as growth mindset, recognizing the need to take risks, experiment and celebrate incremental progress.
When a coaching culture is alive and well, what behaviors should we expect?
I love this question because it really speaks directly to employee experience. It means putting your organizational values into action, particularly people leaders.
Let’s start with intent: it’s all about having supportive relationships and learning how to put another person at the center. The conversations are meaningful to them, and the focus is on what matters to them, not you. The goal is to enable others to feel connected to the organization and help them discover how they can add value. When a coaching culture exists, here are three categories of behaviors that often emerge:
Perspective Taking
This is all about seeking to understand someone else’s point of view. It means asking questions, slowing down, not rushing to judgment, and inviting alternative ideas beyond your own. This also has the added benefit of mitigating our natural biases that can distort our decision making.
Shared Learning
Colleagues actively seek out the experiences of others, both successes and failures. They are willing to admit mistakes, want to learn from them and leverage those learnings to help others.
This leads to increased experimentation and a willingness to test new ideas.
Broad Collaboration
There’s a greater sense of proactive support — offering to help, to share, to solve problems together. Work becomes more pro-social in nature with the desire to tap into other’s individual capabilities and strengths and not be constrained by organizational structures.
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How are great people leaders described in organizations that foster a coaching mindset?
- They listen more. They do not rely on being directive, and their default approach is to engage in dialogue.
- They create psychological safety by sharing their own mistakes and encouraging their team to do the same.
- They build trust by consistently soliciting input and including others in decision making where possible.
- They thank people publicly and reward people who are adaptive and continually learn.
- They ask powerful questions.
What do you mean by “powerful questions”?
These are questions that come from true curiosity — about a person, a situation, a possible solution. They are open-ended and are not leading to a pre-conceived conclusion. They are not questions focused simply on business outcomes, but they help the individual connect their actions to organizational impact. The response to a powerful question is often a pause, as the answer requires reflection. They sound like “How might you support achieving this goal for our team?” “What might be a better approach to integrating your expertise into our project plans?” In both these examples, the individual needs to pause, reflect and make the connection between themselves and the team.
One last question: what does the research tell us about the impact of coaching on organizational performance?
When a coaching mindset is embedded in the culture, good things happen. Engagement, well-being and goal achievement all go up. People also report a much lower intention to leave. But the metric most business leaders care about the most is performance. Individual, team and organizational performance all increase when coaching skills are present.
A recent study conducted by Fernández-Llano in Barcelona measured the influence of coaching on leadership effectiveness as well as the learning and growth of the leader, including their ability to motivate and engage their employees. He found that effective coaching increased:
- Internal process effectiveness by 37%
- Learning and growth of the leader by 76%
- Customer satisfaction by 5%
When people are free to learn, grow and experience an atmosphere of coaching, their overall sense of belonging flourishes. One last thought … group coaching is gaining a lot of traction. Companies are launching group coaching cohorts of 6-8 people, focused on a single topic, and grounded in micro-learning to create shared understanding. It’s a highly flexible way to drive behavior change at scale and foster a deeper sense of connection with employees. Here’s a link to my blog if anyone would like to read more!
