What Stanford's Hoover Institution Found Out About CEO Coaching
A new CEO coaching survey out of Hoover Institution @ Stanford. The headline: 58% of CEOs now use a professional coach — up from 34% a decade ago. Here are the takeaways worth knowing.
I love data — especially when the data illuminates fuzzy domains like 1-on-1 coaching for successful leaders and other high performers.
There’s a fascinating CEO coaching survey out of Hoover Institution @ Stanford.
High-level takeaways
- More than half of CEOs (58%) use a professional coach to discuss business, leadership, and self-development — up from one-third (34%) a decade ago. “The rise of professional coaching over the past decade is astounding.”
- 85% of CEOs said the primary profession of their coach was a professional/leadership coach (not a consultant, but a full-time coach).
- 73% said coaching was primarily their idea.
- Primary topics included personal development and growth, personal productivity, leadership issues, team development, dealing with difficult team members, organizational structure, and strategic issues.
- 48% said their coach solicited feedback from their board to include in the development plan.
- 69% said they referred their coach to another CEO. 71% referred them to their direct reports.
- Satisfaction: 21% were “extremely satisfied” with the advice they received, 48% were “very satisfied,” and 24% were “moderately satisfied.” 5% were not satisfied.
(I wish there were another question about insights attained during powerful coaching conversations — because good coaches do more than give advice. Anyway…)
If you’re considering a coach
I have a huge network of coaches across several specialties and industries. Reach out for a no-pressure discovery call — and if we’re not a match, I’ll do some matchmaking based on your needs.
