Let’s Talk Coaching: What Is the Real Impact?

What is the real impact of coaching and why is it still so difficult to prove?

This was the focus of a recent Taylor Clarke “Let’s Talk Coaching” session, hosted by Sam Robertson, Coaching Practice Lead, and Alasdair Ireland, Head of Coaching Data and Platforms. The session brought together coaching practitioners and organisational leaders to explore a challenge that continues to sit at the heart of the industry.

Despite coaching being a rapidly growing sector—estimated to be growing at around 4–6% annually, with some areas such as digital coaching growing even faster—there remains a fundamental issue. As discussed at the start of the session, many people still don’t fully understand what coaching is, let alone how to clearly measure its value.

This creates a tension. Coaching is widely invested in and often forms a significant part of leadership development strategies, yet organisations still struggle to clearly articulate what they are getting back from that investment.

The Challenge: Coaching Works, But Can We Prove It?

A central theme throughout the session was this disconnect between belief and evidence.

Most organisations believe coaching works. Leaders see it making a difference. Participants describe meaningful experiences. But when it comes to demonstrating impact in a structured, credible way—particularly at an organisational level—it becomes much harder.

Part of the challenge lies in the nature of coaching itself.

Coaching does not typically produce immediate, linear outcomes. Instead, it works through:

• Shifts in thinking

• New perspectives

• Increased self-awareness

• Gradual behavioural change

These shifts are often subtle at first, but powerful over time. They are also deeply personal and context-dependent, which makes them harder to capture using traditional measurement approaches.

Where Coaching Impact Really Happens

The discussion highlighted that coaching creates a unique space within organisations—one where individuals can pause, reflect, and think differently.

In this space, people are able to:

• Work through complex or challenging situations

• Explore how they think, act, and respond

• Test new ways of approaching conversations and decisions

It is often in these moments- quiet, reflective, and sometimes difficult- that the most meaningful change begins. The conversations are confidential and the change often begins with mindset or attitude shifts.

However, these moments are also the least visible.

Without a way of capturing what is happening within coaching conversations, much of this impact remains hidden.

From Anecdote to Insight: A Shift in Approach

A key shift explored during the session was moving away from relying solely on anecdotal evidence.

Historically, organisations have often measured coaching through:

• End-of-programme feedback

• Satisfaction scores

• Individual success stories

While valuable, these approaches only provide a partial view.

The conversation moved towards a more robust question: How can we build a continuous, evidence-based understanding of coaching impact?

The Role of Data and Platforms in Measuring Coaching Impact

This is where the role of coaching data and platforms such as Hoolr comes into focus.

As part of the session, Alasdair Ireland shared how Taylor Clarke uses the Hoolr coaching platform to capture insight across coaching engagements. Rather than treating evaluation as a one-off activity at the end of a programme, the focus is on embedding it throughout the coaching journey.

This includes:

• Capturing reflections from both coaches and coachees after sessions

• Tracking changes in confidence and progress against goals

• Gathering qualitative insight alongside structured quantitative data

• Building a continuous picture of development over time

This approach enables organisations to move beyond isolated stories and begin to identify patterns, trends, and measurable shifts.

Importantly, data is not used to replace the human feedback element of coaching but to make that human impact more visible and understandable.

How to Understand Coaching Impact at Multiple Levels

Another key insight from the session was that coaching impact operates across multiple levels.

At an individual level, coaching can lead to:

• Increased confidence

• Clearer thinking and decision-making

• Greater self-awareness

At a relational level, it can influence:

• Communication and collaboration

• Handling of difficult conversations

• Team dynamics

At an organisational level, these changes contribute to:

• Stronger leadership capability

• Greater adaptability during change

• Improved culture and engagement

The challenge and opportunity is connecting these levels in a way that is meaningful and evidence-based.

Reframing the Question

One of the most powerful shifts in the session was moving away from asking:

“Does coaching work?”

…towards:

“How is coaching creating impact in this context—and how can we evidence it over time?”

This reframing allows organisations to:

• Understand why coaching is effective

• Improve how programmes are designed and delivered

• Make more confident, data-informed investment decisions

With the support of platforms like Hoolr, organisations are increasingly able to answer this question with clarity.

Final Reflections: Making the Invisible Visible

Sam ended the session reinforcing some simple but important truth:

Coaching has impact—but that impact is often complex, gradual, and deeply human.

• To truly understand it, organisations need to move beyond one-off evaluation and towards a more continuous, insight-driven approach at a micro rather than broad macro level.

• By combining reflective practice with structured data, it becomes possible to make the invisible visible, capturing not just that coaching works, but how it creates meaningful change and provides rich organizational insights that would otherwise not have been seen.

•  As the coaching industry continues to grow, the ability to clearly evidence impact will become increasingly important. Not to justify investment, but to improve the quality, focus, and effectiveness of the coaching and the other people development strategies across the organisation.