A Retrospective Look at Coaching with Compassion: Two Decades of Research and Practice

Abstract

The practice of coaching has grown dramatically over the last 30 years, though research on its effectiveness still lags behind. In 2003, a series of discussions led us to explore an approach to coaching grounded in intentional change theory (ICT). We introduced “coaching with compassion” in a 2006 article focused on stress and renewal in leaders, followed by a 2013 theoretical framing in JABS highlighting the benefits of coaching to the positive emotional attractor within ICT. This current article reflects on progress in research on coaching effectiveness—defined as sustained, desired change—and related processes since the 2013 publication. We review findings on the psycho-physiological aspects of effective coaching for both coach and client. As some discoveries challenge prevailing practices, we also explore key implications for future research and coaching approaches.

In June of 2013, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science published our article Coaching with Compassion: Inspiring Health, Well-Being and Development in Organizations (Boyatzis et al., 2013a). In the decade prior to the appearance of that article, Ruth Ornstein's Executive Coaching: It's Not Just About the Executive (Orenstein, 2002), which appeared in the September 2002 issue, was the only article focused on coaching to appear in the journal. Since the time of the publishing of our Coaching with Compassion article, however, articles on coaching now appear in JABS with much greater regularity, including a special issue of JABS on coaching which we co-edited with Ellen Van Oosten in 2014. In fact, JABS is the journal with the highest impact factor of those that regularly publish articles on coaching.

We offer this retrospective look at how coaching with compassion (CWC) has evolved since the publication of our 2013 piece. There are several major aims that we had as we set out to do this work, as well as important ways in which we have intended to distinguish our work (including the 2013 article) from other work in this space. First, we wanted to focus on what we characterized as truly effective coaching, defined in our view as coaching that results in sustained, desired change in the individual being coached. Second, we wanted to articulate critical aspects of this approach to coaching (i.e., focusing on dreams not just goals, and facilitating the positive emotional attractor [PEA] more than the negative emotional attractor [NEA]) that extended, and in some ways were even counter to much of the current practice in the coaching world. Third, we wanted to introduce an approach to coaching grounded in a well-established theory of change (intentional change theory [ICT]), as well as sharing critical emotional and psycho-physiological factors that influence the change process. And finally, it was our aim to examine and discuss the effects of this approach to coaching on both the coach and the person being coached.

In this article, we start by discussing the genesis of the CWC concept, including a brief review of our initial publication on the topic. Next, we recap the central thesis of our 2013 JABS article. We then discuss new research and lines of inquiry that have emerged in the last decade related to our theoretical framing. We conclude with thoughts on where we might go from here relative to this topic.

Genesis of the Coaching With Compassion Concept

The idea for the concept of CWC originally emerged from a series of discussions within a coaching study group in our department of organizational behavior. It is a practice within our department to periodically organize “study groups” comprised of faculty, doctoral students and our executive coaches interested in research to discuss emerging research topics of interest. The groups meet monthly and subsets of individuals from the groups often pursue the publication of research ideas that emerge from and/or gain traction from the group discussions.

In 2003, reviewing our experience in training coaches for the prior 14 years in working with our graduate students and executives, the group was discussing how the rapid growth of the coaching industry had significantly outpaced the research. We discussed the fact that we were well positioned to contribute to the research in this growing field given that we were one of the few places in the world where we had a group of researchers interested in the area of coaching who were also involved in the practice of coaching, the integration of coaching into leadership development programs, and the education of professional and internal coaches.

During one of our discussions, we had a shared realization that, while doing all the coaching we were each doing on top of our busy research and teaching activities should have been stressful and draining, it was in fact just the opposite. We felt renewed when we engaged in coaching regardless of other commitments. It was then that we realized that it was because of the way in which we were coaching others.

We realized that we were demonstrating compassion toward others as we coached them on the articulation of and movement toward their dreams and vision of their ideal life. This was reducing stress not just for them, but for us as coaches as well. It was then that we coined the term, CWC. We also began to contrast that approach to coaching with what we saw as the common alternative. That was to coach people toward the reduction of the gap between some individually or organizationally defined objectives and their current level of performance or behavior. We called this approach coaching for compliance (CFC).

The two of us, along with Nancy Blaize, a physician and graduate of one of our Weatherhead MBA programs, began working together to flush out this idea of CWC versus CFC. We included emotional, neurological and hormonal differences experienced when coaching one way versus the other. This led to the publication of our first article on the topic where we introduced and developed the CWC construct as a means of ameliorating the stress of leadership (Boyatzis et al., 2006).

The central thesis of the article was that leaders inherently experience a unique form of stress due to the constant need to exercise influence or power (McClelland, 1985). Unchecked, the physiological impact of this chronic power stress can have a deleterious impact on a leader's ability to sustain themselves and their performance over time. We argued in the paper that coaching others, when done with compassion, should ameliorate the negative physiological and psychological effects of this power stress, thus enhancing a leader's sustainability (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Theoretical model of sustainable leadership and compassion.

The article made two other contributions to the literature on helping and coaching. One was reminding the reader based on prior medical and psychological research that the accumulation of stress becomes chronic stress. Whether the stressful episodes are mild or acute, the chronic stress of most professionals and all managers and leaders leads to various forms of impairment (Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004; Segerstrom & Miller, 2004; Sapolskyi, 2000). A major impairment affecting the client in a coaching relationship is a decrease in openness to other people and emotions, as well as dramatically less cognitive scanning. This means while experiencing chronic stress, a client is relatively closed to the process of development and change central to coaching and unable to envision new or different possibilities.

The second was that arousal of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) is the only antidote to the damages and impairment caused by stress (Insel, 1992). It allows for the client's renewal from the cellular level, to neurogenesis and better immune system functioning, to better cognitive, perceptual and emotional processing (Boyatzis et al., 2021). As part of our main point, we explained how the approach which we called CWC invoked the PNS first in the coach, and then in the client. If the client experienced an arousal of the PNS, then the coach would receive a further boost to their PNS arousal creating a positive feedback loop between the coach and client.

Complexity and Attractors

Meanwhile, growing out of a Case Western Reserve University-wide faculty seminar on complexity theory, Boyatzis joined three others to design and deliver a graduate course on complexity theory in the School of Engineering, Systems Program in the Spring of 2003. ¹ While the earliest version of ICT was created by David Kolb and Boyatzis in the late 1960s (Kolb & Boyatzis, 1970a, 1970b), in teaching his modules in the course, two major gaps in ICT became evident. First, ICT was not just a multi-level, isomorphic theory of change, but actually a fractal (Boyatzis, 2008, 2024). Second, tipping points had to occur and were needed to enable the phases of ICT to progress (Boyatzis, 2008, 2024).

At the time, Boyatzis articulated two emotional attractors as part of ICT. These attractors were the tipping points, or trigger points in helping a person or group move from one phase in sustained, desired change described in ICT to the next (Boyatzis, 2008, 2024). The PEA and NEA are, in complexity theory terms, strange attractors within the person or human collective (i.e., dyads, teams, organizations, communities and countries).

In 2007, as a result of a seminar he delivered to the faculty of the Department of Cognitive Science at CWRU, Boyatzis was approached by Professor Anthony (Tony) Jack. His opposing domains theory of major neural networks affecting analytic and interpersonal processes seemed like a natural overlap with Boyatzis’ notion of PEA and NEA tipping points (Jack et al., 2012). The result was the design and conducting of two fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) studies (Jack et al., 2013, 2023) testing the effect of PEA and NEA coaching. This was built upon both Boyatzis’ ICT and Jack's Opposing Domains theories. An earlier fMRI study of resonant and dissonant leadership styles bolstered the enthusiasm they both felt about the feasibility of this breakthrough (Boyatzis et al., 2012).

Due to the composition of the PEA, arousing or invoking it would create the experience resulting from what we call CWC. Arousing or invoking the NEA with its advantages and disadvantages would create the experience resulting from what we call CFC during any coaching situation. The PEA and NEA are antagonistic states (Boyatzis, 2008, 2024; Boyatzis et al., 2015) consisting of three axes: PNS (renewal) versus SNS (stress) (Boyatzis et al., 2021); positive versus negative affect (Boyatzis, 2008, 2024); and activation of the Default Mode Neural Network (DMN) versus the Task Positive Neural Network (TPN) (Boyatzis, 2008, 2024; Jack et al., 2012). The explanation of how both states are needed during coaching but have quite different effects on how open the client is to the coach, learning and change was explained in Boyatzis and Jack (2018).

Part of the theory predicts that at any level of human endeavor, from coaching-client, helper-client, teams, organizations, etc., the coach or leader is attempting to invoke the PEA in clients or others on a regular rhythm to facilitate openness to new ideas, learning and change. In coaching, it would increase the client's openness to the coach or helper (Boyatzis et al., 2019).

During the period in which this work was being conducted, Anita Howard completed her PhD dissertation on PEA versus NEA coaching using psychological and hormonal measures with accomplished dentists (Howard, 2009, 2015). Then Angela Passarelli completed her PhD dissertation on the predominantly SNS and PNS effects of PEA and NEA coaching sessions on the mid-30s career professionals (Passarelli, 2014, 2015), adding to our understanding.

The 2013 JABS Article

To further develop the concept of CWC, we published a number of academic and practitioner articles on the topic following the 2006 AMLE article (Boyatzis et al., 2010, 2011; Smith et al., 2009, 2012). It wasn’t until over 5 years after that original article was published, however, that we realized that we had never published an article that detailed the effects of leaders CWC on the person being coached and, by extension, the organization for which they work. We had always considered the impact on the person being coached but had essentially treated it as a given. This is what led to the writing and publication of the 2013 JABS article (Boyatzis et al., 2013).

There were a number of things we attempted to accomplish with the article. First, we wanted to further define CWC as an approach to coaching others for their sustained desired change. We also set out to clearly distinguish that approach to coaching from what we argued was a less effective and certainly less sustainable approach to coaching that we labeled as CFC. Whereas CFC generally focuses on coaching an individual to comply with whom they or others feel they ought to be, we offered that CWC focuses on coaching an individual toward their Ideal Self (i.e., personal vision), which represents their core values, dreams, and aspirations for their ideal future (Boyatzis, 2008; Boyatzis & Akrivou, 2006; Boyatzis & Dhar, 2022; Higgins, 1987). This focus on dreams and not just goals was an important distinguishing feature of this approach to coaching as compared to other approaches largely centered around goal attainment.

We chose to call this approach of coaching to the PEA CWC as an easier way to communicate the essence or purpose of it. It represents a label, however, for coaching to the PEA experience and state. Similarly, CFC is really coaching to the NEA, however mild or intense. Based on years of experience and accumulated research data, we believed that CWC was a more effective approach to coaching for sustained, desired change. We had been using it in required courses for our MBAs (i.e., ages 25–35) since 1989. By the time of the publication of the JABS 2013 article, we had completed 39 longitudinal studies of behavior change showing successful development of emotional, social and cognitive intelligence behavior as compared to baseline cohorts, outcomes from other above average MBA programs and training programs in government and industry (Boyatzis & Cavanagh, 2018).

Our second aim of the article was to offer an expanded view of compassion. In the management literature, compassion had widely been defined as (a) noticing another's suffering, (b) showing empathic concern toward the person, and (c) acting in some way to ease the person's suffering (Dutton et al., 2006; Frost et al., 2000; Kanov et al., 2004). We argued, however, that compassion does not necessarily have to be in response to suffering. Instead, we suggested that compassion involves (a) noticing another's need or desire, (b) showing empathic concern for the person, and (c) actively responding to enhance the person's well-being. Philosophically, we adopted a Confucian interpretation of compassion where compassion is more loosely translated as benevolence (Boyatzis et al., 2013; Chan, 2002). We claimed that CWC could be an emotional response to feeling for another in pain or suffering but might also be an emotional response to feeling for a person who wants to grow and change.

In addition, drawing on the work of Ryan and Deci (2001) and Aristotle (Huta, 2017), our conception of compassion recognizes that well-being may be hedonic (i.e., centered on pleasure or the absence of pain) or eudemonic (i.e., centered on self-actualization). Therefore, rather than simply being an approach that helps a person move beyond the negative emotions associated with some painful or distressful event, we offered that CWC more often involves helping a person move toward a dream or aspiration. Aristotle's view of eudemonia was centered on what he termed happiness even more than positive emotion, but with a twist. He believed that this level of happiness was dependent on a person finding a sense of purpose and pursuing it (Hall, 2019). This placed Aristotle's concept of eudemonia at the heart of the PEA with a sense of personal vision, purpose and dream (i.e., the ideal self).

Finally, the third aim of the article was to explore the psycho-physiological aspects of CWC and CFC and offer a series of propositions regarding the impact of each of the approaches to coaching on the person being coached, the coach him or herself, and the organization of the person being coached. Essentially, we argued that CWC is significantly related to greater PEA (i.e., positive than negative emotional arousal and greater PNS than SNS activation) leading to greater physical health, well-being and sustained desired change than alternative approaches to coaching.

We argued that CFC is more likely to have the opposite effect. Even if it involves an attempt to change in ways others wish to change, the effort would be short-lived and not sustained. We also proposed that, due to emotional contagion and the generalized norm of reciprocity, CWC would be related to greater engagement, organizational commitment, organizational citizen behavior, and high-quality connections within the organization for which the coached individual works. A summary of the theoretical model we proposed is found in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Coaching with compassion versus coaching for compliance.

Progress on Coaching With Compassion in the Last 10 Years

While no one has nominated us for a Nobel Prize and our observation is that most of the efforts to motivate learning and change are not usually inspired by compassion nor appealing to a person's PEA, there has been considerable progress on the ideas presented in both research and practice. We will first explore the impact of the specific 2013 JABS article but then expand to examine research and practice inspired by the concept of CWC within ICT over the last 10 years.

Evidence of Impact

As academics who have been researching and writing about coaching and its effects for the past several decades, but also as coaches, coach educators and board members of several of the major global institutions in the coaching industry, we have had considerable opportunity to observe the impact of our work on CWC over the years. This impact can be viewed through a theoretical and research lens as well as through a lens that focuses more on the world of practice.

While the average paper in the perceived “top management journals” determined by journal impact factor (e.g., AMJ, AMR, AMLE, JOM, Org Sci, SMJ) receives fewer than ten citations (Ramani et al., 2022), our 2013 JABS paper, which was certainly not in the mainstream of management literature at the time of its writing, has received nearly 276 Google Scholar citations to date (April 12, 2025). It has been downloaded over 9,000 times since December of 2016 (Sage Journals Metrics and Citations, November 4, 2024). The article has over 20,000 reads and 100 citations on Research Gate (Research Gate, November 4, 2024). It is featured in the JABS Classic Papers collection and, as of January 2025, still appeared on the list of most read JABS articles in the previous 6 months, even though it was published over a decade ago.

The article has 66 Web of Science citations where it is often cited in management and business journals. However, it has also been cited in journals representing the fields of psychology, behavioral sciences, education, neuroscience and sports science (Web of Science Citations, November 4, 2024). Our AMLE article where we originally introduced the concept also has 738 citations from Google Scholar (April 12, 2025).

Direct Validation Studies

The 2013 article offered propositions that CWC would lead to greater engagement, organizational citizenship, high-quality relationships, better health, and greater openness to learning and change than CFC. The two of the four most direct tests of these propositions were two fMRI studies of coaching to the PEA, which we called CWC, versus coaching to the NEA which was one form of CFC (Jack et al., 2013, 2023). In each of these studies, half hour coaching sessions were focused on PEA topics of a person's vision and dream of future life and work versus current challenges or problems they were experiencing.

The PEA coaching sessions activated neural regions which are part of the Default Mode Network, which is engaged when a person is open to new ideas, other people, and scanning the environment as proposed by the 2013 article focusing on the PEA (Boyatzis & Jack, 2018; Jack et al., 2013, 2023). The NEA coaching sessions did not activate those regions, and did activate a few that are more closely related to the Task Positive Network, which is closely linked to activation of the Sympathetic Nervous System and a person cognitive, perceptually and affectively becoming defensive and closing down.

The second study in this sequence (Jack et al., 2023) further examined the effect of multiple PEA coaching sessions. They reported that 2 or 3 PEA half hour sessions on subsequent days had a significant activation of the Ventral Medial Prefrontal Cortex (VMPFC), which is part of the Default Mode Network. It is also a brain area that makes the connection to the PNS and social interactions (Eisenberger & Cole, 2012). Surprisingly, a comparison session of a person writing a vision statement for an hour did not activate the VMPFC! This further suggested that it was the interpersonal conversation characterized by CWC that had the most desired effect.

Two other studies examined coaching to the PEA (CWC) versus coaching to the NEA (CFC) on affect and hormonal systems as proposed in the 2013 article. In these two hormonal studies, coaches created a PEA stimulation by asking the clients in 60- to 90-minute sessions about their “ideal life and work, if everything were perfect, 10–15 years in the future.” Howard's (2015) subjects were 49-year-old dentists and dental professionals, such as periodontists or endodontists. The question about their ideal future invoked positive emotions, while questions about how to remedy deficits in their emotional and social intelligence behavior with others exaggerated negative emotions. In a variation of that design, with professionals in their mid-30s attending a variety of part-time graduate programs, Passarelli (2015) replicated the affective difference Howard found, but also showed that those in the PEA conditions bounced back in terms of physiological measures from initial stress indicators to PNS indicators.

A series of studies with working adults showed significant direct links of more PEA experiences in a given week than NEA to engagement, career satisfaction, sense of well being, resilience, less anxiety and depression and more empathic behavior toward others (Boyatzis et al., 2021). A study of CWC showed significant increases in resilience in graduate students in management in a major European program and dramatic improvements in the clarity and strength of their person vision (Mosteo et al., 2016).

Improving the Quality of Relationships Through PEA

Beyond the direct validation studies within coaching relationships, a series of studies examined the qualities of relationships and interactions that compare characteristics of CWC (i.e., coaching to the PEA) with CFC (i.e., coaching to the NEA) as proposed in the 2013 article. These examined relationships with a power distance and partial intent to motivate others, like physician–patient, manager–subordinate, project team leaders, and team members, those running family businesses, high tech executives, IT managers, Latin American executives, and openness to mergers and acquisitions (Boyatzis, 2024). The qualities of relationships examined were the degree of shared vision, shared compassion, and shared energy perceived in the relationship. All three are manifestations of PEA in a person's regular interactions with others (Boyatzis et al., 2015; Boyatzis, 2024).

Within healthcare, Masud Khawaja (2010) found that patient's diagnosed with Type II diabetes who perceived a shared vision (i.e., part of PEA) with their physician showed significant increases in treatment adherence. In a study of the behavior and verbalizations of medical school students during the eight standardized patients with whom they are tested in their third year in North America, Dyck (2018) showed that PEA behaviors coded from the videos predicted the standardized patient's review of the medical student's effectiveness. Further, Quinn (2015) showed that the quality of relationships experienced by physician executives mediated the effects of their demonstrated emotional intelligence on improved organizational citizenship.

These same qualities of relationships were also shown, as predicted in the 2013 article, to predict increased leadership effectiveness, engagement, organizational citizenship, and even product and process innovation (Boyatzis & Rochford, 2020; Boyatzis, 2024). Van Oosten et al. (2019) showed that executives who perceived their relationship with their coaches to have more of these three characteristics showed more career satisfaction and greater clarity and commitment to a personal vision. Docherty (2020) showed greater employee engagement when they perceived their relationship to their manager having more of these PEA features. Similarly, Mahon et al. (2014) showed that R&D teams and knowledge worker teams in industry had greater engagement when shared vision mediated the presence of emotional intelligence behavior of the team leader. Among engineers in the R&D division of a Fortune 100 company, perception of the degree of shared vision within their teams predicted their level of engagement dramatically accounting for 27% of the unique variance (Boyatzis et al., 2017).

In family businesses, degree of PEA relationships predicted engagement of next generation leaders (Miller, 2023), daughter successors to family business founders (Overbeke et al., 2015), and 5-year financial performance improvement (Neff, 2015). In higher education, Babu (2016) showed that PEA relationships predicted faculty engagement and perception of the community college President's leadership effectiveness. Martinez et al. (2021) showed that middle level managers in Latin American companies had more engagement and effectiveness when their interactions with close relationships at work were characterized by greater PEA. Similarly, IT managers showed greater engagement when the relationships with others with whom they frequently interacted were more PEA (Pittenger, 2015). Kendall (2016) even showed that executives demonstrating more emotional intelligence behavior generated more product and process innovations than competitors, and that the relationship was significantly mediated by the PEA quality of their relationships at work. Even openness to a future merger and acquisition in the form of positive championing behavior was significantly predicted by more PEA felt in the relationships within their organization (Clayton, 2015).

In summary, all of the 10 propositions of the 2013 article about the nature of and impact of CWC versus CFC were tested directly or indirectly. Every study showed significant support in the predicted direction. More research is needed to replicate these findings and increase confidence in their interpretation specifically in coaching and helping relationships (Boyatzis et al., 2022).

CWC and CFC are Antagonistic States

The physiological studies helped to clarify that PEA and NEA are antagonistic states within a person. A person can be in the PEA or NEA mildly or intensely, but they preclude the other. Therefore, when coaching you are either invoking the PEA with CWC or the NEA with CFC. As our 2013 article mentioned, there may be times a coach wishes to or believes they need to do both at different moments in the coaching process (Boyatzis & Jack, 2018), but it has consequences to the degree of openness or defensiveness and closedness of the client.

This aspect of ICT is similar to the antagonistic relationship of two approaches to self-regulation that Higgins (1997) proposed and was supported in many studies following his theoretical proposal. Promotion is a state of being open and in the PEA. Prevention is a state of defensiveness and self-protection which is similar to the NEA. Also, Dweck's (2006) concept of fixed versus growth mindsets are antagonistic as further studies on her typology has supported. This suggests a close similarity of these mindsets to NEA and PEA, respectively.

Impact on the Practice of Coaching

In addition to the attention garnered in the research world, the article and our broader body of work on the CWC construct has also generated a great deal of attention in the world of practice. Sometime after our article was published, following an engaged scholarship model, we continued working on other ways to share the concept of CWC beyond the pages of academic journals. Our aim was to create vehicles for greater awareness, adoption and impact.

One of the things we did was to capitalize on the rapid growth of MOOCs (massive open online courses) at the time and create, along with our colleague Ellen Van Oosten, a MOOC based on the principles of CWC. We introduced that MOOC entitled, Conversations That Inspire: Coaching Learning, Leadership and Change on the Coursera platform in 2015. Since that time, the course, which is still available, has been visited by over 285,000 people and has a favorability rating of over 98% from people who have taken and rated the course. It was also included in the Best Free MOOCs in Business list by Poets and Quants in both 2016 and 2017.

After creating the MOOC, we began working on the writing of a book that would enable us to go even deeper into the concept of CWC. Writing for practitioners, we focused on the potential for CWC's application in a wide variety of helping professions (e.g., teachers, doctors, therapists, counselors, priests) building on the studies cited previously, including sharing the research behind what makes it an effective approach for bringing about sustained desired change in individuals. Our book, Helping People Change: Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth (Boyatzis et al., 2019) has proven to be another important vehicle for building on the 2013 JABS article and furthering the concept of CWC. The book was awarded the Gold Medal at the 2019 Axiom Business Book Awards and was named the 2020 Coaching Book of the year by the Henley Coaching Centre of the Henley Business School in the UK. The book has been translated into ten languages and has been adopted as required or recommended reading in many coaching certificate and/or degree programs in coaching, consulting and organization development.

Finally, the numerous keynotes, webinars, training programs and/or podcast appearances we have been asked to do on the topic of CWC over the last decade serve as further evidence of interest in the topic and its practical impact.

Emerging Research and New Insights

In addition to continuing efforts to replicate and expand the understanding of CWC and its relative impact versus CFC, a number of new streams of research using CWC and coaching to the PEA with practical implications have begun to appear in the scholarly literature. Six of them are: (a) personal sustainability and renewal; (b) peer coaching in groups (PCGs); (c) competencies of effective coaches; (d) coaching processes; (e) creating an organizational culture of development to complement a culture of performance; and (f) the use of artificial intelligence to supplement and expand access to CWC. While many of these studies look at broader contexts than just the coaching relationship, the findings of these various studies do lend support to our arguments relative to the effects of CWC.

Personal Sustainability

As we have shared, we first argued that CWC would ameliorate the effects of stress for leaders who coach others with compassion (Boyatzis et al., 2006). We later added that being coached with compassion would have that same effect, ultimately leading to greater physical health, well-being, and sustained desired change (Boyatzis et al., 2013). These effects were suggested due to an individual's engagement in what can be described as renewal activity to offset the experience of chronic stress.

In a series of studies examining this proposed effect, Boyatzis et al. (2021) included 16 activities shown through prior research to be associated with invoking renewal. Since all of these activities or experiences have been shown in activate the PNS within PEA, they could be used to stimulate renewal and reverse damages caused by stress and chronic stress during coaching. Among those 16 activities were seven specific activities likely to be involved in the process of CWC either as the person doing or receiving the coaching. Those activities were: (a) coaching or mentoring someone; (b) helping a friend or colleague with a compassionate approach (as opposed to trying to “fix” them); (c) thinking about your values or purpose; (d) talking to others about your shared values or purpose; (e) laughing with others; and (f & g) deep breathing as used in yoga or meditation to center or calm oneself.

Results of the study provided evidence that the variety of PEA/renewal activities in which an individual engaged in the previous week was negatively associated with experienced stress and positively associated with subjective well-being, resilience and engagement consistent with what we proposed in our 2013 article (Boyatzis et al., 2013). These effects were also positively moderated by the frequency with which the renewal activities were engaged. While the referenced study did not isolate the direct causal renewal activities during coaching, since they are all PEA activities or experiences, they are associated with CWC.

Peer Coaching in Groups

In applying a social practice that has been used for thousands of years, and popularized by groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Young Presidents Organization (YPO), peer coaching and development in groups holds promise to bring the benefits of coaching to millions if not billions of people not covered by organizational support for 1–1 coaching. PCGs occur when 3 to 15 people with similar status, experiences or roles gather to help each other either professionally or personally, or both. The effects of PCGs have been shown to not only provide development, but also a significant sense of belonging in organizational settings (Terekhin, 2024). With a mild set of guidance or instructions based on CWC, participants also showed significantly more development of team emotional intelligence behavior than participants in administrative teams (Terekhin, 2024). The practice is now being used in undergraduate, graduate programs and in hospitals for continuing physician development (Trinh, 2020; Volkova-Feddeck, 2022).

We are aware of a variety of empirical studies underway examining the effects of peer coaching. Terekhin and Aurora (2025) also recently published a systematic review and conceptual framework for what they have labeled as peer development groups (PDGs), which they defined as “organized small groups consisting of members of perceived similar status and roles who regularly meet to foster mutual growth by providing a supportive environment and a flexible agenda” (p. 12). In their review, they identified a number of significant outcomes associated with PDGs from studies that have been conducted to date. They clustered those outcomes in the areas of personal and professional development, career progression, job satisfaction and retention, psychological well-being and reduced burnout, networking, and at the organizational level, a culture of development and collaboration. While research in this area is still in its infancy, early evidence suggests that these peer coaching groups, which are more likely to involve CWC than CFC as we have distinguished the two, can indeed foster the types of outcomes we proposed in our theoretical model.

Competencies of Coaches that Lead to Client Behavior Change

Despite the prevalence of competency models for coach certification and used in the design of coach training programs, to date none were based on research on coach's effectiveness or impact on clients (Boyatzis et al., 2023). The existing models are based on opinion surveys which in management and other fields have been shown to be no more than 50% accurate in predicting competencies that predict effective performance. Two studies assessing coach's demonstrated competencies as seen by others (i.e., not self-assessment) predicted client behavior change two years later (Boyatzis et al., 2023, 2025). The competencies of effective coaches were shown to be: achievement orientation, empathy, coach and mentor, emotional self-awareness, emotional self-control, adaptability, organizational awareness, influence, and role differentiation of coaching versus other forms of helping. These are the competencies used by people practicing CWC and used in the various neurological studies as well as longitudinal, behavior change studies cited earlier in this paper.

Coaching Processes

There are a variety of models or approaches to coaching. Consistent with the approach recommended by many coaching associations, certification agencies, and training programs, a great number of these models suggest focusing a client's attention early in the coaching engagement on their immediate goals or problems they are facing. This approach leads to the client placing considerable attention on their current reality (i.e., Real self) versus focusing more attention on their dreams and a personal vision of their ideal future (i.e., Ideal self). Focusing on the Real Self tends to activate the NEA. Meanwhile, focusing on the Ideal Self tends to activate the PEA as reviewed earlier in this paper (Howard, 2015; Jack et al., 2013, 2023; Passarelli, 2015).

Building on these tenants, Taylor et al. (2019) offered a detailed approach to effective leadership coaching based on a conceptual integration of ICT (Boyatzis, 2008) and self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2002). They proposed a process where coach facilitated discoveries along the steps of individuals’ change efforts and coach supported need satisfaction for individuals in the areas of autonomy, relatedness and competence is suggested to create to the motivation necessary to drive sustained desired change.

Passarelli et al. (2022) also looked at the process of coaching and its resulting outcomes in their qualitative study of 88 leaders in middle management positions. These leaders participated in a three-session coaching sequence where the first session focused on the ideal self and personal vision, the second session focused on the real self supported by multi-rater feedback, and the third session focused on creating a learning agenda and plans for change. At the conclusion of the coaching, the leaders were asked, “What, if any, is the most significant change that has occurred as a result of coaching?”

In analyzing the leaders’ responses, the three most salient outcomes that emerged were increasing self-awareness, enacting change and internalizing a personal vision, which was the most salient of the three. Approximately 8 months later (1 year after the coaching began), leaders were asked that same question. At this point, it was enacting change that had become the most salient outcome of the coaching. This provides additional support for the suggested sequence of CWC (i.e., coaching for sustained, desired change) where the Ideal Self and personal vision are explored first, with an examination of the real self (current reality) and plans for change occurring in subsequent discussions once the person is rooted in the PEA of the big picture, global perspective.

The Need for a Culture of Development to Complement a Culture of Performance

Much of our work in the area of CWC has focused on individual level benefits both for those who coach with compassion and for those being coached in that manner. Meanwhile, the effect of arousing PEA has been explored in dyads, teams, organizations, communities and countries (Boyatzis, 2024). As part of this work, in the 2013 JABS article, we also proposed effects on variables such as organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior (i.e., a form of engagement) and the quality of connections with others, which are likely to influence organizational outcomes as well (Boyatzis et al., 2013). Building on this, we have also explored how CWC might facilitate the creation and maintenance of a culture of development in organizations rather than a sole pursuit of a culture of performance. This dual pursuit, we argue, is likely to lead to greater growth and development, as well as greater engagement and ultimately sustained performance results. Because the PEA and NEA are antagonistic, development and performance cannot be pursued at the same time, with the same practices. Therefore, two complementary cultures need to be developed. We offer compelling evidence of the efficacy of pursuing a development culture as well as a performance culture in our discussion of a multi-year leadership development effort at a major regional bank (Boyatzis et al., 2013b).

In our book Helping People Change (Boyatzis et al., 2019), we identified three potential avenues for leveraging coaching to create a culture of development. One is to encourage and train employees to peer coach in pairs or teams. Another is to provide greater access to professionally trained internal and/or external coaches. And yet another is to educate managers and senior leaders on how to provide coaching to their direct reports and others. As evidenced by the continued rapid growth of the coaching industry and emergence of companies like BetterUp, CoachHub, and Ezra who provide coaching to organizations at scale, this cultural addition would literally making coaching available to thousands, if not millions of employees. While we have certainly seen an increase in access to professionally trained coaches in organizations, few organizations have gone further to develop a culture of development to complement their culture of performance.

In our own executive education work, as well as in education offerings provided by others, we have witnessed a growth in managers seeking to add coaching to their leadership toolkit. Perhaps one of the most promising avenues for expanding coaching within organizations and further creating a culture of coaching and development, however, is that of peer coaching as mentioned above. Encouraging employees to engage in meaningful coaching conversations with one another on a regular basis and providing them with the training and support to have such conversations, holds great potential for delivering both individual and organizational benefits.

Artificial Intelligence in Coaching and the Continued Need for the Human Touch

Since the publication of our article in 2013, there have been significant advances in technology. In particular, advances in artificial intelligence capabilities have enabled an increased use of large language model driven chatbots to perform activities once performed by human beings (Terblanche, 2024). The field of coaching is no exception, as the emergence of “coaching bots” has begun to have a profound effect on the industry.

Nicky Terblanche along with a number of colleagues has been at the forefront of conducting a stream of research examining the efficacy of artificial intelligence in coaching. In one study, Terblanche et al. (2022) showed through two longitudinal randomized control trials that, over time, artificial intelligence coaching was as effective as human coaching in increasing client goal attainment.

Helping clients make progress toward the attainment of specifically stated goals could potentially be achieved through CFC as we have described it. It appears that this type of coaching behavior can be successfully emulated using artificial intelligence. What has yet to be seen, however, is whether such changes are sustainable. Also, whether an artificial intelligence-driven coaching bot can truly replicate the human act of CWC has yet to be tested, where the coach establishes a trusting relationship with the client and helps them explore their dreams, passions and heartfelt desires for an ideal future. Further research and time may tell, but our current assertion is that CWC will continue to rely upon the human touch to engage the psycho-physiological processes that most effectively trigger and enable sustained desired change.

Not a Conclusion But a Beginning: Where Do We Go From Here?

While we believe that our work to date on CWC has had an impact in the world of research as well as in the world of practice, we still believe that there is significant work left to do regarding the topic. There are opportunities for further empirical examination of the effects of CWC on the theorized outcome variables from the 2013 JABS article. There are also new research questions still to be examined as well as new developments in the coaching and development space, the consideration of which may have implications for the utility of this approach to coaching both now and in the future.

One significant opportunity regarding research on CWC is the conducting of additional work on the actual operationalization of the construct. Much of what we know about the effects of CWC has been based on the fMRI and hormonal research results which examined important differences in brain activity when one is coached with compassion versus being coached for compliance, or from experimental studies where both of these approaches to coaching are established as conditions with their differential impact being examined or from longitudinal studies. To date, we have not yet developed scales for CWC and CFC (i.e., coaching to the PEA versus NEA) specifically in a coaching context that can be used in attitudinal and behavioral research studies designed to examine the impact of each on a variety of outcomes of interest. The development of these scales, and subsequent studies utilizing them, represents one important opportunity for future research.

Another opportunity for future research involves exploring additional research questions of interest beyond our previous theorizing and empirical examination. For instance, we have most often treated CWC and CFC as opposite and “either-or” approaches to coaching. Having scales that allow for the examination of the relative impact of each approach across the span of a coaching engagement could potentially provide additional insights beyond those gleaned from studies conducted to date. Passarelli and Taylor (in press), for instance, have begun to explore the fact that with PEA/NEA it is not a one is good the other is bad scenario, but that both are needed and useful. Further empirical examination in this area could potentially yield useful insights for coaching.

Other potential questions of interest include things like: Are there certain individual difference variables in the person being coached which influence the relative impact of CWC and CFC on outcomes of interest? Are there certain outcomes for which one approach or the other tends to have greater utility? Other questions that would benefit from additional empirical research include questions around the sequencing of the two approaches when both are used, as well as dosage (i.e., how much of each approach is utilized relative to the other). While we have some evidence regarding these questions (Boyatzis et al., 2019; Boyatzis, 2024; Jack et al., 2023), additional research is needed to further our understanding of these questions. Other related research questions appear in Chapter 9 of Boyatzis (2024) and the Grand Challenge for Coaching Research paper (Boyatzis et al., 2022).

CWC, as we have developed the concept, is rooted in the positive emotions created in part by the quality of the relationship established between the coach and person being coached. As discussed above, with the rapid advances in technology and the increased usage of AI-driven coaching bots, however, a question to be addressed is whether, and if so to what extent, the outcomes associated with CWC might be realized if the coaching interaction is with an AI-driven bot rather than with a human being. While Nicky Terblanche and his colleagues have already shown that, over time, artificial intelligence coaching was as effective as human coaching in increasing client goal attainment (Terblanche et al., 2022). Future research might usefully examine whether the same would hold true for CWC, where the coaching involves a deeper exploration of dreams and aspirations rather than merely the facilitation of goal attainment. While coaching action steps toward goal attainment might lend itself to formulaic questions that could be prompted with the use of artificial intelligence, probing for dreams and aspirations and pulling for the positive emotion associated with those dreams might still require the human touch.

This raises a further question of whether future research should be examining the efficacy of human versus AI-driven coaching, or whether we might more usefully explore ways in which the two might be most effectively integrated. Perhaps there are some segments of the coaching engagement that might most appropriately be conducted through human coach interaction, while other segments might just as effectively be conducted via AI-driven chats. Organizations such as BetterUp Coaching are already exploring this integrated or “braided” approach where learning and development activities, AI-driven chats, and human coaching are seamlessly interwoven in helping individuals with their growth efforts. Additional research on the merits of this braided approach and how to best deploy it appears warranted.

There is also an opportunity for future research to examine outcomes other than individual level outcomes associated with CWC. In our theoretical model, we proposed a variety of individual-level outcomes that, as discussed above, might also lead to related organizational outcomes. Future studies might examine the effects of CWC on outcomes such as organizational culture, engagement, turnover/retention, performance, and other organizational outcomes of interest.

Additionally, most coaching research has focused exclusively on either the coach or the person being coached. Little research (quantitative or qualitative) has drawn on the dyadic nature of coaching and examined the mutual impact on both the coach and coachee during the coaching process. Given the relational mutuality of coaching, we are likely missing important phenomena by treating it as an individual experience in our measurement rather than a relational one.

Finally, yet another potential area for future research is examining factors surrounding the effective development of coaches, leaders, and various other helping professionals on the process of CWC. Dhar (2025) offered a theoretical model of managerial coach learning and development that focused on factors such as coach development readiness, developmental pathways or processes, and developmental outcomes proposed to facilitate effective coaching. Empirical examination of models such as this and others applied to helping individuals learn how to effectively coach with compassion represents yet another promising avenue for further extending research in this area.