When a company pays for a leader's coaching, the leader is the client and the organization is the sponsor. The content of sessions belongs to the leader; the sponsor receives the goals, the schedule, and an observable outcome, and nothing more unless the leader chooses to share it. This has to be settled in writing before the first session, because the three parties will otherwise each assume a different arrangement, and the engagement will fail quietly at the first moment of tension.
Most of the executive coaching in the world is paid for by organizations rather than by the leaders who receive it. That is appropriate; the organization benefits, and the sums are small against the value of a senior leader's decisions. It also creates a structural ambiguity that the industry handles unevenly. Who, exactly, is the coach working for?
I have watched engagements founder on that question when it was left unasked, and I have declined engagements in which the honest answer was "the HR department." This essay sets out how I think the question should be resolved, and what each party is entitled to.
Three Parties, Three Assumptions
The leader usually assumes confidentiality. They have been told coaching is confidential, and they take that to mean everything they say stays in the room.
The sponsor, whether a chief executive, a board, or a head of people, usually assumes some form of reporting. They are paying; they want to know what they are getting; and in some organizations they expect the coach to give an opinion on whether the leader is going to make it.
The coach, depending on training and temperament, may hold either view or an uncomfortable mix of both.
Nobody says any of this out loud until the sponsor asks the coach how it is going, and the coach has to decide in that moment what "it" they are allowed to describe. Whatever they choose, somebody's assumption breaks.
The Position I Take
The leader is the client. The organization is the sponsor. The distinction is not semantic; it determines what flows where.
The sponsor is entitled to three things. The goals of the engagement, stated in observable terms and agreed with the leader. The fact that the engagement is proceeding on schedule, or has paused, or has ended. And an outcome at the close that the sponsor can see in the leader's behavior, with the leader's own account of what changed.
The sponsor is not entitled to session content, to the coach's private assessment of the leader, to the leader's opinions of colleagues or the board, or to a verdict on fitness for promotion. If the organization wants an assessment of a leader's prospects, that is a legitimate service, performed by an assessor, disclosed to the leader as such. It is not coaching, and the two should never be done by the same person in the same engagement. I have written about what stays private in coaching in general terms; sponsorship is where those principles get tested.
The Three-Way Agreement
Everything above should be written down before the first working session. In my practice that is a short document, agreed by all three parties, covering six points.
The purpose. What the organization hopes will be different at the end, in terms the leader has accepted. A sponsor's goal the leader does not share is a warning sign worth addressing before anything begins.
What the sponsor will be told, and by whom. My preference is that the leader does the telling, in a brief three-way conversation at the start and the close with me present. The sponsor hears the leader's account; I confirm the engagement is on track; nothing else is transmitted.
What the sponsor will not be told. Stated explicitly, so there is no later surprise.
Who sets the end date. Usually the leader and I, within a range the sponsor has agreed to fund. A sponsor who controls the end date controls the engagement, which changes what the leader will say in it.
What happens if the leader leaves the organization. Engagements sometimes outlast employment. The agreement should say whether they continue, who pays, and whether the organization is told anything.
The limits of confidentiality. The ordinary ones: risk of serious harm, legal obligation. These exist in every confidential relationship and should be named rather than assumed.
What Good Sponsorship Looks Like
The best sponsors I work with understand that their restraint is what makes the engagement valuable. A leader who believes the coach reports back will produce a performance for the coach, and the performance is exactly the thing the engagement was meant to get underneath. The sponsor who wants the most change should ask for the least information.
Good sponsors also stay involved in the right way. They give the leader direct feedback themselves rather than routing it through the coach. They make the environment safe for the leader to try new behavior, which often means tolerating some clumsiness in the first months. And they judge the engagement at the end by what they can observe, not by what they were told.
A Word to the Leader
If your organization has offered coaching, ask three questions before accepting. Who is the client? What will the sponsor be told? And has the organization already decided something about me that this engagement is meant to document? The last is uncomfortable to ask and important to know. I have written about the situations in which coaching is the wrong instrument, and coaching-as-documentation is one of them.
If the answers are clear and the agreement is in writing, a sponsored engagement is as confidential and as useful as one you paid for yourself. If the answers are vague, the vagueness is the finding.
Whether you are a leader who has been offered coaching or a sponsor considering it for someone on your team, a free consultation is the place to work out the arrangement before anything begins. I will say plainly if the structure being proposed is one I can work within.