EVIDENCE · RESEARCH · CITATIONS
What we know, and how we know it.
iLeader is based on renowned coaching techniques, behavioral science, and best-practices — all with citations verifiable against primary sources.
At a glance
Where the evidence is strong, and where it is still coming in.
g = 0.59
Overall effect of workplace coaching across 37 randomized controlled trials — a moderate effect.
De Haan & Nilsson, 20231
~250%
Net return to the firm eight months after soft-skills training for garment workers in India.
Adhvaryu, Kala & Nyshadham, 20232
Nepal
Live in Nepali with an international NGO, for returning migrant workers. Outcome data is still being gathered.
See the deploymentPeru
Validation research with Coachees — students, young professionals and working adults — before the product scaled.
Read what Coachees said The foundations
The research iLeader is built on.
Coaching effectiveness
Three meta-analyses, one consistent finding.
g = 0.43–0.74
Hedges' g across five outcome categories, 18 studies.
Coaching had significant positive effects on all five: performance and skills, well-being, coping, work attitudes and goal-directed self-regulation.
Theeboom, Beersma & van Vianen (2014)3
δ = 0.36
Overall effect of workplace coaching on organizational outcomes, 17 studies.
By outcome type: skills 0.28, affective 0.51 and individual-level results 1.24.
Jones, Woods & Guillaume (2016)4
g = 0.59
Overall effect across 37 randomized controlled trials — a moderate effect.
Restricted to randomized controlled trials, and the results held across face-to-face, phone and digital delivery.
De Haan & Nilsson (2023)1
Reading effect sizes: 0.2 is small, 0.5 medium and 0.8 large (Cohen, 1988).5
Coaching works — and digital delivery works as well as in-person.
Non-cognitive skills
Why non-cognitive skills matter as much as IQ.
Two decades of research from Nobel laureate James Heckman and colleagues — published in NBER, the Journal of Labor Economics, and the American Economic Review — converge on three findings.
Heckman, Stixrud & Urzua (2006)6
Non-cognitive abilities — motivation, persistence, self-esteem, conscientiousness — predict wage attainment, employment, and avoiding incarceration on par with cognitive skills.
Heckman & Rubinstein (2001)7
GED recipients have cognitive ability equivalent to high school graduates who don't go to college, yet earn at the rate of dropouts. The gap is non-cognitive.
Heckman & Kautz (2012)8
Non-cognitive skills remain developable into adulthood — unlike cognitive ability, which is largely set by adolescence.
Transfer of training
Practice in context is what makes training transfer.
Baldwin and Ford (1988), in Personnel Psychology, produced the foundational framework for transfer of training — the question of whether what is learned actually transfers to behavior at work. Their model identifies three critical factors: trainee characteristics, training design (especially practice in context), and work-environment support. Subsequent research has consistently shown that practice in realistic scenarios is one of the most reliable ways to produce transfer.9
Goal-setting theory
Specific goals plus accountability produce durable change.
Locke and Latham's goal-setting theory, developed over 35+ years and summarized in their 2002 American Psychologist article, is one of the best-supported theories in organizational psychology. Three findings form the backbone:10
- Specific and challenging goals produce higher performance than vague or easy ones.
- Feedback and progress tracking amplify the goal effect.
- Commitment to the goal is necessary for goals to work.
Program outcomes
What the evidence says for workforce and academic programs.
Youth & workforce programs
An honest picture of the youth-employment evidence.
The soft-skills-for-youth literature is mixed — and naming the mixed evidence is part of iLeader's scientific posture.
~250%
ROI within eight months — soft-skills training at Shahi Exports, Bangalore.
Adhvaryu, Kala & Nyshadham, 20232
17%
Increase in job formality for men — Juventud y Empleo RCT, Dominican Republic.
Ibarrarán et al., IZA 201411
What works
Programs that integrate soft-skills training into broader support — placement, mentorship, follow-up — show meaningful gains in formality, earnings, and non-cognitive skills.
What doesn't
Groh et al. (2016) tested a 45-hour stand-alone soft-skills program in Jordan and found no employment impact. Short, isolated training without integration into broader program support often fails to move labor-market outcomes.12
Academic outcomes
Non-cognitive skills predict graduation more than test scores do.
15.7 pp
Increase in on-time high school graduation per 1-SD in non-cognitive skills.
Jackson, Journal of Political Economy, 201813
6×
Non-cognitive skills mattered roughly six times more than test scores for graduation.
Jackson, JPE 201813
109 studies
Meta-analysis confirming self-efficacy, motivation, and goals predict academic persistence.
Robbins et al., Psychological Bulletin, 200414
Jackson (2018)13
A one-SD increase in a student's non-cognitive factor is associated with a 15.7 percentage-point increase in on-time graduation — versus 2.66 pp for a one-SD increase in test scores.
Robbins et al. (2004)14
Meta-analysis of 109 studies: academic self-efficacy, motivation, and goals are significant incremental predictors of academic persistence and performance — over and above GPA, cognitive tests, and SES.
In the field
Our own evidence, and where it stands.
Nepal deployment
Built for the language, philosophy, and reality of returning migrants.
We are partnered with an international NGO working with returning migrant workers in Nepal — people coming back from years of labor abroad, navigating reintegration, family expectations, and the search for the next or first job. The deployment was built as a capability test.
Language
Nepali, reviewed by native-speaking coaches for tone and conversational fit. Not machine translation.
Philosophical framing
Eastern frames — duty (kartavya), right livelihood, community-self balance — that shape how returning migrants understand self-improvement, in contrast to Western individualist frames.
Scenarios
Co-designed for what migrant returnees actually face: reintegrating with family, negotiating with employers, navigating informal job markets, managing the identity shift of return.
Outcome metrics
Aligned to the partner NGO's logframe for reintegration and employability.
Peru Coachee research
Before scaling, we listened.
Before scaling the B2B product, iLeader ran Coachee validation research directly with individuals in Peru — students, young professionals, working adults — bringing real problems to the Coach: workplace conflict, prioritization under overwhelm, confidence, personal challenges. The research taught us what actually helps Coachees versus what sounds good in a demo. Every coaching flow in iLeader today reflects those learnings.
The iLeader Coach gave me tools I could immediately use for specific challenges. When I felt scattered and struggled to prioritize tasks, the Coach helped me identify clear strategies to organize my workload, achieve my goals, and boost my confidence. It was incredibly practical and genuinely useful.
The first time I used iLeader, it helped me a lot with approaching a workplace issue. I learned how to make myself understood and address an uncomfortable situation — not by complaining, but by calmly addressing the problem. I was able to have a constructive conversation about taking on responsibilities that weren't mine. The result? Everything went smoothly, and both of us are now doing much better at work.
Working with the iLeader Coach has been a very positive experience. It helped me work through a specific personal challenge with patience and practical steps I could take on my own time, in my own way.
References
Every source on this page.
- de Haan, E., & Nilsson, V. O. (2023). What can we know about the effectiveness of coaching? A meta-analysis based only on randomized controlled trials. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 22(4), 641–661. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2022.0107 ↑1↑2
- Adhvaryu, A., Kala, N., & Nyshadham, A. (2023). Returns to on-the-job soft skills training. Journal of Political Economy, 131(8), 2165–2208. https://doi.org/10.1086/724320 ↑1↑2
- Theeboom, T., Beersma, B., & van Vianen, A. E. M. (2014). Does coaching work? A meta-analysis on the effects of coaching on individual level outcomes in an organizational context. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 9(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2013.837499 ↑
- Jones, R. J., Woods, S. A., & Guillaume, Y. R. F. (2016). The effectiveness of workplace coaching: A meta-analysis of learning and performance outcomes from coaching. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 89(2), 249–277. https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12119 ↑
- Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203771587 ↑
- Heckman, J. J., Stixrud, J., & Urzua, S. (2006). The effects of cognitive and noncognitive abilities on labor market outcomes and social behavior. Journal of Labor Economics, 24(3), 411–482. https://doi.org/10.1086/504455 ↑
- Heckman, J. J., & Rubinstein, Y. (2001). The importance of noncognitive skills: Lessons from the GED testing program. American Economic Review, 91(2), 145–149. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.91.2.145 ↑
- Heckman, J. J., & Kautz, T. (2012). Hard evidence on soft skills. Labour Economics, 19(4), 451–464. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2012.05.014 ↑
- Baldwin, T. T., & Ford, J. K. (1988). Transfer of training: A review and directions for future research. Personnel Psychology, 41(1), 63–105. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1988.tb00632.x ↑
- Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705–717. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.57.9.705 ↑
- Ibarrarán, P., Ripani, L., Taboada, B., Villa, J. M., & García, B. (2014). Life skills, employability and training for disadvantaged youth: Evidence from a randomized evaluation design. IZA Journal of Labor & Development, 3, Article 10. https://doi.org/10.1186/2193-9020-3-10 ↑
- Groh, M., Krishnan, N., McKenzie, D., & Vishwanath, T. (2016). The impact of soft skills training on female youth employment: Evidence from a randomized experiment in Jordan. IZA Journal of Labor & Development, 5, Article 9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40175-016-0055-9 ↑
- Jackson, C. K. (2018). What do test scores miss? The importance of teacher effects on non–test score outcomes. Journal of Political Economy, 126(5), 2072–2107. https://doi.org/10.1086/699018 ↑1↑2↑3
- Robbins, S. B., Lauver, K., Le, H., Davis, D., Langley, R., & Carlstrom, A. (2004). Do psychosocial and study skill factors predict college outcomes? A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 130(2), 261–288. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.130.2.261 ↑1↑2
Built on the science. Now being proven in the field.
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