Andreas was promoted to Director following his exceptional performance as a sales manager.
"Congratulations, now the real work begins." The CEO tells him.
Andreas knows his job. He's been doing it for the past decade. But this is the first time that he's handling sales managers, who have people reporting under them.
The first month goes by so quickly. Andreas is working longer hours and putting in more effort. He sleeps less and spends less time with his family.
By month three, the performance is still the same. The team is unmotivated, and Andreas keeps doing everything on his own, because he wants to make sure he does everything right.
Six months into the role and he barely has time to sleep. The numbers are speaking for themselves - no change since the promotion. And most of the time, Andreas skips lunch, works until the late hours of the night, and barely gets any sleep.
Stress has become part of his life.
"It's only temporary", Andreas tries to convince himself.
A year into the role and Andreas looks like he has aged five years. His body shows fatigue. Puffy eyes, weight gain, back pain and heavy breathing are becoming increasingly common for Andreas.
One day he wakes up with a fever, but there's no time to go to the doctor. He powers through. Goes to work. Gets the job done, and then collapses.
He's rushed to the hospital and while he's laying on his bed, he asks for his laptop. He needs to finish the work, but the Doctor refuses to comply. "You're killing yourself".
Years later, one of two things will happen: Andreas either ends up back in the hospital, or something worse.
This is not a true story. Andreas does not exist, but his career journey, stress and need to perform are real.
Many leaders go through similar experiences, and rarely does anyone ask for help. The World Health Organization and International Labour Organization found that in 2016, working 55 or more hours a week was linked to an estimated 745,000 deaths from stroke and ischemic heart disease worldwide. I don't know how precisely that figure captures every case, but even ONE death from overworking is one too many.
You see, I was on the path that fictional Andreas was going through, and although I was lucky not to end up in hospital (or worse) I can tell you that I know people who have. And it's a scary ordeal, for everyone involved.
That's why I decided to leave finance and focus on the one thing that truly makes a difference: executive coaching.
Companies in Cyprus are not investing enough in their leaders, because there isn't always a clear return on investment for coaching. Management wants to see a number that represents growth in revenue, or savings in costs.
I can tell you that ICF-commissioned studies have reported returns on coaching in the range of 5–7x the investment (with variation depending on context), or I can point to research from Gallup, which estimate that replacing a leader can cost up to two times their annual salary, which is a cost that good coaching can help a company avoid.
But we rarely talk about the metric that cannot be easily measured: psychological and physical improvement.
As an executive coach, I practice active listening and complete presence with my clients. I focus all my energy and become an extension of the person sitting across from me. I've had executives talk for an hour, and then tell me that this was the best use of their time.
I don't know how to measure that precisely, but what I can tell you is that focused attention and the ability to think clearly are often the starting point for better decisions and better performance.
So when people ask me what is the return on coaching, I usually divide it into three metrics:
Investing for Growth
Investing in an accredited and certified executive coach is one of the best investments any executive can make. Let's say that a sales director has taken on new responsibilities and wants to achieve an almost impossible 30% increase in revenues compared to the year before.
The sales director has done this before, so it's not impossible. A plan is put into place and a strict budget is set to track the figures on a monthly basis. Every decision is made around the prospect of increasing the possibility of hitting that 30% target.
The sales director has regular team meetings, some on a weekly basis, others on a bi-weekly frequency. The team reports back with the progress. It's not good enough. The team is barely hitting 5% increase in sales compared to last year, and after two months - they will clearly miss the target.
Because the sales director is an expert, the target will most probably be met. But if the target keeps getting bigger every year, there will need to be different approaches to make sure that sustainable performance is possible, otherwise, there's a risk of burnout.
That's where an executive coach like me comes in. The experienced coach knows that the problem is not the 30% sales target, but rather the perspective of how to achieve this milestone consistently.
One way to think about the investment is through expected value. For instance, if the 30% increase means EUR 200,000 in additional revenue, and coaching increases the probability of success, then that improvement has a measurable value.
If we place a conservative 50% probability of success, and aim for a 5x return on investment, that would justify an investment of around EUR 20,000 in a dedicated executive coach over the specified period. It's not an exact formula, but a practical way to look at the decision, and a direct partnership between the sales director and the executive coach.
Investing for Efficiency
Another example would be to invest for efficiency. Let's assume that the same sales director has managed to hit the 30% sales target, and has been working late almost every night. The amount of hours spent on prepping the team, on sales meetings, and on documenting the returns, and anything else that takes time away from the sales director, are costs.
Let's assume that the fully loaded hourly cost of the sales director is between EUR 300 - EUR 500, which is a reasonable range for senior roles in Cyprus.
If the coach is able to help the sales director delegate more efficiently and effectively, that could translate to at least saving one hour a week. That becomes four hours a month, and 24 hours in six months.
With simple math, that means that over a period of six months, up to EUR 12,000 has been recovered in time spent, because of effective delegation.
Investing EUR 7,000 in an executive coach could therefore pay for itself purely in efficiency gains, even before considering the upside.
The biggest return on investment, however, is not just the savings. It's what the sales director chooses to do with the additional hour each week. That can be invested in new projects, mentoring, or personal development, which yields an even greater return to the sales director and the company.
Investing for Peace of Mind
There's one more return on investment that is more difficult to measure, which is based on psychological peace of mind.
There are scientific ways to measure changes in the brain, for example using EEG in research environments, but this is not how coaching outcomes are typically assessed in practice. Instead, we rely on consistent self-assessment.
Using the same example, the executive coach can ask the sales director to rate themselves on a scale of 1 - 10 on stress, with 10 being completely stressed. Over time, this rating can be measured to assess the changes on the scale.
The way that I approach this is to ask at the beginning of the coaching engagement to complete a simple high performance audit. The audit includes a subjective measure of stress, among other metrics such as communication, compensation and overall fulfillment.
That gives us a baseline.
Now, this is completely subjective, and depends on the time of the year, the external environment and other factors that are not in our control, but it still serves as a great way to put a metric on stress, which is not easily measured.
At the end of the coaching engagement, the same audit can be used to assess how far along the scale the sales director is.
What I've noticed from my practice, is that in most cases stress has dropped over the span of six months. This is not a strict methodological claim, but when I ask my clients how they feel, the majority say that they now see things from a different perspective, and having options almost always eases stress levels.
The value of this change varies between individuals. Some might even be willing to invest over EUR 10,000 to get such results, which proves that this is a real pain that many executives experience and want to improve.
Putting It Together
From these three examples, we can conclude that the return on investment for working with an experienced and accredited executive coach can be significant.
In some cases, it may reach multiples of the original investment. In others, it may be lower. It depends on the individual, the context, and the level of engagement.
But even with conservative assumptions, it is reasonable to expect that coaching can deliver a strong return, both financially and personally.
As an ex-investment advisor, a return of 5x gets my attention. Not because it’s guaranteed, but because the upside meaningfully outweighs the downside.
One last point that I want to make is that executive coaches have limited hours in the day, and so do executives. Timing, readiness and priorities matter on both sides.
*By Hassan M. Al-Shohaty, an accredited executive performance coach based in Cyprus, and the founder of HMS Coaching
Al-Shohaty is an accredited executive performance coach and founder of HMS Coaching, helping leaders in financial services work less, earn more, and advance further without burning out.
With 15 years at Bloomberg, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, and PwC across London, Dubai, and Cyprus, he brings a practical, disciplined approach to execution and leadership presence.
His philosophy is built on a simple principle: high performance is about doing less, not more. He's among the first executive coaches in Cyprus to build and integrate his own ethical, human-led AI coaching tool, one that reinforces progress and momentum while staying backed by signed data processing agreements and client consent protocols.
Al-Shohaty is accredited by the Association for Coaching (Executive level) and EMCC (Practitioner level), and certified as a Hogan and NLP Practitioner. He holds a BSc (Hons) from Queen Mary University of London and an MSc from Bayes Business School.
