How coaching is currently disrupting leadership development

29 September 2022

Face to face and online coaching has been growing in demand in recent years with more businesses recognising the need to use leadership or executive coaching.

Spurred on by factors such as COVID and the rise in technologies such as video calling software, more leaders and managers have access to and can therefore see the benefits of coaching.

One area that coaching is having an impact on is leadership development as more businesses are embracing coaching for their leadership and management teams. As we navigate through uncertain times, new skills need to be learned and current skills sharpened by raising self-awareness. Many leaders have the right skill sets but don’t necessarily have the right mindsets to use them.

According to Josh Bersin*, companies such as Bravely want “every employee to have a coach” while many other businesses are integrating executive coaching into their leadership and development programs.

Leadership Development Coaching

So, why is coaching disrupting leadership development?

We know from various studies and experts that having personal goals, particularly mastery goals, can dramatically increase the chances of success. Being personally accountable for those goals and having the support of a coach, improves focus and provides time to reflect on both the team’s and individuals’ performance.

Leadership roles are, in the main, highly pressurised with a strong focus on results and, for many businesses, coaching is recognised as a valuable and proven investment if they want their leadership team to perform.

To consistently get results, leadership coaching is seen as a great option.

It’s personal…

Another element of leadership coaching that’s seen as beneficial is that it embraces the whole person as well as the business side of success. Business or performance coaching usually only covers one element whereas leadership coaching takes a holistic perspective. High performance leaders may well be motivated by both personal and business aspects and an executive or leadership coach will be mindful of this.

Working with a leadership coach, leaders can develop new insights about themselves and their strengths in order to lead their organisation and teams through the many challenges of the corporate world.

Why coaching works

A professional coach will have a recognised and valued accreditation from a coaching body such as the International Coaching Federation (ICF) or Association for Coaching (AC). Ongoing coaching training ensures they know how to give the coachee the best possible outcome for the time invested.

Leadership coaching involves, listening carefully, and asking questions to provoke deep reflections to allow meaningful personal growth. Their task isn’t to tell a leader how to do their job, but to provide the right conditions and support for the best way to drive themselves and the business forward.

In short, professional leadership coaching is designed to help the organisation by helping the individual.

Coaching can be delivered in various ways, whether it’s part of an ongoing support program, for example, or as part of a structured online leadership development program that all leaders must go through.

It can also be delivered face to face, online or using a hybrid model that uses both.

In other words, executive coaching can be personalised or structured to fit the requirements of the business and the industry dynamics.

What’s your leadership coaching strategy?

Clearly, leadership development is important to the success of a growing business and leadership coaching is a key part of that.

If you don’t have a plan currently that uses leadership or executive coaching, it might be worth exploring your options to see how you can develop and nurture talent for long-term success.