Leadership Coaching

Leadership coaching is the conscious process of developing talents and competencies within individuals so that they can work more effectively with others. Leadership training often centers around effective communication skills, business coaching, and understanding the impact of different leadership styles.

When Justin started working at Facebook, he learned he was “rubbing people the wrong way” (Rosenstein & Schwartz, 2019).

His manager Yishan polled Justin’s colleagues, who said he was not listening to feedback, sharing credit, or emphasizing “we” over “me.” Yishan decided to commit to helping Justin overcome these obstacles.

Yishan met with Justin every week, asking probing questions and having him write essays on major themes from feedback. Such activities guided Justin toward improving workplace relationships and performance.

After six months, Yishan polled the same colleagues about Justin. His colleagues said Justin was now “a completely different person” and a better colleague.

Justin called this “a major turning point in my life, fundamentally changing the way I relate to others and even myself.”

What Justin experienced was his manager as a coach: a supportive and questioning guide who helped him improve his relationships and performance on the job.

What Is Leadership Coaching? A Definition

Leadership coaching has a two-fold meaning: it refers to working with the leaders of an organization to help them maximize their abilities and lead their teams well, and it also refers to a leadership style (see below) that executives use when working with their teams.

These two meanings come together in organizations where the leaders are coached and also use a coaching style with their own teams, resulting in a culture of coaching throughout the organization.

The leadership coaching model emphasizes active listening rather than lecturing, asking the right questions rather than providing answers, and presenting leaders and teams with various options rather than giving directions. This model of coaching is designed to help leaders and their teams maximize organizational resources to pursue goals they set themselves.

Leadership coaching is typically less directive than the “command and control” management style that previously pervaded the business/organizational world (Ibarra & Scoular, 2019).

Leadership Coaching vs. Leadership Coaching Style

Leadership coaching is a broad category under which various coaching styles can be grouped.

In an article in Harvard Business Review on leadership coaching, Ibarra and Scoular (2019) use a two-by-two matrix to describe basic leadership coaching styles:

Directive coaching

In this matrix, a “directive” form of coaching (close to the “command and control” management of earlier times) mostly involves telling team members what to do and monitoring their progress toward set organizational goals. This is a form of coaching in which “more info is put in,” as indicated by the above matrix’s Y-axis.

However, per the X-axis, this form of leadership has the potential disadvantage of having “less energy being pulled out” (i.e., less motivation or initiative being pulled from the persons being led since they are not given any latitude in carrying out tasks).

Laissez-faire coaching

Directive coaching has its time and place. At other times, a more “laissez-faire” coaching style might be used. When the people under you have already been instructed in what to do and are doing it well without further input, it is probably best to leave them alone.

In a laissez-faire coaching style, you give people less ongoing information, and there is also “less energy pulled out” from them, as you are leaving them on auto-pilot.

Nondirective coaching

The “nondirective” coaching style is built on listening and questioning without being judgmental. Little information is given to teams, as you are not so much telling them things as posing questions that help them find their own answers.

Simultaneously, this form of coaching pulls more energy from teams, as they get inspired by seeking their own solutions and making progress by their own efforts.

Situational coaching

Finally, there is “situational” coaching, which Ibarra and Scoular (2019) call the “sweet spot” in their coaching matrix. In this form, coaches seek to maintain a fine balance between being directive and nondirective, alternating between the two in varying degrees depending on the situation’s needs.

Overall, situational coaching provides significant information but also tends to pull more energy from teams, as members know they can be called on at any moment to clarify their own problems and seek their own solutions.

Ibarra and Scoular state that all managers should become especially well versed in situational coaching, as it is most adaptive to the rapidly changing conditions often present in today’s organizations. These rapidly changing conditions sometimes call for being more directive, and sometimes less.

6 Core Leadership Coaching Principles

Use these 6 core principles for leadership coaching to coach someone from an office or cubicle near you:

1. First, create a safe and supportive, yet challenging environment. We all need our thinking challenged at times. But offered without sufficient support, challenge can cause damage by decreasing trust and eroding morale. Providing safety and support includes assuring people that they’ve been heard and that their feelings and values are understood. It builds trust, encourages honesty and candor, and helps your coachee feel psychologically safe at work. It’s up to you to create an environment where risk-taking feels rewarding, not risky, so keep your attitude as open and as nonjudgmental as possible, and let the coachee know you support them, even as you test their knowledge and skills. (This is the basis of our Assessment – Challenge – Support (ACS)™ framework; remember ACS to ensure you’re providing needed support at the same time as accountability.)
2. Try to work within the coachee’s agenda. Remember, this coaching session is not about you, so let the coachee decide which goals to work on and even how to go about improving. Sure, it’s great when the coachee’s own agenda aligns perfectly with the organization’s goals, but never impose your personal priorities on the relationship. When it’s clear you need to push a point, put on your managerial hat — thereby preserving the special collaborative coaching relationship you’re trying so hard to build.
3. Facilitate and collaborate. Like Socrates, who always led his students with questions, the best coaches don’t give direct answers or act the expert. To hold a coaching conversation, focus on the coachee’s needs, and avoid filling the lesson with your own life stories and pet theories. Although you may suggest several options for responding to a problem, the ultimate choice should rest with the coachee — with you acting as the facilitator and collaborator.
4. Advocate self-awareness. You want your coachee to learn how to recognize their own strengths and present weaknesses — a prerequisite skill for any good leader. In the same way, you should understand how your own behaviors as a coach impact the people around you. Demonstrate a sense of awareness in yourself and you’re more likely to foster in your coachee a similar self-awareness. You may also want to share ways to boost self-awareness.
5. Promote learning from experience. Most people can learn, grow, and change only if they have the right set of experiences and are open to learning from them. As a coach, always help your coachee reflect on past events and to analyze what went well and what didn’t. Foster experiential learning and using experience to fuel development, and your student will continue to improve long after the end of your lessons.
6. Finally, model what you coach. This, the last of the 6 core principles of coaching, may be the most difficult to embody, as it means putting into practice outside of class the leadership lessons you’ve been trying to communicate.

The Benefits of Leadership Coaching

A review of leadership coaching research in organizations (Jones, Woods, & Guillaume, 2016) concluded that leadership coaching has a positive effect on overall organizational outcomes (e.g., profitability) and more specific outcomes such as leaders’ skill development and emotional status.

The following are five key benefits of leadership coaching (Insala, 2019):

1. Empowerment – Coaching is said to empower leaders to do their best work. The best coaches become intimately familiar with their coachees’ strengths and weaknesses and help them leverage their strengths to overcome obstacles to their goals. Supportive and reflective sessions with the coach on progress toward goals are also meant to be motivating and thus empowering.
2. New insight – Coaching is said to bring new insight into various problems a leader might be facing. Questions and discussions can highlight deeper problems and help the leader overcome problems in depth.
3. Free thinking – Coaching is meant to broaden thinking styles and encourage greater flexibility in thinking by asking questions that prompt the leader to see other perspectives on an issue. Flexible or free thinking is increasingly important for business/organizational leaders, given today’s rapid changes in technology, social media/messaging, and consumer trends.
4. Enhanced performance – Coaching that targets a leader’s weak points produces significant improvements in both attitude and ability. These abilities include the capacity to work with difficult or withdrawn team members and get the most from their talents.
5. Improved communication – Coaches help leaders develop maximum clarity in their messaging. They note any weak points in a leader’s communication style and have them practice ways to overcome those weaknesses.
6. Empowerment – Working with an executive coach can help those in leadership positions learn how to empower themselves and those on their teams. This has the added benefit of increasing team member’s engagement in opportunities to collaborate.
7. A fresh perspective – We do not know what we cannot see. Having an outside perspective can be extremely powerful when looking to make meaningful and lasting changes
8. Confidence – Having a coach’s support while making meaningful changes, as well as celebrating their wins, can positively impact a leader’s confidence levels.
9. Job and life satisfaction – By taking the time to step back and clearly assess their lives with the help of a coach, leaders can find more time for work/life balance. This tends to lead to better performance, retention, and increased satisfaction with their job.

What can you learn through leadership coaching?

The benefits mentioned above can be powerful and impactful, but it’s also worth looking at how how individuals can learn and grow from leadership development coaching.

1. Self-awareness – Self-awareness is one of the top growth areas of any type of coaching. We all have blind spots and while a leader may be satisfied with his own performance, others on the team may see it differently. The reverse can be true as well — the leader may be too self-critical or suffer imposter syndrome while others think she is doing fine. Or perhaps the leader is mostly doing well, but there are specific behaviors or thoughts that are clouding the their perspective or making them less effective than they might be. They might not recognize how a belief or mindset is affecting their approach or being felt by the team.
   For example, coaching can help a leader become more aware of their negative automatic thoughts. A common one involves seeing everything through an “all or nothing” lens. This perspective views everything as either good or bad, yes or no, right or wrong. It triggers an automatic thought that there is only one way and anything else is a failure or an attack. When a person gets trapped thinking “my way is the right way to complete this project,” they don’t tend to be responsive to input from team members or even peers and leaders. Lack of self-awareness leads to not recognizing the value of the nuances and perspectives that others can offer, which means not finding the best solutions but also not strengthening important relationships. It can limit creativity and innovation, demotivating a workforce in the process.  By developing awareness about automatic thoughts and myriad other behaviors, thoughts, and feelings, the leader can start to have a different engagement with themselves, their team, and others in their life.
2. Communication style – Building a higher degree of self-awareness around your communication skills, both verbal and nonverbal, can be a game-changer. It’s easy for leaders to overlook communication as a skillset — at least, until the need becomes obvious. Perhaps it’s a new situation (e.g., a company transformation) or an interpersonal challenge (e.g., a toxic team member). In either case, leaders may find that their usual communication style doesn’t get the intended results. Coaching a leader to communicate more effectively can include setting clear expectations, offering constructive feedback, or even shifting a leader’s nonverbal communication. Additionally, leadership coaching can help leaders create a more inclusive and supportive environment for their teams by examining the language they use with others.
3. Listening skills – Are you listening well? (Hint: if you don’t know, ask). Are you hearing what others are saying or merely waiting until the person across from you stops talking so that you can talk? Good leadership involves more listening than most would think.  By honing one’s listening skills and being attuned to others, leaders can unlock a wide range of potential benefits for themselves and their teams. A coach can aid in developing communication and active listening skills that can be invaluable when leading teams.
4. Self-regulation – Leaders do not exist in a vacuum. Rather they are constantly interacting with others, and it has an impact. In fact, we know from our own data and others that these day-to-day interactions with one’s manager have the greatest impact on direct reports’ sense of belonging and inclusion, job satisfaction, and empowerment. So when a leader can’t regulate their emotions, it can cloud their own judgment and negatively affect the environment and experience for everyone else. Effective leadership coaching can help a leader to become better at regulating their own emotional responses. By identifying ways to step back, they give themselves the opportunity to calm down and re-engage in a more productive conversation. Learning to self-regulate may include identifying patterns and potential triggers to decrease their impact on the leader and their team. Even naming the emotion that is present can go a long way towards helping one better manage their responses to various situations.
5. Growth mindset – Leadership coaching can help individuals unlock a growth mindset, as opposed to a fixed one. With this type of mindset, leaders can see obstacles as opportunities for growth, not something to be dreaded or feared. Being flexible, bouncing back from setbacks, and thinking creatively is a powerful skill to develop. Some of the most effective leaders of the last several generations demonstrate an ability to think holistically and a commitment to growth. When challenges occurred, they didn’t think of them as roadblocks. Instead, they looked for growth opportunities for their product, business, or team.
6. Cultivate empathy – Ever heard the saying, “No one cares what you know until they know how much you care?” This is essentially about empathy. Leaders who readily tap into empathy for others are generally more effective in their roles. When an employee is struggling, senior leaders can provide value just by seeing their pain and acknowledging it. In turn, this allows employees to see leaders as a safe place to speak their truth when they are feeling particularly stuck or challenged. It is not necessarily for the leader to solve the issue, but rather to look for understanding and ways to better support their employees in trying times.
7. Leverage strengths – Leadership coaches are particularly adept at helping others to see the strengths they bring to the table. Not in the way that one might answer an interview question, but a real examination of what a coachee’s strengths are and how to best leverage them. Strengths are often specific to the individual. With the help of a coach, a leader can put their particular strengths to use in unique and unexpected ways.
8. Executive presence – More than just a buzzword, executive presence is about how a leader communicates, shows up for others, and how they generally present themselves to the world. A leadership coach can help each individual leader gain insight into what their current personal brand is and how to work towards making both big and subtle changes to achieve the most effective executive presence possible.

How do you choose the right leadership coaching program?

All in on working with a leadership coach? Great! But how do you find the right coach and program for you? Look for a training program that has each of the following 6 qualities:

1. Safe and supportive environment
   The International Coaching Federation (ICF) defines life coaching as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.” Finding a coach that is the right fit for you and can help you reach your potential is critical. Someone whom you feel safe being vulnerable with is extremely important if you want to be able to open up to them.

   Coaches and coachees sometimes don’t click. If, after a few coaching conversations, you still don’t feel like it’s a good fit, it’s okay to move on. It may be a mismatch in coaching style, personality, or even schedule. Rapport and comfort is necessary to developing a strong coaching relationship.

2. Provides support for your agenda
   You are the expert on you, not the coach. Look for a program and coach that does not have their own agenda for what success looks like for you. Being clear about what you want from coaching can help find the best fit for you that will help you reach those goals.

   If a coach wants to sell you specifically on their agenda, talks about their own experiences solely or only what worked best for them, move on to another development program or coach.

3. Provides targeted and specific feedback
   Some of the best leadership coaches act like mirrors. They reflect back what they are seeing and hearing, bringing awareness in a compassionate and nonjudgmental way. This helps you see your blind spots and dive into finding productive solutions. Look for a coach and coaching program that is willing to do the hard work with you rather than one that will let you vent without moving towards reaching your goals.
4. Length of engagement
   Most coaching programs last anywhere from 3 to 12 months. At BetterUp, the accumulated Member data shows that significant and sustained growth requires a minimum closer to 6 months. Beyond that, the best timeline will depend on what goals you want to achieve and how much time you have to dedicate to those goals.
5. Consistency is key
   Look for a coach and program that will schedule with you weekly or bi-weekly, especially at the beginning of your work together. It is important to be consistent as you gain momentum towards your goals. You want a reliable coach and program that is going to show up and hold you accountable on a consistent basis. Without consistency, your chances of achieving your desired outcome are significantly lower.
6. Keeps you on track with tools and follows up
   Lots of programs and coaches offer tools and methodology to support their coaching. While one is not necessarily better than the other, you do want a coach and program that will hold you accountable and follow up with tools and action items to keep you working towards your full potential. Bonus if they have measurement tools to assess your progress along the coaching journey.

10 Coaching Questions for Leadership Development

Asking the right coaching questions is key to being an effective leadership coach.

The following basic questions are representative of those often asked by leadership coaches (Rosen, 2011).

1. What is the chief outcome you and your team are trying to achieve at this time?
2. What resources do you have that could be most useful in achieving this outcome?
3. What obstacles have you encountered in achieving this outcome?
4. Have you encountered such obstacles in the past, in similar situations?
5. If so, how did you try to overcome the obstacle(s)? What worked, and what did not?
6. What is the first thing you need to do (action item #1) to achieve your desired outcome?
7. Who do you need to communicate with to get this project moving?
8. What will you say, exactly, and what do you think the other person(s) will say in this first conversation about the project?
9. How can I, as a coach, best support you going forward?
10. When would it make sense for you and me to reconnect to check progress toward your outcome?

Positive leadership characterstics

Positive leadership is not just warm and fuzzy; it is much more than that. It breaks down into three pillars that I write about in my book:

1. Accept—how to be supportive

2. Create—how to be responsible

3. Teach—how to mentor and coach

Step 1 is probably one of the most important. Employees who feel supported are much more productive, will do more and will stay longer.

Let’s look at what accepting means: It is the behavior a leader shows to encourage safety; it requires a leader to be supportive. Here are five steps to developing a supportive culture:

• 1. Face reality; stop hiding. This requires leaders to listen to things they may not want to hear. However, without genuinely listening, the right actions can not be implemented. Then take those actions to improve the issue being shared. If you bury your head in the sand, your team will get frustrated and leave.
• 2. Nix judgment. This requires you to look in the mirror and question what assumptions you may be making based on past experiences or biases. Judging others is rampant. It sounds like this: “I don’t like the way she talked over me in the meeting” or “I don’t think her personality is a good fit.” These statements do not incorporate factual performance; they focus on personal opinions.
• 3. Positively approach setbacks. Your team responds to your response. If you react with negative emotions in challenging situations, you will find it extremely difficult to hold onto your team; nobody wants to work for a leader who does not demonstrate composure under stress.
• 4. Check your biases. This should go without saying; however, while we know we have unconscious biases, do we know what they are? What are you doing to uncover them? Are you paying attention to where they could lead you? How are you calling out other leaders when you see bias? How are you demonstrating allyship?
• 5. Stay present and manage the moment. This may be one of the hardest points, as we are all making decisions based on the past and future. When you learn to stay present and manage the moment and can communicate in this way, your team will feel safe and encouraged to learn, grow and make mistakes; nobody likes history being dragged up repeatedly. Coaching teaches leaders how to be responsible for their thoughts and actions in order to create more of what they want; this requires leaders to be fully self-aware.

Teaching may seem obvious; however, learning to train, direct and coach is a skill required by leaders. Coaching training ensures they are approaching leading as a teacher. This is not natural for all leaders. This is one of the top development opportunities I see when working with leaders; they are not sure how to train; telling is not teaching.

7 Coaching Skills for Leaders

Leadership coaching is designed to help leaders develop coaching skills of their own and to ensure a coaching culture within an organization.

Key skills to develop include:

1. Clarifying goals
   Coaches can and should help leaders clarify the goals of an organization or project and help leaders get buy-in from their teams in pursuing these goals.
2. Being empathic
   Practicing empathy by imagining what the other person is experiencing can be considered a prerequisite for leadership. Empathy builds trust (Forbes Coaches Council, 2016), and teams who trust you will be more open to suggestions, even when they are difficult to hear.
3. Being supportive
   Coaching is most effective when it is supportive rather than domineering or punitive. Coaches should seek opportunities to clearly demonstrate support, such as by attending meetings, offering praise for success, and encouraging teams to persist despite any failures.
4. Asking the right questions
   Coaching in organizational contexts is often Socratic in method (Neenan, 2008). It asks challenging questions so that leaders and teams can arrive at their own answers, solve their own problems, and reach their own goals.
5. Clarifying the problem
   As Charles Kettering, inventor and head of research at General Motors said, “A problem well-stated is half-solved” (Levy, 2020). Coaches help leaders state problems in the clearest and most actionable terms, thereby facilitating solutions.
6. Creating options
   Coaching is less about telling people what to do and more about helping clarify the options or avenues they have for reaching their goals.
7. Initiating a collaborative plan
   Once options are discussed, leaders should be coached to settle on a plan of action toward overall organizational or project goals. They should also be encouraged to seek input as appropriate from their teams in formulating and initiating plans.

4 Strategies and Techniques for Leadership Coaching, Including Examples

The practical application of leadership coaching is something worthwhile to experience.

These states and examples bring the concept closer to home.

1. Help set clear goals

This is a matter of overall organizational strategy.

Goal setting should include a sequence of action items and deadlines for stages to completion.

Examples of strategy:

To roll out a new product line, develop the steps to complete the manufacturing process for x number of products and set deadlines for each stage of completion, from manufacturing to advertising to distribution.

2. Active listening

The coach uses the fundamental coaching technique of active listening to understand others’ thinking and build trust. Trust is needed as it indicates that the coach will listen, understand, and make the most of the information provided.

Examples of techniques:

Make eye contact with those you are working with so they know you are paying attention to them. Take notes about what they are telling you. State what they are saying back in your own words so they know you understand and have thought about it.

3. Supportive feedback

Provide feedback in positive, supportive terms, emphasizing what others have done well, offering specific reasons why x might not be working, and discussing options for addressing any pitfalls.

Examples of technique:

“I really like what you did here, softening the colors to fit better with the color scheme of our broader product line. You’ve not yet solved the issue of how best to waterproof the product, though I appreciate the clear efforts you made. Let’s discuss some waterproofing options.”

4. Recognize accomplishments

Even small steps, well executed, can be celebrated as accomplishments. Recognizing accomplishments can go a long way to improving others’ self-confidence and continued motivation. Praise should be specific so they know precisely what they did right and duplicate such efforts in the future (Wroblewski, 2018).

Example of technique:

“I like what you’ve done in this first series of professional development seminars for the teams. You’ve made the classes brief but full of useful information. People’s retention of the information will be about 50% better than previously because you use memorable illustrations and charts when you present.”

A Look at Business Leadership Coaching

Julie Deardorff (2016) commented on the emergence of business leadership coaching over the previous decade:

“Once mainly found on the sidelines of athletic fields, coaches are flourishing in the business world, helping people overcome mental, physical, and emotional hurdles and creating a more fulfilling workplace.”

Ibarra and Scoular (2019) further specified how leadership coaching in organizations differs from previous management styles. They note that the style best characterized as “command and control” worked well for managers in the business world until perhaps one decade ago.

Then, accelerating changes in the business environment, due in part to increased globalization and social media use, made the old “command and control” management model less useful.

In a more complex and rapidly changing world, leaders cannot always “know it all” and impart their fixed knowledge to team members as receptacles. Therefore, a new leadership model has evolved that emphasizes listening, asking questions, and clarifying options, rather than simply giving commands.

Under this newer model, leaders and their teams maximize their knowledge base by allowing various members to do their own research and bring it back to teams. While some information is still put into teams, more energy can also be pulled out, as goals and the action steps toward them are more of a collaborative effort, in which all stakeholders have an investment.

Leadership Coaching Certifications, Courses, and Programs

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) offers coaching certificates at three levels (Associate, Professional, and Master), based on hours of coaching documented and ICF assessments.

This organization also certifies training programs for executive coaching.

The Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy offers organizational and leadership coaching certificates based on a four-course/12-month learning program designed to be part on-campus, part online.

The Rutgers University Continuing Studies program offers a certificate in Leadership Coaching for Organizational Performance, based on 132 hours over 12 in-class sessions. The ICF certifies this program.

Babson College has offered a Coaching for Leadership and Teamwork Program for undergraduates for the past 20 years. Much of the instruction is one-on-one and provided by trained volunteers from various business backgrounds.

Online Training Opportunities

The Harvard Extension School, Professional Development division offers leadership coaching courses and certification online.

Georgetown University offers an Executive Certificate in Leadership Coaching, based on an eight-course, eight-month program that will be mostly online. The ICF certifies this program.

5 Best Leadership Coaching Books

Learn more about leadership coaching with these highly recommended reads.

1. The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in Life – Robin Sharma (2010)

Robin Sharma brings his unique perspectives on coaching, leadership, and realizing one’s potential to this highly readable and inspiring book.

Prospective readers should note that this book emphasizes personal or life coaching, as much if not more than business/organizational coaching.

Available on Amazon.

2. Coaching for Leadership: Writings on Leadership from the World’s Greatest Coaches – Marshall Goldsmith, Laurence S. Lyons, and Sarah McArthur (2012)

This book includes information on research-based coaching practices.

Writings by many well-known leadership coaches are included as well.

Available on Amazon.

3. Innovations in Leadership Coaching: Research and Practice – Terry, H. Hildebrandt, Francine Campone, Kathy Norwood, and Erek J. Ostrowski (2020)

This book emphasizes research-based aspects of leadership coaching.

It also clarifies how research findings can be best applied to business settings.

Available on Amazon.

4. The Art and Practice of Leadership Coaching: 50 Top Executive Coaches Reveal Their Secrets – Howard Morgan, Phil Harkins, and Marshall Goldsmith (2004)

This book includes essays by 50 established coaches.

It also includes a review of research findings and best practices for leadership coaching.

Available on Amazon.

5. The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of Coaching and Mentoring – Jonathan Passmore, David Patterson, and Teresa Freire (2013)

This book contains quick-reference summaries of research into the efficacy of leadership coaching and coaching psychology.

This book will benefit organizational psychologists and leadership coaches alike.

Available on Amazon.

Inspirational Leadership Coaching Quotes

Our chief want in life is someone who will make us do what we can.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The goal of coaching is the goal of good management: to make the most of an organization’s valuable resources.

Harvard Business Review

Everyone needs a coach. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast or a bridge player.

Bill Gates

Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance. It’s helping them to learn rather than teaching them.

Tim Gallwey

The best coaches really care about people. They have a sincere interest in people.

Byron and Catherine Pulsifer

Probably my best quality as a coach is I ask a lot of questions and let the person come up with the answers.

Phil Dixon

What I learned is that if a coach lacks sufficient persistence, he will be unable to complete the critical task of finding growth opportunities out of adversity.

Seth Davis

Coaching deals with the ‘how’: how you move from where you are and make change. It’s action-oriented and concerned with the present and future, not the past.

Shape Magazine

I absolutely believe that people, unless coached, never reach their maximum potential.

Bob Nardelli

For more inspiring quotes, read our related article with 54 inspiring coaching quotes.

A Take-Home Message

Leadership coaching is designed to improve on the traditional “command and control” model of organizational management. It is effective in helping leaders improve their relationships and performance in organizations.

This type of coaching is particularly suited to today’s rapidly changing and complex organizational environments, where no one leader can “know it all.” Still, every leader can benefit from empowering team members to clarify problems and innovate solutions.

There is a growing body of research showing that leadership coaching infused throughout an organization can be a real difference-maker in assuring that organizations maximize their resources and achieve their most valued goals.

If you want to make a difference in your team or organization, it is worth exploring the many options to obtain leadership coaching certification.