When a sponsor talks to me about coaching for one of their leaders, I start with the change that would be valuable. What would be different about how this leader works, and what would that difference be worth to the business?
A typical case is a managing director three weeks into a new role, with an inherited team, a set of numbers and a board waiting for a plan. The valuable change is easy to name: a plan for the first 100 days that the MD owns, and a clear view of what has to change now and what can wait. Once that is agreed, the rest follows: whether coaching is the right tool, what the goals should be, and how everyone will know it has worked.
Coaching usually sits in the budget as a development line. Sponsors who ask “what’s the return?” rarely get a clear answer. Those who don’t ask often find, six months later, that their leader has changed in some ways and not in others.
In my experience coaching pays back when three things are matched: the engagement, the leader and the moment. When any one of them is wrong, the budget buys time in a room rather than something the business can feel.
Six situations where coaching pays back
In each of these, the leader is in a real transition and wants to make it work, and the valuable change can be named at the start.
Stepping up to run the whole business. A function leader has been promoted to chief executive, managing director or divisional MD. The skills that worked in the function aren’t enough for the whole business. The valuable change: leading the whole business rather than the function they came from.
Founder transition. A founder is preparing to bring in a chief executive or step up to chair. The risk is rarely the new leader. It’s the founder holding on to decisions that should no longer be theirs. The valuable change: the founder letting go of those decisions, so the new leadership can lead.
A redesigned role. The leadership team has been restructured and someone needs to grow into the new shape of their role. The redesign on paper is the easy part. The valuable change: behaviour in the role that matches the new design.
The first 100 days in a new context. A senior leader is moving sector, country or operating model, and the first 100 days set the tone. Coaching here is structured, fortnightly and focused, and done well it gives the biggest return of any on this list. The valuable change: a plan the leader owns, and early decisions that build credibility.
Transformation alongside the day job. A leader is running a transformation, an acquisition integration or a turnaround while also running the business. When the load starts to show, coaching gives them a confidential space to think before the next big decision. The valuable change: clearer priorities and better decisions under pressure.
A behaviour that is holding someone back. A high performer has hit a behaviour the organisation can’t overlook. Coaching here is honest and time-limited. The valuable change: the behaviour shifts, or it becomes clear it won’t, and the decision is easier for both sides.
Why it helps if your coach has run a business
Coaches don’t agree on this, and reflective coaching and operator coaching are different products. For senior leaders carrying P&L responsibility, though, a coach who has carried it too brings something different.
I’ve run businesses, owned the P&L and signed for the numbers as a statutory director. That doesn’t mean I hand out advice or a playbook. It means I understand a leader’s world quickly and can ask sharper questions. The answers are still theirs, because answers the leader builds are the ones that hold up after the session ends.
When coaching doesn’t pay back
- The leader doesn’t want it. Mandated coaching rarely works. The work is the leader’s, and without their commitment the engagement runs out of road within a few sessions.
- The brief is to fix the person. Coaching isn’t a disciplinary tool. If the aim is to remove a behaviour rather than develop a leader, the contract is wrong from the start.
- There are no written goals. Without goals agreed in writing by the leader and the sponsor, there’s nothing to review at the mid-point and nothing to measure at the end. The engagement drifts, and the sponsor concludes that coaching doesn’t work.
- It runs on too long. Retainers without an end date turn coaching into companionship. Scope the work, do it, close it properly, and start again only if new work justifies it.
What a good engagement looks like
It starts with a diagnostic conversation. The leader, the coach and, where it makes sense, the sponsor agree the valuable change and what success looks like. Assessment tools are used where they help. The output is a set of goals in writing, signed by the leader and the sponsor.
The coaching then runs against those goals, and the method follows the work. Solutions-focused, gestalt, systems and cognitive-behavioural approaches all have their place. The right one depends on the leader and the goal, not on the coach’s preference.
A mid-point review asks one question: are we on track to deliver the goals we agreed? The close-out is honest about what changed, what didn’t, and what the leader takes forward.
A word on the statistics
Coaching proposals often quote large averages, such as a return of several times the investment. Averages across thousands of different engagements tell you coaching can work. They can’t tell you whether it will work for the leader in front of you. That depends on naming the valuable change at the start, and being willing to say no to engagements that don’t fit.
A good first step for a sponsor is to write down the change you want to see in the leader and what it would be worth to the business, then check that the leader wants it too. If you can’t do both, the coaching isn’t ready to start.
Our executive coaching is for senior leaders in transition, from an EMCC Senior Practitioner who has run businesses. If one of these situations sounds familiar, book an introductory call.