From chaos to clarity. Coaching helps leaders navigate transformational times.
How purpose-driven leaders go from burnout to breakthrough with the support of a coach.
What tools do we have to support ourselves as leaders amidst uncertainty?
How might we imagine new (and more equitable) ways of creating impact as deeper cracks in the systems become evident?
Coaching for Purpose-Driven Leaders
Coaching can support leaders navigating turbulent times. Coaching offers leaders bespoke and timely support to develop strategies, enhance leadership skills, and prioritize organizational success despite competing challenges.
As the landscape around us is rapidly evolving, the need for effective leadership is critical. Who shows up and how we show up matters! As leaders navigate multiple challenges (the polycrisis of our times), coaching supports individual growth and organizational success.
Let's explore how coaching can benefit purpose-driven leaders, helping them achieve their missions and avoiding burnout.
The Role of Coaching
Coaching differs from mentorship or supervision. While mentors offer advice based on experience, and supervisors may support professional development or provide direct feedback, a coach facilitates self-discovery and empowers leaders to find their own solutions.
Mentorship involves sharing personal experiences and offering advice to guide a mentee’s career path. It is often long-term and relationship-based.
Supervision typically includes direct oversight, performance evaluations, and structured professional development support within an organizational hierarchy.
Coaching empowers leaders to develop solution-oriented skills as part of their self-discovery process. Coaching focuses on actionable outcomes.
A coaching approach benefits leaders focused on innovative approaches, wellness and care sectors, and systems change where strategic action is required. Coaching is particularly valuable in uncertain times when our known coping mechanisms and frameworks for working become outdated or are no longer applicable. Coaching can support a leader in adapting to these changes by helping innovate solutions, enhance resilience, and work towards specific outcomes.
The Need for Coaching
A coach is an essential part of individual and team sports. Engaging a coach is common in corporate leadership. Coaching has been less common in social impact efforts, care and wellness sectors, and public health settings.
There are mindset and budget myths in purpose-driven work that limit the use of coaching.
Passion is a strategy. Not so! Just because our work is mission-driven does not inherently mean we know how to do the job or at least know how to do all of the work. Innovation happens through weaving a diversity of skills and ideas. Growth, scale, and replicating important work happens through meaningful collaborations.
Social impact work must be accomplished on an austere budget. This would never be presumed in a for-profit setting. Just because the work has a primarily social value or outcome, investments in overhead, training, and human resources are optional. Quite the opposite. Relationship-based work, changing hearts and minds, and creating movements absolutely require investments in people and structures.
The pressures of managing during the start-up phase of innovative programs or creating change in nonprofit and public health conditions require robust support systems. Training programs, mentoring, peer networks, and professional organizations can all be part of that system. Coaching is tailored, bespoke support for your unique situation and focused on specific outcomes, with the potential to be a core component of a leader’s support system.
The Benefits of Coaching
Enhanced Leadership Skills | Coaching helps improve emotional intelligence or relationship skills, including empathy, managing conflict, and building trust. These skills enable leaders to better manage teams, gain buy-in from key stakeholders, and create meaningful change.
Improved Decision-Making and Problem-Solving | Coaches support leaders in framing problems and potential approaches, identifying sunk costs, and mapping decision-making processes. More informed decisions and problem-solving result from strategic thinking.
Sustainable Approaches | Juggling multiple priorities and managing stress is key to leading, particularly in changing times. Coaching offers techniques and tools for coping with competing priorities, navigating tensions, and creating a balanced plan for sustainable impact.
When to Consider a Coach
Coaching can be helpful during career or life transitions or as part of an ongoing growth plan. I know some successful leaders who get a new coach every year and see having a coach as part of their personal and professional development plan.
For others, coaching may become a priority at specific inflection points in their personal life or career:
during an organizational change process
taking on a new role
considering changing jobs or careers
becoming a parent or empty nester
an opportunity for a stretch assignment
following corrective feedback
as part of a strategy to earn a promotion
a personal desire for more fulfillment or growth at work.
A coach can be invaluable when more than one of these factors is at play—challenging times call for intentional support to navigate effectively and efficiently.
Coaching is Not for Everyone
While coaching is particularly attractive for growth mindset leaders, coaching may not be the right answer for every situation or every person.
A coach does not provide the right answer or specific direction—perhaps you need a consultant. A coach is not a therapist—coaching is specifically outcomes-oriented. Being able to prioritize the time for sessions, reflection, or homework in between sessions may mean coaching would not be a good fit for people who don’t have control over their schedules or time to prioritize a coaching process.
Choosing the Right Coach
Selecting a coach involves considering factors such as expertise, communication style, and the ability to foster accountability. Look for a coach who aligns with your personal goals and organizational values.
What problem or tension is prompting your desire for a coach?
What outcomes are you seeking?
Are you looking to solve a set of problems or for growth over time?
What skills are you looking to develop or deepen?
What is lacking in your day-to-day support system that you hope a coach will fill?
What level of accountability are you looking for?
Having informational calls with several coaches to learn about their approach and the logistics of their coaching practice can help determine who will be the best fit. Are you meeting in person, by video call, or by telephone? Are there standard communication practices between sessions? Does the coach have products or services that are part of the coaching package?
Understanding your motivation and capacity for follow-through can help you clarify what attributes you will look for in a coach and their practice.
Measuring the Impact of Coaching
Coaching is an investment of both time and money. It’s important to define success and how the impact of coaching can be measured.
For some leaders, having a trusted and confidential thought partner is a sufficient impact.
For others, a defined goal or skill development may be the outcome.
Additionally, there may be concrete measures of impact, such as performance improvements, annual evaluation measures, or structured workplace feedback processes.
Why Organizations Invest in Coaching
Organizations benefit from coaching both as part of a workforce development strategy and as part of increased institutional capacity. Investing in coaching benefits the organization by enhancing team dynamics, supporting key leaders during the change management process, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
Organizations invest in coaching because it leads to:
Enhanced Employee Retention | Coaching can help employees feel valued and supported, reducing turnover rates and saving costs associated with recruitment and training.
Improved Team Performance | Some things are not learned from reading webinars. Developing skills and identifying our blindspots happen through relationships. Coaching can enhance communication and collaboration skills, building an organization’s culture and creating sustainable processes.
Leadership Development | Coaching helps leaders refine their relational and strategic skills, identify priorities, and develop multiple pathways for success. These skills lead to better decision-making and support innovation. Innovation and decision-making are key in uncertain times, through periods of crisis or change management.
Group Coaching and Self-Coaching Considerations
Group coaching and self-coaching models can achieve some of the benefits of 1:1 coaching, potentially with less financial investment.
Group coaching can increase team cohesion and communication and works best for groups with high trust and a shared purpose or explicit outcome. There are risks with group coaching, with newly coached people being eager to create impact but needing more training or experience to hold space, track the dynamics and context of interactions, or be available for the effect or follow-up from an interaction.
Self-coaching approaches can support highly motivated individuals through workbooks or templates from a coaching program. This approach can work well for people who continue implementing frameworks and strategies developed during a 1:1 coaching intensive.
Investing Now In the Future We Hope To Create
For people doing the work that matters, coaching can be an essential support to navigate challenges and rapid change.
Through coaching, leaders can develop increased confidence and clarity, experience personal growth, deepen leadership skills, and craft strategies for long-term sustainability and impact.
Coaching can be an asset for those who seek to make a difference in the world.
Beyond the impact at the individual level, coaching can benefit a leader’s ecosystem and organization. Effective coaching is a multiplier.
What does your support system look like for navigating 2025? Who is on your support team?
Take good care,
Shannon Weber
I help people untangle the overwhelm and prevent burnout to flourish while making an impact.
Website | Substack | LinkedIn | Instagram
Continue the Momentum.
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