Why are organisations developing coaching leaders?
Many leaders are promoted because they have been exceptionally good at their specialist role. They know how to solve problems, deliver results and make decisions. Those strengths can become limiting when the same person begins managing a team and continues to measure their value by how many answers they provide.
A leader who steps into every problem may be highly valued in the short term, but their team can gradually learn to wait for instructions. The leader then becomes frustrated by a lack of initiative while unintentionally reinforcing the dependency. Developing coaching skills can change the quality of these everyday interactions, allowing people to practise thinking, deciding and taking responsibility.
What does coaching leadership look like in practice?
Consider an employee who arrives with a difficult stakeholder issue. The leader could explain exactly what to say and how to manage the conversation. That may be appropriate when the employee lacks experience or the situation is urgent. On another occasion, it might be more useful to ask what they have already tried, what they think the stakeholder needs and which options they are considering.
The point is not to ask questions for the sake of asking questions. A coaching conversation helps somebody develop their own thinking rather than leading them through a disguised version of the manager's preferred solution. People can usually tell when a question is really an instruction wearing different clothes.
Why do leaders struggle to stop advising?
Knowing that coaching is useful does not automatically make it easy to practise. A leader who has always been recognised for expertise may feel uncomfortable when they are not the person providing the answer. Somebody with perfectionist tendencies may struggle to allow a different approach. Another person may associate being needed with being valuable.
Through our Paseda360 methodology and Pretender Masks Model®, we explore the patterns people have developed to protect themselves, gain approval or maintain control. These patterns may have contributed to professional success, yet become less helpful when the person's responsibility shifts towards developing others. Without that awareness, a leader can attend a coaching skills workshop and still return to advice-giving as soon as pressure increases.
Which coaching skills make the greatest difference?
Listening is a useful starting point, particularly listening without immediately preparing a response. Leaders also need to observe without jumping to conclusions, ask questions that open up thinking and become more comfortable with silence. They should be able to challenge assumptions respectfully and help people identify what they want to do next.
Perhaps the most difficult skill is restraint. A capable leader can often solve a problem more quickly than a less experienced colleague, but the fastest answer is not always the best developmental outcome. Equally, restraint should never become abandonment. People still need knowledge, clarity, feedback and support.
Is a leader as a coach the same as a professional coach?
No. A manager retains responsibility for performance, decisions, conduct and organisational expectations. They cannot promise the same independence or confidentiality as an external professional coach. Employees need to know whether they are having a developmental conversation, receiving feedback or discussing a formal management matter.
Professional coaching can also create space for deeper work that would be inappropriate within a line-management relationship. We see these approaches as complementary: stronger everyday leadership conversations alongside access to qualified coaches when more focused development is needed.
Why do we challenge conventional leader-as-coach training?
A great deal of leader-as-coach training concentrates on the mechanics of a coaching conversation. Participants are taught to ask open questions, listen without interrupting, resist giving advice and help employees arrive at their own solutions. Those are useful capabilities, and we include them in our work. But we believe organisations can become overly focused on the visible technique while overlooking the state of the person using it and the state of the person receiving it.
A manager can ask a perfectly constructed question and still create a conversation in which the employee feels judged. They may have learned to stop offering advice, yet their facial expression, impatience or underlying expectation communicates that there is a right answer. An employee who is worried about disappointing their manager may produce the answer they think is wanted, rather than reveal what they genuinely believe.
The conversation looks like coaching. It may even follow the model taught on the course. But the deeper human dynamic has not changed. We are interested in whether the leader has developed enough awareness to recognise that dynamic, and enough self-trust to respond without needing to control the outcome.
What does regulation have to do with leadership?
Regulation influences how people respond to uncertainty, challenge and perceived threat. When somebody feels settled and able to think clearly, they may be curious, reflective and open to different perspectives. Under pressure, that same person may become defensive, compliant, withdrawn or controlling. These responses are not always deliberate choices, and they are not always visible to the person experiencing them.
Leaders need to understand their own responses first. A manager who feels challenged by an employee's question may move rapidly into explaining or asserting authority, even when their intention was to coach. Somebody who becomes anxious about a deadline may stop listening and begin issuing instructions. Learning to recognise these shifts gives leaders a chance to regulate themselves before trying to support anybody else.
We also want leaders to become more observant of the people around them. A colleague who suddenly goes quiet, agrees unusually quickly or begins working frantically may be responding to pressure rather than demonstrating genuine commitment or understanding. The leader's role is not to diagnose their internal state or play therapist. It is to notice, remain curious and consider whether their own behaviour or the circumstances are making it harder for that person to think and contribute.
How do masking and self-trust change the coaching conversation?
The Pretender Masks Model® helps us explore the behaviours people use to protect themselves. A leader who knows their own protective patterns is less likely to confuse compliance with commitment or confidence with genuine ease. They may begin to recognise when somebody is striving to be perfect, trying to please, withdrawing from challenge or appearing more certain than they feel.
That awareness must be handled with humility. Leaders should never label an employee with a mask or assume they know what is happening inside them. Instead, they can pay attention to changes in behaviour and create the conditions for more honest conversations. They can also examine whether the employee has enough self-trust to offer a different view or make a decision without seeking reassurance.
We would rather develop a leader who understands how their presence affects other people's ability to show up as themselves than one who can recite ten coaching questions but remains unaware of the fear, pressure or need for approval operating in the room. Coaching skills then become part of a much richer leadership capability, rather than the capability itself.
How should organisations develop coaching leadership?
A single workshop can introduce useful techniques, but we believe leaders need far more than a bank of questions and a model for structuring conversations. They need to understand their own regulation, recognise protective behaviours and notice when somebody else may be masking how they really feel. They need to appreciate how trust and self-trust affect whether an employee can disagree, think independently or ask for support.
This also requires organisational consistency. If senior executives reward immediate answers, total control and the appearance of certainty, managers will struggle to create more honest conversations regardless of what they have learned. Our leadership development work combines practical coaching skills with deeper self-awareness and an understanding of the human responses shaping everyday leadership.
What should leaders practise between formal development sessions?
We encourage leaders to pay attention to ordinary moments rather than waiting for a major crisis. Notice what happens internally when a colleague challenges a decision, when somebody does a task differently or when a team member becomes unusually quiet. The useful question is not whether the leader remembered a coaching technique, but whether they were able to stay curious about what was happening instead of immediately protecting their own position.
A leader can also ask colleagues how their behaviour is experienced, provided they are prepared to hear an answer they may not like. They should avoid diagnosing another person's mask or telling them what they must be feeling. We want them to recognise possibilities, listen more carefully and understand how their presence can either invite contribution or make compliance seem safer. The practical questions then have somewhere meaningful to land.
