Most organisations are not short of coaching. They are short of coaching that connects to anything.
A leader gets six sessions. They feel energised. They set a goal or two. Three months later, nobody can say what changed, for them or for the business.
That is not a coaching problem. It is a design problem.
The Center for Creative Leadership’s recent report on coaching for talent development makes the case plainly: coaching creates the most value when it is built into a wider leadership strategy, with a clear purpose, rather than offered as a standalone perk.
We agree. And we see the same pattern in the organisations we work with across the UK.
Why This Matters Now
Leaders are being asked to do more, with less, through more change than most of them have ever faced.
Organisations are responding with development budgets that are under more scrutiny than ever. Every pound spent on coaching now needs to show a return.
CCL’s research found that leaders consistently name two things as the biggest benefits of coaching:
- Self-awareness: understanding what drives their behaviour and how others experience them.
- Perspective: stepping back, reframing the problem and seeing options they had missed.
Both are valuable. Neither shows up on a balance sheet unless someone has decided, up front, what they are for.
That is the gap. Coaching that is not tied to a business outcome is easy to cut. Coaching that is tied to one becomes hard to do without.
Where Coaching Gets Stuck
CCL groups the most common frustrations into four traps. We would recognise every one of them.
- It is disconnected. The organisation runs leadership development over here and coaching over there. Different providers, different language, no shared thread. Coaching ends up as a reward for high performers rather than a lever for strategy.
- It is unfocused. One leader works on delegation. Another works on presence. A third works on strategic thinking. Each makes progress, but none of it adds up to what the organisation actually needs.
- It is rigid. Fixed schedules and off-the-shelf programmes cannot keep up when priorities shift. Coaching becomes a series of appointments rather than a thread of development.
- It is superficial. The sessions feel good. The insight is real. But nothing changes in how the leader thinks, so nothing changes in how they lead once the coaching stops.
The common thread? Nobody asked what this coaching is for before it started.
What Good Coaching Looks Like
The fix is not more coaching. It is better-designed coaching. Four shifts make the difference.
- Start with the outcome, not the skill. “Get better at feedback” is a skill. “Keep our best people through a restructure” is an outcome. Coach towards the outcome and the skills follow.
- Bring the line manager in. CCL’s research shows that the more supported coachees feel by their manager, the more progress they make. A short three-way conversation at the start changes everything.
- Use real data, not impressions. A 360 or psychometric at the start gives the leader an honest picture of how they land. Repeat it at the end and you can actually show change.
- Work on the thinking, not just the doing. Lasting change comes from shifting how a leader sees a situation, not only what they do in it. That is where coaching earns its keep.
CCL frames its own approach as a balance of assessment, challenge and support, with the relationship at the core. Whatever model you use, the principle holds: stretch people, back them, and measure what moves.
How Mind-Gap Can Help
At Mind-Gap, coaching is never a bolt-on. We design it around what your organisation is trying to achieve, then connect it to your people, your managers and your data.
- Coaching linked to outcomes. We agree what success looks like with you before the first session.
- Psychometrics and 360 feedback to give leaders an honest starting point and a way to show progress.
- Leadership programmes that weave coaching through the learning, so insight turns into practice.
Talk to us about coaching in your organisation
Toolkit for Action
- Name the outcome. Before commissioning any coaching, write one sentence: “By the end, we want to see…” If you cannot finish it, you are not ready to start.
- Map coaching to strategy. List your top three organisational priorities. Check every live coaching engagement against them. Anything that maps to none is a perk, not an investment.
- Hold a three-way kick-off. Coach, coachee and line manager agree the goal together. Fifteen minutes up front saves months of drift.
- Measure before and after. Use a 360, a pulse survey or a simple stakeholder check-in at the start and the end. If you do not measure, you cannot show value.
- Build capability in-house. Train a core group of managers to coach. It keeps the conversation going long after the external coach has gone.
5 Reflection Questions
- If we stopped all coaching tomorrow, what would the organisation actually lose?
- Can each of our coached leaders say, in one sentence, what their coaching is for?
- How involved are line managers in the coaching their people receive?
- What evidence do we have that coaching has changed behaviour, not just confidence?
- Who inside our organisation could be coaching others, if we gave them the skills?
Original Research
Center for Creative Leadership, Coaching for Talent Development: Advancing Strategic Outcomes for Organizations and Leaders. Read the full report
While We Are Talking About Coaching…
If this has got you thinking about building coaching skills inside your own organisation, our next ILM Level 5 Certificate in Effective Coaching and Mentoring cohort starts on December 2026.
It is delivered in conjunction with our partners at Space2Think, and it begins with a relaxed, no-obligation induction.
