Leadership Coaching

What it is, why it works, and how to see ROI in 90 days

What is leadership?

Leadership is the ability to influence, guide, and inspire individuals or groups towards achieving shared goals, focusing on 3 core pillars - direction, alignment and commitment. It encompasses a set of mindsets and behaviours that align people in a collective direction, enabling them to collaborate and accomplish objectives effectively. In the evolving landscape of 2025, with increasing emphasis on hybrid work environments and AI integration, leadership is about fostering collaboration and adaptability to navigate complexity. At its core, leadership is a social process where individuals work together to produce key outcomes, transforming challenges into opportunities for growth.

Understanding leadership in this way sets the groundwork for distinguishing it from management, exploring the specific inputs that most commonly lead to impactful outcomes. In this way, leadership serves as both a dynamic organisational process as well as an individual, developable skill that can be enhanced through targeted approaches like leadership coaching.

Leadership vs management

Leadership and management, though interconnected, serve distinct roles within organisations. Management focuses on planning, organising, budgeting, and controlling resources to maintain efficiency and achieve short to medium-term objectives, emphasising processes and stability. In contrast, leadership centres on setting a vision, inspiring change, aligning people, and adapting to evolving challenges, prioritising innovation and long-term transformation.

Managers ensure tasks are executed within established systems, often through authority and routine, while leaders motivate teams to embrace shifts and overcome obstacles, cultivating a culture of growth. For instance, a manager might optimise daily operations to meet quarterly targets, whereas a leader would rally the team around a bold strategic pivot to enter new markets. This distinction is vital because effective organisations require both: management for operational reliability and leadership for sustained adaptability and inspiration.

Leadership outcomes: direction, alignment, commitment

Effective leadership generates three core outcomes: direction, alignment, and commitment, which together empower groups to achieve remarkable results in a cohesive manner. These elements form the foundation of successful collective efforts, ensuring that teams not only perform but thrive amid uncertainty.

• Direction: Establishing a clear, shared vision and goals that guide priorities and decision-making, providing a roadmap for progress.
• Alignment: Coordinating efforts, resources, and roles so that everything integrates seamlessly, minimising friction and maximising efficiency.
• Commitment: Building emotional investment and mutual responsibility, where individuals prioritise group success over personal agendas, fostering loyalty and resilience.

These outcomes enhance overall performance, boost engagement, and create resilient organisations capable of weathering disruptions. In practice, organisations with strong DAC (Direction, Alignment, Commitment) frameworks report higher productivity and innovation rates, underscoring the value of viewing leadership in terms of its outcomes.

Leadership as a process

Leadership is not a static trait or hierarchical position but a continuous social process involving interactions between leaders, followers, and their environment. It unfolds through assessment, decision-making, adaptation, and relationship-building, where influence is multidirectional rather than solely top-down. This process emphasises collaboration, shared responsibility, and evolution with contextual changes, such as technological advancements or global shifts in 2025.

For example, in a crisis like supply chain disruptions, leadership as a process might involve gathering diverse inputs, refining strategies iteratively, and adjusting based on feedback to maintain momentum. By treating leadership this way, organisations can transform potential setbacks into avenues for collective growth and innovation, highlighting why leadership truly matters in today's fast-paced world.

Why leadership matters

In 2025’s volatile business climate, leadership is not a “nice to have” – it is the operational core that aligns direction, mobilises culture, and translates strategy into results. Strong leaders build trust, set a clear vision, and maintain high standards, which enables teams to navigate disruption from AI, market volatility, or shifting workforce expectations (Siena Heights University, 2023). Research on transformational leadership shows it can lift engagement and profitability by over 20% and significantly reduce turnover through purpose-driven cultures (Business Leadership Today, 2024).

Without effective leadership, organisations risk stagnation, disengagement, and a breakdown in innovation. Leaders who connect individual contributions to a shared mission improve morale and long-term performance, ensuring companies not only survive but capitalise on change (LeadershipHQ, 2024). Leadership is a learnable, measurable skill that, when developed intentionally, produces resilient organisations capable of sustaining competitive advantage.

Leadership as a skill: is leadership capability fixed?

Leadership is not a fixed trait but a modular, improvable system of competencies, refined through feedback loops, novel situations, unstructured and structured development. While popular myths still frame leadership as charisma or innate gravitas, the modern consensus treats it as an applied skillset - a fluid integration of cognitive, interpersonal, and adaptive capacities tailored to mobilising human systems. In 2025, this skillset is under new evolutionary pressure: flatter hierarchies, remote teams, AI-collaboration, and rising uncertainty have collapsed the half-life of traditional leadership templates.

Developing leadership today demands more than experience - it requires metacognition, intentional skill acquisition, and deliberate exposure to ambiguity. Core meta-skills like emotional intelligence, systems thinking, and decisiveness now serve as multipliers rather than nice-to-haves, and leadership coaching acts as the accelerant - shortening the time-to-competence by compressing cycles of practice and reflection.

Leadership styles

Leadership styles represent frameworks of behaviour that leaders deploy to guide team dynamics, drive decisions, and influence organisational outcomes. Rather than fixed identities or rigid classifications, these styles reflect adaptive responses to shifting contexts, objectives, and team needs. Effective leadership involves recognising contextual signals – such as urgency, complexity, or the team’s capabilities – and seamlessly adjusting style to match.

Below are eight foundational leadership styles, synthesised from the latest iteration of the 2025 Neuro+ Framework. Each includes a concise explanation of its core characteristics, ideal usage contexts, and potential drawbacks:

1. Visionary Leadership

• Core characteristics: Visionary and highly motivational, this style focuses on articulating a compelling purpose, clarifying roles, and building ownership to achieve ambitious goals. It inspires enthusiasm and secures resources for the vision.
• Ideal context: Driving new initiatives, setting bold strategic directions, inspiring teams towards a challenging future, or securing buy-in for ambitious projects.
• Potential drawback: May overlook practical details, feasibility, or immediate operational challenges due to an intense focus on the grand vision.

2. Enabling Leadership

• Core characteristics: This style creates an environment where individuals are stretched to reach their full potential, leveraging unique strengths for optimal team outcomes. It fosters psychological safety, connects people to the vision, and builds strong team cohesion.
• Ideal context: Building a strong team culture, fostering deep collaboration, integrating diverse perspectives, resolving interpersonal conflicts, or facilitating team development workshops.
• Potential drawback: May avoid direct conflict or difficult conversations, potentially leading to unresolved issues if not managed carefully, and can prioritise harmony over tough decisions.

3. Collaborative Leadership

• Core characteristics: Focused on ensuring the group functions as a cohesive team, this style connects members, opens communication, and builds shared understanding. It excels at resolving interpersonal issues and promoting the team's work internally and externally, devising low-risk strategies.
• Ideal context: Mediating disputes, fostering cross-functional collaboration, managing complex stakeholder relationships, promoting team achievements, or strategic planning with an emphasis on risk mitigation.
• Potential drawback: Can become overly focused on details, may struggle with decisive action when multiple perspectives are equally valid, or avoid making unpopular decisions.

4. Problem-Solving Leadership

• Core characteristics: This style is adept at solving complex, undefined, or constantly changing problems. It is practical, creative, and excellent at managing groups in high-stress, dangerous, or crisis situations, finding novel solutions quickly.
• Ideal context: Crisis management, rapid problem-solving, leading teams in dynamic or unpredictable environments, or situations requiring quick, innovative solutions without extensive preparation.
• Potential drawback: May struggle with patience, overlook collaborative processes, or appear overly direct in less urgent situations, potentially being seen as too action-oriented without sufficient consultation.

5. Systems Leadership

• Core characteristics: This style thinks in systems, identifying shortcomings and creating new systems, capabilities, or frameworks that better align processes with vision and practical needs. It enjoys building capability, prototype work, and evaluations, ensuring leadership credibility.
• Ideal context: Organisational design, process improvement, developing new frameworks, building capability, innovation projects, or ensuring strategic alignment and integrity across an organisation.
• Potential drawback: May become lost in complex designs, overlook simplicity, or struggle with implementation if not paired with more action-oriented styles. Can be perceived as overly theoretical.

6. Planning Leadership

• Core characteristics: Skilled at leading groups towards a vision, this style lays out a methodical plan, manages risks, and creates data-driven systems and processes. It breaks down overwhelming journeys into achievable steps, instilling confidence in others.
• Ideal context: Long-term strategic planning, complex project management, guiding teams through multi-stage initiatives, risk management, or developing comprehensive operational plans.
• Potential drawback: May struggle with decision-making procrastination if too focused on perfect planning, or be less adaptable to sudden, unforeseen changes, potentially over-relying on data and process.

7. Stewardship Leadership

• Core characteristics: This style ensures progress is tracked, learnings are shared, agreed processes are followed, and documents are accurate. It excels at financial management, quality control, and ensuring legal compliance, maintaining a full audit trail.
• Ideal context: Ensuring compliance, financial management, quality control, detailed project tracking, auditing, or establishing robust reporting and documentation systems.
• Potential drawback: Can be risk-averse, overly conservative, or become excessively focused on details and compliance at the expense of speed or innovation. May struggle with ambiguity.

8. Results-Driven Leadership

• Core characteristics: Action-oriented and entrepreneurial, this style focuses on completing tasks and delivering value quickly. It clarifies responsibilities, pushes for decisions, and energises the team, not shying away from conflict to achieve outcomes.
• Ideal context: Driving rapid execution, overcoming inertia, making tough decisions, resolving bottlenecks, leading turnarounds, or situations requiring strong accountability and immediate results.
• Potential drawback: Can be overly impactful, excessive, or impulsive, potentially neglecting relationship building. May be perceived as too aggressive or demanding, leading to decreased morale or high turnover if sustained without adaptation.

Ultimately, successful leadership depends upon style agility – i.e. recognising subtle signals within each scenario and flexibly adapting behaviour in response. Leaders who consciously cultivate this multimodal agility, often through coaching, consistently achieve superior results across varied organisational challenges.

Leadership qualities

Leadership qualities are intrinsic characteristics that form the psychological architecture of influence. They define how a leader responds under pressure, earns trust, and inspires others to follow. Unlike technical skills or knowledge domains, these qualities are enduring dispositions—shaping how competencies are applied across situations. In a synthesis of recent research (CCL, 2024; HBR, 2023; Forbes, 2022), the most cited leadership qualities in high-performing leaders include:

• Integrity: Maintaining honesty, ethics, and consistency to establish credibility and trust.
• Self-Awareness: Understanding personal strengths, weaknesses, and impacts for informed decisions.
• Empathy: Valuing others' emotions and perspectives to promote inclusion and strong relationships.
• Communication: Articulating ideas clearly, listening actively, and delivering feedback effectively.
• Resilience: Recovering from setbacks with optimism and adaptability in volatile times.
• Vision: Crafting and sharing a compelling future to align and motivate teams.
• Courage: Taking risks and making tough calls under pressure.
• Compassion: Demonstrating genuine care for wellbeing to enhance team bonds.
• Accountability: Owning responsibilities and encouraging the same in others.
• Creativity: Innovating solutions and seizing opportunities creatively.
• Gratitude: Expressing appreciation to boost morale and positive culture.
• Learning agility: Adapting quickly to new information and evolving demands.
• Decisiveness: Making timely, informed choices to propel progress.
• Humility: Acknowledging limitations and valuing contributions from all.
• Inclusivity: Promoting diversity and equitable participation for broader perspectives.

These qualities strengthen a leader's capacities, enabling them to manage broader complexities and scale their influence.

Leadership competencies

Leadership competencies are the observable, teachable skills that determine a leader’s behavioural effectiveness. They operationalise the latent qualities above - translating empathy into conflict resolution, learning agility into strategy shifts, or resilience into adaptive execution. The top-performing frameworks (IMD, 2024; Forbes, 2022) converge on the following ten high-priority competencies for modern leaders:

• Strategic thinking – systems-level foresight and the ability to prioritise amidst complexity.
• Decision-making – fast, coherent, and well-calibrated judgement under uncertainty.
• Change leadership – influencing adoption, managing resistance, and stabilising transitions.
• Relationship building – cultivating trust, rapport, and alliances across stakeholders.
• Communication – conveying intent clearly and listening actively to surface meaning.
• Emotional intelligence – regulating self and interpreting others’ signals to navigate power dynamics and periods of increased stress.
• Team empowerment – enabling autonomy, setting clear expectations, and removing blockers.
• Conflict management – surfacing, confronting, and resolving tensions productively.
• Coaching & mentoring – supporting development through guidance, challenge, and feedback.
• Execution discipline – ensuring follow-through, measuring progress, and iterating under constraint.

Each competency draws power from an underlying set of qualities. For example, successful change leadership requires vision, empathy, and decisiveness. Without those qualities, the competency decays into procedure. This interdependence explains why many competency-building efforts fail: they train actions without cultivating the dispositions that power them.

Improving leadership skills

Improving leadership skills requires targeting both personal attributes and functional capabilities, then reinforcing them through feedback, exposure, and coaching. It’s not enough to “know” how to lead; effective leaders must integrate values (qualities) with techniques (competencies) under pressure, consistently and visibly. This kind of growth doesn’t happen through passive learning. It’s forged in context by engagement in tough conversations, uncertain conditions, and conflicting priorities.

The most efficient way to accelerate this process is to combine structured feedback with applied experimentation with significant volume - reps and feedback loops. A common way to begin is with a 360-degree review to identify high-impact development areas. Focus on two or three competencies tightly linked to your current role (such as change leadership, team empowerment, or conflict management) and deliberately apply them in stretch assignments. Daily reflection, consistent peer input, and structured practice are non-negotiable.

But even with the right tools, many leaders plateau—because self-awareness alone doesn't rewire default patterns. This is where leadership coaching enters as the multiplier. Coaching doesn't just teach skills; it shortens the loop between action and insight. It helps leaders identify where qualities are sabotaging competencies (e.g. low humility undermining feedback receptivity), then build new responses tailored to real situations. In doing so, coaching transforms episodic skill acquisition into sustained behavioural evolution, measurably improving outcomes like strategic clarity, team alignment, and cultural commitment.

What is leadership coaching?

Leadership coaching is a structured, goal-driven partnership between a leader and a qualified coach, designed to elevate leadership capability, self-awareness, and decision-making. It combines evidence-based techniques with tailored feedback to help leaders identify strengths, address development areas, and achieve both immediate and long-term objectives (Leadership Coaching Australia, 2024; BetterUp, 2024).

A leadership coach works as a trusted thinking partner - using behavioural science, reflective questioning, and actionable strategies to unlock potential and improve performance. Unlike generic training, coaching targets the individual’s context, challenges, and goals, making it relevant across industries from corporate management to public sector leadership (CareerMinds, 2024). While leadership coaching focuses on developing capabilities at any level of an organisation, executive coaching typically serves senior leaders and C-suite executives, addressing high-stakes decisions, strategic influence, and organisational impact (Developing Leaders, 2024).

Definition and core principles

To define leadership coaching, it's vital to understand it more broadly as a deliberate developmental journey that cultivates competencies and talents to render individuals more potent leaders. Common definitions of leadership coaching frequently stress its emphasis on behavioural transformation, self-awareness, and strategic sway, setting it apart from conventional training by its potential for cascading benefit throughout an organisation. Beyond mere self-actualisation, leadership coaching yields real practical advantages for companies - up to a 70% surge in individual performance, a 50% increase in team performance, and greatly improved company collaboration, culminating in superior organisational resilience (AU, 2025).

At the essence of efficacious leadership coaching reside several foundational principles, derived from frameworks such as those from the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and leadership authorities;

• Establishing trust and rapport: Crafting a secure, confidential realm where leaders can candidly probe challenges sans judgement, nurturing vulnerability and forthright discourse.
• Active listening and empathy: Coaches prioritise comprehending the leader's viewpoint, employing reflective interrogation to spur self-discovery and emotional intelligence.
• Goal alignment and clarity: Jointly establishing lucid, quantifiable objectives that harmonise with personal values and organisational imperatives, assuring focus and accountability.
• Constructive feedback and challenge: Delivering balanced, evidence-grounded feedback to spotlight blind spots whilst contesting presumptions to incite growth.
• Action-oriented development: Accentuating pragmatic steps, experimentation, and contemplation to transmute insights into tangible behaviours and sustained alteration.
• Ethical integrity and inclusivity: Upholding professional norms, honouring diversity, and preserving objectivity to bolster equitable leadership evolution.
• Holistic and sustainable focus: Tackling the entire person - mindset, skills, and wellbeing - to engender enduring impact rather than ephemeral remedies.

Leadership coaching vs executive coaching

Leadership coaching and executive coaching are intimately linked but diverge in focus, audience, and outcomes.

Leadership coaching, or coaching in leadership, targets anyone in a leadership capacity - from nascent managers to mid-tier supervisors - stressing skill cultivation in domains like team motivation, communication, and adaptability. It advances a coaching approach to leadership, wherein leaders acquire the knack to empower others through counsel and development.

Conversely, executive coaching, encompassing executive leadership coaching, is bespoke for exalted executives such as CEOs, C-suite affiliates, or senior directors. What is executive leadership coaching? It's a specialised variant of coaching that refines strategic cogitation, organisational clout, and performance in intricate, high-stakes milieus, frequently amalgamating facets of executive and leadership coaching but with a keener focus on business strategy and executive presence. For example, whilst leadership coaching might aid a team lead in ameliorating delegation, executive coaching could assist a CEO in manoeuvring board dynamics or mergers.

Pivotal differences include:

• Target audience: Leadership coaching accommodates leaders at various organisational layers, whereas executive coaching is earmarked for the most senior roles.
• Focus areas: Leadership coaching pivots on people management and personal maturation; executive coaching underscores strategic decision-making and organisational repercussion.
• Outcomes: Both offer benefits such as increased self confidence, but executive coaching tends to drive broader changes across the organisation, rather than localised impact.
• Approach: Leadership coaching is more developmental and inclusive, whilst executive coaching is intensive and performance-centric.

Comprehending these distinctions elucidates why organisations might opt for one over the other, contingent on their requisites. This seamlessly segues to probing what a leadership coach does in praxis to yield these results.

What a leadership coach does

A leadership coach functions as a trusted confidant, facilitator, and provocateur, aiding clients in clarifying goals, surmounting hurdles, and forging sustainable habits. They orchestrate one-on-one sessions, proffer objective feedback, and use tools like full-spectrum appraisals to nurture self-awareness and behavioural changes in teams. The best coaches do all this in the context of a leader's operating environment - using current challenges and opportunities to ‘coach around’ so that the coaching is practical and highly relevant.

Core duties of a leadership coach encompass:

• Assessing strengths and gaps: Utilising diagnostics to appraise leadership styles, emotional intelligence, and performance, pinpointing zones for enhancement.
• Setting and aligning goals: Collaborating to delineate SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) objectives that dovetail with personal and organisational priorities.
• Facilitating reflection and insight: Posing potent queries to stimulate profound cogitation, assisting leaders in realising blind spots and reframing challenges.
• Providing feedback and accountability: Tendering candid, constructive input and upholding clients accountable via follow-ups and progress monitoring.
• Developing skills and strategies: Imparting techniques for superior communication, conflict resolution, and team motivation, often through role-playing or real-time coaching.
• Supporting long-term growth: Steering behavioural alterations for abiding impact, such as erecting resilience or augmenting executive presence.

These endeavours not only tackle what a leadership coach does but also magnify the benefits of leadership coaching, such as heightened confidence and productivity. With this comprehension of the role, it's evident why businesses invest in leadership coaching as they receive significant returns on their development endeavours.

Why businesses invest in leadership coaching

Businesses invest in leadership coaching because it delivers transformative results for both individuals and organisations, addressing the critical question of why coaching is important in leadership. In the dynamic landscape of 2025, where rapid technological advancements and hybrid work models demand agile leaders, coaching emerges as a strategic imperative. It not only fosters personal growth but also drives organisational resilience, with studies showing that companies prioritising leadership development initiatives could see up to an 8x return on investment (ThoughtCoach, 2025).

So, why does coaching work? The main reason is that it bridges the gap between knowing and doing, enabling leaders to apply skills effectively in real-time scenarios. By providing personalised guidance that enhances self-awareness, refines decision-making, and builds emotional intelligence, coaching accelerates growth far beyond traditional training. This differs slightly from a more informal mentor-mentee relationship - while mentoring offers wisdom from experience, coaching focuses on actionable strategies and accountability, often integrating elements of both to create comprehensive development pathways. The benefits of leadership coaching are profound, encompassing coaching and leadership development that yield measurable ROI, such as improved productivity and reduced turnover. This investment is particularly vital now, as executive coaching and leadership development help navigate uncertainties like AI integration and economic volatility.

Key benefits for individuals

Leadership coaching offers a multitude of personal advantages that empower leaders to thrive in their roles. One primary benefit is heightened self-awareness, where leaders gain deep insights into their strengths, blind spots, and behavioural patterns through assessments and reflective exercises. This self-knowledge fosters confidence, with up to 80% of participants reporting improved self-assurance, enabling them to lead with authenticity and resilience (Institute of Coaching, 2009).

Another significant gain is enhanced emotional intelligence, crucial for navigating interpersonal dynamics in 2025's diverse workplaces. Coaching helps leaders manage their emotions under pressure, empathise with team members, and build stronger relationships, leading to better communication and conflict resolution. For instance, leaders often learn to shift from reactive to resourceful states, reducing stress and boosting overall wellbeing.

Coaching also sharpens decision-making and strategic thinking, equipping individuals with frameworks to tackle complex challenges. Through scenario-based role-playing and action-oriented plans, leaders develop agility, making them more adaptable to change— a key factor in today's fast-paced environment.

These perks not only elevate personal performance but also position individuals for career advancement, making leadership development coaching a catalyst for long-term success. As these gains ripple outward, the organisational impact becomes evident, amplifying the value of such investments.

Organisational impact

The organisational impact of leadership coaching is substantial, explaining why businesses increasingly view it as a force multiplier for success. By investing in coaching and leadership development, companies cultivate a robust leadership pipeline, ensuring continuity and innovation amid Baby Boomer retirements and evolving market demands. Research indicates that organisations with strong coaching cultures experience 24% higher employee engagement, directly correlating to improved productivity and retention rates (ExecOnline, 2021) - critical in 2025's competitive talent landscape.

Coaching drives cultural transformation, embedding values like inclusivity and agility across teams. Leaders who undergo executive coaching leadership development often foster more collaborative environments, reducing silos and enhancing cross-functional performance. This leads to tangible outcomes, such as a 50% boost in team performance (AU, 2019), as coached leaders better align individual efforts with strategic goals.

Moreover, it mitigates risks associated with poor leadership, like high turnover - up to 34% of employees quit due to ineffective leadership (AIM, 2017). Furthermore, development and leadership coaching often yields impressive returns, with some companies reporting up to a 452% ROI on leadership development through cost savings on recruitment and enhanced decision-making that prevents costly errors (Blanchard Australia, 2019). These impacts underscore why leadership coaching is a strategic priority, benefiting the entire ecosystem.

Who should receive leadership coaching

Leadership coaching is versatile, benefiting a wide spectrum of individuals within an organisation, from emerging talent to seasoned executives. Who should receive leadership coaching? Ideally, anyone in or aspiring to a leadership role, as it tailors development to specific needs and career stages. Emerging leaders, such as newly promoted managers, gain foundational skills in delegation and team motivation, bridging the gap from individual contributor to influential guide.

Here's a structured approach that ranks leadership coaching recipients in descending order of ROI-to-complexity ratio, optimising for a) impact per coaching hour, b) risk of failure without coaching, and c) leverage on organisational outcomes;

1. Senior Executives and CEOs

These leaders have the broadest span of control, highest decision velocity, and most strategic ambiguity. Half of CEOs report feeling isolated in their roles (HBR, 2024) - coaching optimises their cognitive load, emotional regulation, and decision framing under uncertainty. Without it, misalignment at the top cascades through the entire organisation. ROI is maximised because improvements here shift culture, execution, and morale downstream.

2. Newly promoted leaders or first-time managers

This group faces the steepest gradient in identity shift—from technical contributor to people leader. Coaching accelerates role assimilation, prevents early derailment, and builds foundational leadership habits before maladaptive ones take root. Given that 1-in-3 new leaders fail within 18 months without support (HRD, 2005), this is a clear preventive play.

3. High-potential employees (HiPos)

HiPos are succession-critical. They often lack well-rounded leadership acumen, despite strong technical or functional performance. Coaching accelerates their vertical and lateral capability-building while improving retention through perceived investment. Strategic value is future-facing: building the next cohort of senior leadership faster and stronger.

4. Executives in new roles or facing specific challenges

Transition risk is high even for seasoned leaders—new markets, stakeholder environments, or strategic mandates all compound complexity. Coaching compresses the adaptation curve, helping avoid political missteps, cultural mismatches, and initiative drift. It’s also a risk mitigation tool for expensive lateral hires or international rotations.

5. Middle managers and functional leaders

They’re the operational linchpins. While often under-coached, their decisions shape day-to-day execution, morale, and performance. Coaching helps lift them out of execution-only thinking, improves their delegation and feedback loops, and aligns them with strategic priorities. Their coaching ROI tends to manifest through team performance gains and culture diffusion.

This targeted approach maximises ROI, paving the way for understanding the leadership coaching process step-by-step, where these benefits are realised through structured engagement.

The leadership coaching process: step-by-step

The leadership coaching process is a systematic, iterative journey designed to foster meaningful growth, directly addressing queries like how to coach leadership skills and when using coaching as a leadership development tool. In 2025, with increasing emphasis on agile, resilient leadership amid digital disruptions, this process integrates coaching models in leadership to create tailored action plans. It typically unfolds over several months or even years, blending assessment, sessions, feedback, and evaluation to ensure sustained impact.

Coaching as a leadership tool empowers individuals to navigate complexity, while a coaching approach to leadership emphasises collaboration over directive methods. For those wondering how to become a leadership coach, the process itself serves as a blueprint: start with self-assessment, pursue certification through bodies like the International Coaching Federation (ICF, 2025), gain practical experience via mentoring, and build a business by specialising in niches like executive or team coaching. How do you become a leadership coach? Formal training, such as accredited programs from Harvard Professional Development (Harvard, 2025), combined with hands-on practice, is key. Similarly, how to become a certified leadership coach involves completing ICF-approved courses and accumulating client hours. Coaching and mentoring leadership often overlap here, with mentoring providing experiential wisdom to complement coaching's structured techniques. How to start a leadership coaching business? After certification, focus on marketing your expertise, perhaps specialising in coaching situational leadership for adaptive scenarios. Beginning with assessment and goal alignment sets the foundation for this transformative path.

Step 1: Assessment and goal alignment

The initial phase of the leadership coaching process centres on thorough assessment and goal alignment, establishing a clear baseline for development. This step involves evaluating the leader's current skills, strengths, and gaps through tools like 360-degree feedback surveys, personality assessments (e.g., Myers-Briggs, DISC or NeuroPower), and interviews with stakeholders. For aspiring coaches asking how to be a leadership coach, this mirrors self-assessment: reflect on your own competencies via similar tools to identify your coaching style.

Goal alignment follows, where coach and client collaboratively define SMART objectives that resonate with personal aspirations and organisational needs. This ensures buy-in and relevance, often incorporating coaching situational leadership to adapt goals to the leader's context (Cathartic Collaborations, 2025). Common assessments include behavioural inventories or leadership competency frameworks, revealing patterns like over-reliance on autocratic styles.

Key elements in this phase:

• Self-reflection prompts: Leaders journal responses to questions like "What leadership outcomes do I seek?" to uncover motivations.
• Stakeholder input: Gathering anonymous feedback to highlight blind spots, fostering accountability from the outset.
• Alignment check: Ensuring goals support broader business strategies, such as enhancing team innovation in hybrid environments.

This foundational step, typically spanning 1-2 sessions, prevents misalignment and builds trust, transitioning seamlessly into core sessions where principles and techniques come alive.

Step 2: Core sessions, principles, and techniques

Core sessions form the heart of the leadership coaching process, where principles and techniques are applied through regular, interactive meetings—often bi-weekly for 60-90 minutes over 3-6 months. These sessions can often draw on coaching models in leadership, such the GROW, RELISH or SCARF models , which structure discussions to explore current realities and brainstorm solutions. For those exploring how to become a leadership coach, mastering these types of models can be incredibly beneficial.

Principles guiding these sessions include confidentiality, empathy, and action-orientation, ensuring a safe space for vulnerability (LCA, 2025). Techniques vary: role-playing for conflict resolution, visualisation for building vision, or mindfulness exercises to enhance emotional intelligence. Coaching situational leadership adapts techniques to the client's readiness, shifting from directive to delegation-first styles as needed (Mapien, 2024).

In practice, this includes:

• Questioning frameworks: Powerful open-ended questions like "What options haven't you considered?" to spark insight.
• Behavioural experiments: Assigning real-world tasks, such as practising active listening in meetings, with debriefs.
• Integrated mentoring: Blending coaching and mentoring leadership by sharing curated resources or experiences.

These elements accelerate growth, with clients often reporting 50-70% improvements in key skills (ICF, 2023). Feedback and accountability then reinforce these gains, ensuring principles translate into habits.

Step 3: Feedback and accountability

Feedback and accountability are pivotal in the leadership coaching process, providing the mechanisms to track progress and adjust course. This phase involves regular, constructive input from the coach, often drawing on initial assessments to measure shifts in behaviour. For example, using tools like progress journals or follow-up 360-degree reviews, coaches highlight advancements and areas needing refinement (Marshall Goldsmith, 2023).

Accountability ensures commitments are met, with coaches acting as partners who review action steps from previous sessions—asking "What worked, and what didn't?" to overcome barriers. This mirrors coaching as a leadership tool, promoting ownership and resilience. When using coaching as a leadership development tool, incorporating peer accountability circles can amplify results, fostering a supportive network (Vistage Australia, 2025).

Effective practices include:

• Balanced feedback models: Employing SBI (Situation-Behaviour-Impact) to deliver specific, non-judgmental insights.
• Milestone check-ins: Scheduled reviews every 4-6 weeks to celebrate wins and recalibrate goals.
• Digital tools: Apps for tracking habits, enhancing real-time accountability in remote settings.

Clients typically see sustained behavioural changes, with 90% reporting lasting improvements (Blanchard Australia, 2020). This leads naturally to measuring ROI, where qualitative gains meet quantitative validation.

Step 4: Measuring ROI

Measuring ROI in the leadership coaching process quantifies its value, addressing scepticism by linking investments to outcomes. This final phase evaluates impact through metrics like improved performance scores, reduced turnover, or enhanced team productivity.

Qualitative measures include behavioural shifts observed via stakeholder feedback, while quantitative ones track KPIs like revenue growth or project efficiency. Tools like Kirkpatrick's evaluation model assess reactions, learning, behaviour, and results (Kirkpatrick Partners, 2023).

Steps for robust measurement:

• Baseline metrics: Establish pre-coaching benchmarks for key indicators.
• Ongoing tracking: Use dashboards to monitor progress, adjusting for variables like market changes.
• Post-engagement review: Conduct 3-6 month follow-ups to confirm sustained ROI

This data-driven approach validates coaching's efficacy, informing future investments. Understanding how to choose a leadership coaching provider ensures the process aligns with proven, high-impact methodologies.

How to choose a leadership coaching provider

Selecting the right leadership coaching provider is crucial for maximising the benefits of coaching and leadership training, especially in 2025's evolving landscape where hybrid work and AI integration demand adaptable leaders. With leadership coaches charging anywhere from $200 to $1,500 per hour on average (Headway, 2025), and full programs costing $5,000 to $50,000 depending on duration and format, understanding how much leadership coaching costs is essential for maximising impact at any budget. Beyond costs, factors like credentials, program structure, and provider reputation influence the decision.

To find a leadership coach, start with referrals, directories like Noomii or ICF, and targeted searches for coaching and leadership courses.

Key credentials, experience, and coach matching strategies

When choosing a leadership coaching provider, prioritise key credentials and experience to ensure high-quality, ethical guidance. Look for coaches who have a strong track record in coaching and/or executive roles or are accredited by the International Coaching Federation (ICF), which requires rigorous training, client hours, and adherence to standards - programs like those from the Center for Creative Leadership or Hudson Institute are ICF-accredited and highly regarded (Corry Robertson, 2025).

Experience matters: Seek providers with at least 5-10 years in leadership roles, preferably in your industry, as they offer practical insights beyond theory (Forbes Coaches Council, 2024).

Coach matching strategies are pivotal: Reputable providers use assessments or ‘chemistry calls’ to pair clients with coaches based on personality, goals, and style - platforms like BetterUp employ AI-driven matching for compatibility (IGotAnOffer, 2025). Key steps include:

• Credential verification: Confirm ICF or equivalent certification to guarantee ethical practices.
• Experience alignment: Review case studies or testimonials for similar client successes.
• Matching process: Opt for providers offering chemistry sessions or trial meetings to test fit.
• Diversity considerations: Choose coaches experienced in inclusive leadership for broader perspectives.

These elements ensure a tailored fit for individuals, while program structure, duration, and formats help determine practicality and effectiveness in the context of the organisation.

Program structure, duration, and formats

Program structure, duration, and formats vary widely among leadership coaching providers, allowing customisation to fit busy schedules and specific needs. Most programs follow a phased approach: initial assessment (1-2 sessions), core development (ongoing meetings), and evaluation (final reviews) (Culture Amp, 2025).

Duration typically spans 3-12 months, with bi-weekly 60-90 minute sessions; shorter intensives last 6-8 weeks for targeted skills, while executive leadership coaching programs extend to a year for deep transformation (Arden Coaching, 2025). Coaching and leadership courses might be modular, enabling flexibility.

Formats include:

• One-on-one: Personalised sessions, ideal for confidential growth, typically costing between $200-3,000/hr (Arden Coaching, 2025) depending on provider.
• Group coaching: Cost-effective at $100-400 per session (per person), fostering peer learning in cohorts of 4-10 (The Design Coach, 2025).
• Virtual/hybrid: Dominant in 2025, with up to 80% of coaching now provided virtually through online providers (Association for Talent Development, 2025).
• In-person intensives: Retreat-style for immersive experiences, though less common post-pandemic.

Leadership coaching platforms like Torch or Neuro+ blend AI with human elements for scalable, on-demand formats. Institute of Executive Coaching and Leadership (IECL) offers blended programs combining workshops and virtual check-ins. Choose based on your availability and objectives—virtual suits remote teams, while in-person builds deeper rapport. Best leadership coaching providers like Korn Ferry excel in hybrid models for maximum engagement (Korn Ferry, 2025). Evaluating these leads to identifying top providers that align with your vision.

Best leadership coaching providers

In 2025, the best leadership coaching providers stand out for their proven impact and innovative approaches, making them ideal for executive leadership coaching programs and beyond. Top-ranked include the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), renowned for data-driven 360 assessments and global reach, with programs yielding 20-30% leadership improvements. Korn Ferry offers scalable solutions integrating AI for personalised development, reporting 72% higher engagement (Korn Ferry, 2025).

BetterUp is a strong contender in tech-infused coaching, with clients like Google seeing ROI multiples (BetterUp, 2025). John Mattone's programs focus on intelligent leadership, certified and tailored for C-suite, with high client satisfaction (John Mattone, 2025). The Institute of Executive Coaching and Leadership (IECL) excels in Australia, blending neuroscience with practical training for inclusive cultures (IECL, 2025).

Neuro Group focuses on taking this a step further - integrating the latest in neuroscience insight into to really help people understand how their brain works, in order to unlock new ways of thinking. The research-backed NeuroPower™ framework translates neuroscience into six core needs and thirteen behavioural levers, and their Neuro+ leadership coaching platform operationalises those levers through an AI-first product. The result is a coaching system that is faster to adopt, easier to measure, and designed for distributed, fast-changing teams.

For organisations that need leadership growth to show up in real work - meetings, feedback loops, decision moments - Neuro Group is a clear standout.

2025 Trends in leadership coaching

In 2025, leadership coaching trends reflect a shift towards more accessible, technology-driven, and holistic approaches, driven by the demands of hybrid workforces, AI integration, and economic uncertainties in Australia and globally (Deloitte, 2025). As organisations grapple with a) talent shortages in specialised, technical roles, and b) lay-offs and restructuring in others, coaching evolves beyond traditional models to include specialised applications like AI leadership coach, digital leadership coaching, and focused coaching for diverse groups.

Other emerging areas include safety leadership coaching for high-risk industries, change leadership coaching amid transformations, corporate leadership coaching for cultural alignment, high performance leadership coaching for elite teams, conscious leadership coaching emphasising mindfulness, educational leadership coaching in academia, and personalised formats for neurodiverse leaders. These trends highlight a move towards personalised, inclusive development, but they also expose limitations of traditional leadership coaching that innovative providers like Australia's Neuro Group is seeking to address through AI-first solutions.

Limitations of traditional leadership coaching

Traditional leadership coaching, while effective for individual growth, faces several limitations that hinder scalability and impact in modern organisations. High costs - often $25,000-$50,000 per executive programme (Jill Johnson Coaching, 2025) - restrict access to senior levels, leaving mid-tier leaders underserved amid a skills gap where 49% of executives are concerned that their direct reports do not have the right skills to translate and execute their business strategy. (LinkedIn, 2025).

Moreover, traditional models often lack real-time adaptability, relying on periodic feedback that doesn't address immediate challenges like remote team dynamics or AI-driven disruptions. Measurability is another shortfall; without robust data analytics, outcomes remain anecdotal, with 42% of organizations citing inability to measure the impact of coaching as a top obstacle to building a strong coaching culture (ICF via Luisazhou, 2025). In specialised areas like conscious leadership coaching or adhd leadership coaching, generic approaches may overlook nuanced needs, such as neurodiversity accommodations.

A holistic view of leadership development

A strong trend in professional knowledge work is a movement towards a more holistic view of leadership development, emphasising integrating mind, body, and organisational context for sustainable growth. This approach recognises leaders as whole individuals, incorporating elements like emotional intelligence, physical health, and ethical decision-making to combat burnout, which affects 82% of Australian knowledge workers (UiPath, 2024).

In niches like high performance leadership coaching, programmes blend cognitive strategies with wellness practices, yielding 36% productivity gains (DDI World, 2024). Educational leadership coaching applies this by fostering inclusive environments in schools, while corporate leadership coaching embeds values into daily operations for cultural cohesion.

Holistic development also prioritises diversity, with female leadership coaching and executive leadership coaching for women focusing on empowerment and work-life integration, leading to 30-50% higher retention rates (Deloitte, 2023). Providers like Neuro Group exemplify this by combining behavioural science with AI to foster personalised mindset shifts alongside pure skill development, positioning it ahead of traditional firms which, while strong in assessments, lag in tech integration. This comprehensive perspective paves the way for virtual coaching sessions, enhancing accessibility without compromising depth.

Virtual coaching sessions

Virtual coaching sessions have become the norm in 2025, with over 80% of modern leadership coaching delivered online (Association for Talent Development, 2025). Platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams enable real-time interaction, reducing travel costs and increasing participation in remote areas.

Benefits include on-demand access, which suits busy leaders in change leadership coaching or safety leadership coaching, where immediate guidance during crises is vital. Digital tools integrate seamlessly, such as shared screens for role-playing in digital leadership coaching or apps for progress tracking.

However, challenges like screen fatigue are mitigated through shorter, focused sessions and hybrid models combining virtual with occasional in-person intensives (ICF, 2025). Providers like Korn Ferry excel in virtual formats with AI enhancements, but Australian-based Neuro Group stands out by offering seamless, AI-supported virtual experiences that feel personalised and engaging, outperforming global giants in local relevance. This evolution sets the stage for the next frontier: AI-first coaching, where technology amplifies human elements for unprecedented scale.

The next frontier: AI-first coaching

AI-first coaching represents the cutting edge of leadership trends in 2025, leveraging artificial intelligence to deliver scalable, personalised development that traditional methods can't match. This approach integrates AI as a core component, from chatbots providing instant nudges to advanced platforms analysing behavioural data for insights.

Australia's Neuro Group leads in this field by infusing AI with the NeuroPower™ framework, rooted in neuroscience, continuous ethical testing and deep, personalised insights to create truly transformative experiences. Neuro+ stands out among an impressive field, offering cost-effective, ethical AI that outperforms in cultural embedding and rapid ROI, while competitors are still catching up with hybrid AI tools. Exploring the benefits of AI leadership coaching reveals why it's revolutionising the field.

Benefits of AI Leadership Coaching

AI leadership coaching offers unparalleled benefits, democratising access and accelerating growth for leaders. Scalability stands out: platforms support thousands simultaneously at fractions of traditional costs ($29/month versus $500+/hour) enabling broad rollout in corporate leadership coaching or high performance leadership coaching (Neuro Group, 2025).

Measurable ROI comes from built-in tracking, showing behavioural shifts like improved empathy in conscious leadership coaching. Neuro+ excels here, blending AI with human scaffolding for ethical, bias-free guidance, outperforming global providers in inclusivity and coaching model performance. These advantages align with the Neuro+ mission, making it a frontrunner in AI-driven innovation.

The Neuro+ Mission

The Neuro+ mission, from Neuro Group, is to unlock leadership potential and elevate human cognition, through AI infused with the latest behavioural science (courtesy of the NeuroPower™ framework) building mental capacity and aligning daily decisions with long-term strategy. Unlike international giants, which focus on general wellbeing, Neuro+ emphasises neuroscience-backed tools to shift leaders from reactive to resourceful states, fostering resilience in volatile markets.

This positions Neuro+ as a star: its ethically-trained AI ensures bias mitigation and data security, addressing concerns that plague broader platforms . By embedding organisational culture and translating learning into action, it outperforms in corporate and educational leadership coaching, with users reporting up to 30% faster performance gains (Neuro Group, 2025).

How to Get Started

Getting started with AI-first coaching, particularly Neuro+, involves simple steps tailored for organisations seeking efficient onboarding. Begin with a needs assessment: Identify goals like enhancing digital leadership coaching or female leadership coaching via internal surveys. Sign up for a trial - Neuro+ offers a free pilot to test features like real-time insights and custom nudges (Neuro Group, 2025).

Once you have familiarity with the platform, the next step is to train users on leveraging AI for conscious leadership coaching, and set baselines with initial assessments to track progress. Compared to more traditional providers, Neuro+'s low cost and intuitive interface helps reduce setup time, making it ideal for quick adoption and rapid return on investment.

Your First 90 Days

In your first 90 days with Neuro+, expect rapid ROI, setting it apart from slower traditional programmes (Neuro Group, 2025).

• Week 1-4: Baseline and onboarding, building self-awareness and setting goals—users often see 15% mindset shifts immediately.
• Month 2: Engage daily nudges for behavioural experiments, like practising change leadership coaching scenarios, yielding 20% productivity boosts (Neuro Group, 2025).
• Month 3: Review metrics showing tangible outcomes, such as reduced stress in high performance leadership coaching or improved team dynamics.