The Power of Coaching

In today's ever-evolving landscape, leadership is both an opportunity and a challenge. Leaders stand in the spotlight, bearing the weight of expectations from teams, peers, customers, and possibly a board. In order to have long-term impact, you must be receptive to adjusting to the changing societal and economic conditions while maintaining your values and integrity. This is no easy feat; some call it the burden of leadership, especially with the stakes so high and working lives so public. A coach can help carry that burden and support a leader to make informed, intentional steps in their leadership journey.

We’ve seen the transformative power of coaching too many times not to be believers. That’s what led Jacquelyn Lane, Marshall Goldsmith, and I to write our book Becoming Coachable. A successful coaching engagement will not only change a leader’s life—it will also impact people the leader lives, works, and engages with, and so on. Many times, coaching is the stone that leaders need to create the ripples in their pond, lake, or ocean. 

The outcome of the coaching engagement is dependent on two main factors: The quality of the coach and the coachability of the leader. A strong leader engaged with a subpar coach who doesn’t hold the right skillset to encourage real change won’t see game-changing results. A superb coach engaged with a leader who is resistant to the hard work and change required throughout the coaching process won’t see much movement. Back to our analogy: Toss a small pebble into a pond, and it may make a barely discernible splash. When a heavier stone is tossed, there’s no telling how far its ripples will go. 

These days, the stakes of those ripples are higher than ever. Recently, the 100 Coaches Community held our annual gathering in Nashville, and were immensely grateful to hear from one of the most preeminent healthcare leaders in the country. This leader is someone who is driving real change in the push for treatment of catastrophic diseases, including prioritizing the democratization of life-saving research and therapies worldwide. 

This leader stressed the importance of coaching in high-stakes environments—such as hospitals and research centers—in which leaders are required to balance difficult decisions with very real, life-changing results. This is one field in which the power of good leadership, fueled by a strong coaching relationship, can be seen and felt far and wide, by both colleagues of the leader and the families they touch on a daily basis. 

Over our collective decades of experience in the industry, we’ve come to learn the power of stellar leadership, and we know it takes partnership, guidance, openness, and hard work to get there. We've borne witness to many leadership metamorphoses, owing to the synergy between a dedicated coach and an open-minded leader. We're optimistic about witnessing many more such transformations.

Whether you have yet to be coached, are in the process of becoming coachable, or have been coached for many years: We want to hear from you. How has coaching influenced your leadership?

With love, gratitude, and wonder,

Scott, Jacquelyn, & Marshall

We discuss the power of coaching at length in our new book, Becoming Coachable, available now for preorder on Amazon.

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