Executive coaching: when it helps, and when it does not

A manager is given responsibility for a larger function. She knows the sector, has a solid track record and understands what she ought to do: give her direct reports more space, intervene only on priorities, and engage with senior leadership. Yet she continues to correct documents late at night and postpones conversations where she needs to take a stand. She does not lack an understanding of delegation. What she finds difficult is relinquishing the control through which, until now, she has felt reliable.

It is in situations like this that an executive coaching process can be useful. The work focuses on how the person performs in their role: what they do under pressure, the decisions they avoid, and the relationships they tend to manage in a recurring pattern. The subject matter of the process is real-world episodes, not an abstract idea of leadership.

The role changes, but habits remain

A promotion to manager, an expansion of responsibilities or a professional transition can render previously effective behaviours less so. A willingness to solve any problem can become micromanagement. A desire to maintain good relationships can lead to avoiding necessary feedback. Caution, in front of more senior stakeholders, can result in one's contribution having little visibility.

Managerial coaching allows for the continuous examination of these moments: what happens in a difficult meeting, what interpretation guides the reaction, what different behaviour can be attempted at work. Then, the focus returns to what happened. A well-formulated intention has little value if, at the first sign of pressure, the person reverts to their previous habits.

No executive works in a neutral system

An executive operates within power dynamics, overlapping priorities, more senior stakeholders, informal areas of influence, decisions they do not control and constraints beyond their influence. A superior who delegates formally but continues to intervene in the details; a function that depends on other areas to deliver its results; a formal responsibility that is broader than the actual autonomy. To attribute every difficulty to the individual while ignoring all this is unhelpful and unrealistic.

In the coaching process, the context is not kept out: it is brought into the work. It becomes the setting in which to observe how the manager interprets events, which reactions they tend to repeat, where they lose clarity, when they avoid confrontation or use ineffective levers. A difficult conversation with a senior stakeholder who questions the role, a delegation that fails to take off, a meeting in which one's position is overruled—these reveal more than any abstract description of leadership style.

It is precisely the most difficult situations that serve as a training ground. In these moments, one can practise a new way of inhabiting the role: reading the landscape more effectively, choosing the right moment, holding a position without becoming rigid, and managing dissent. There is no training ground separate from the work: the work itself is the training ground.

What depends on the person, and what on the system

A useful process helps to make this distinction. If a difficulty also stems from the role's design, from power dynamics, or from the organisational structure, it may be appropriate to supplement coaching with a consultative analysis of the context. This is not to tell the manager what to do in every situation, but to help them understand what they can change directly, what they can influence, and what they must learn to manage with clarity. Without this step, organisational limits can turn into personal judgements: micromanagement is explained away as insecurity, the struggle to be heard as a communication issue.

If the issue is also organisational, coaching alone may not be enough. It is possible to work on the individual even within an imperfect context, without holding them responsible for fixing what they do not control. A manager who is too operational, for example, may hold on to tasks out of habit, or because no one else can handle the workload. Before working on their difficulty with delegation, it is necessary to examine the system that has made them indispensable. Sometimes the work involves clarifying the mandate with senior leadership, or rethinking delegation at a higher level; at other times, it involves making the manager aware of the scope they actually have, so they can use it more effectively.

A recognisable objective in the work

A useful objective could be to tackle a conversation that has been postponed for months, to advocate for a proposal in front of opposing stakeholders, or to let a direct report make a decision without taking it back at the first mistake. These are observable changes, to be assessed in their real-world context, without promising an identical outcome for everyone.

The process requires a willingness to question one's own contribution to situations, not just that of others. When this willingness exists and the role provides scope for action, coaching can support tangible change. When the context also requires a different kind of intervention, the work involves both the person who must operate within it and those who define it.