Leadership Coaching: What To Expect
- Nancy Maher
- Jun 29
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 30
The global coaching industry is now valued at $5.34 billion, with nearly 123,000 active coaches worldwide, according to the 2025 ICF Global Coaching Study, a profession that has grown by more than 50% in six years.
Leadership coaching can seem like a mysterious process if you’ve never experienced it before. Maybe you’ve heard colleagues talk about how coaching helped them become more confident, or perhaps you’re simply curious about what actually happens in a coaching session. This article is designed for leaders who are considering coaching for the first time. We’ll explore what leadership coaching is, what a leadership coach does and what you can expect from the experience.
Contents
What Is Leadership Coaching?
Leadership coaching is a professional development process focused on helping leaders enhance their leadership skills, behaviours, and mindset. Unlike traditional training or mentoring, leadership coaching is a personalised, goal-oriented partnership focused on helping you realise your own potential and navigate specific challenges or objectives. The leadership coach acts as a facilitator, guiding you through self-discovery, goal-setting, and action planning rather than simply telling you what to do. Leadership coaches specialise in working with leaders at all levels, from first-time managers to senior executives, to enhance leadership skills, self-awareness, and overall performance.
The origins of the word “coaching” go back to the idea of transporting someone from where they are to where they want to be, and that’s still at the heart of the process today. Ultimately, leadership coaching is about helping you move forward in a professional context. Progress or growth typically focuses on areas such as communication, decision-making, emotional intelligence, and strategic thinking. The process encourages self-awareness and reflection, enabling more effective navigation of complex situations.
What Leadership Coaching Isn't
Because coaching is still widely misunderstood, it helps to be clear about what it isn't:
It isn't therapy. Coaching looks forward rather than back, focusing on your goals and what you want to change rather than healing past wounds.
It isn't mentoring. A mentor shares their own path and advice. A coach helps you find your own answers.
It isn't consulting. A consultant solves the problem for you. A coach builds your capacity to solve it yourself.
It isn't training. Training delivers set content to a group. Coaching is shaped entirely around you.
🤔 Reflective question: When you pictured coaching, which of these were you actually expecting?
The Leadership Coaching Process: What To Expect
The leadership coaching process typically moves through these stages:
Assessment
Leadership coaches start by understanding your current strengths, challenges, and goals, often using assessments like 360-degree feedback or personality assessments like Everything DiSC® Agile EQ™.
Goal setting
Together, you’ll set clear, measurable goals that align with your leadership aspirations and organisational needs.
Guidance and feedback
Coaches provide honest feedback, support, and practical strategies to help you grow and succeed.
Signposted resources
Once your focus areas are clear, leadership coaches may share resources including books, podcasts or reflection exercises tailored to your needs.
Accountability
A coach provides a level of accountability, supporting you in moving forward with your experiments and exploring your learnings. However, a coach doesn't chase you for homework - you drive the process with the coach by your side.
Skill development
They help you build critical leadership competencies, such as communication, listening skills, giving and receiving effective feedback, emotional intelligence, and decision-making.
Coaching formats
Leadership coaching may take the form of individual 1:1 sessions, group sessions with multiple leaders with similar goals or developmental interests, or a blend of both in a leadership programme.
Leadership 1:1 Coaching Sessions: What To Expect
Frequency: 1:1 leadership coaching sessions vary in frequency, dependent on your need and availability. Typically, they're scheduled monthly, each session lasting around 45 to 90 minutes, depending on the leader's needs.
Format: Sessions can be in-person or virtual, depending on your preference and location.
Structure: Although each session is tailored around your goals and meets you where you are, generally, early sessions tend to focus on assessment and goal setting. Later sessions revolve around reflection, action planning, and progress review.
Support: Between sessions, you may receive additional resources, reflective exercises, check-ins, or assignments to help you stay on track and maintain momentum.
Leadership Group Coaching Sessions: What To Expect
Frequency: Group coaching usually involves monthly sessions, each lasting 90 minutes.
Format: Sessions are often virtual through video calls or in-person, depending on the group’s location and preferences.
Structure: Early sessions focus on group introductions, shared goals, and individual challenges. Later sessions include peer discussions, skill-building exercises, and progress check-ins.
Support: Between sessions, participants often receive recommended books, podcasts, and reflective exercises to help maintain momentum.
Some leadership coaching programmes may integrate both approaches. For example, our signature EMPOWER Leadership Group Coaching Programme includes 1:1 coaching sessions blended with group coaching sessions that are focused on a particular topic.
What a Leadership Coach Does
Now you have a better understanding of what the process typically entails, what can you expect from your leadership coach within the coaching sessions?
A leadership coach will:
Raise awareness
A leadership coach will help deepen your self-awareness, guiding you to uncover insights into your behaviours, thoughts and emotions. This reflective process is the foundation for meaningful growth and change.
🧐 Example: I once coached a leader who had never stopped to notice the inner voices driving her: the harsh critic, the people-pleaser, the part that needed everything to be perfect. In our sessions we named them, what some coaches call the saboteurs (a concept from Shirzad Chamine's Positive Intelligence). Simply naming them and spotting when they showed up was transformational. She could catch a saboteur in the moment, put it back in its box, and choose how she wanted to respond instead.
🤔 Reflective question: Whose voice is loudest in your head when the pressure is on, and is it telling you the truth?
Create safety
Expect your coach to create a judgement-free and confidential space where you can openly explore challenges and opportunities. Sessions are 100% confidential, what you share is not disclosed to your sponsoring manager or anyone else. This creates a space allowing you to be honest and vulnerable, which is essential for genuine progress.
Empower
Your coach will support you in uncovering your own solutions and recognising your inherent strengths and capabilities. Rather than giving you all the answers, a coach helps you realise that you have the resources within yourself to navigate challenges.
Encourage accountability
Prepare to take ownership of your decisions, actions, and outcomes. A leadership coach will encourage you to set clear goals and hold you accountable for following through, fostering a sense of responsibility and momentum.
Incite action
Coaching is about movement. Your coach will emphasise taking purposeful steps, no matter how small, to drive progress toward your goals. Each session typically ends with an action to experiment with before your next session. Action can be anything from reflective work to doing something differently.
Explore options
A coach will focus your attention on exploring choices and solutions, helping you see beyond immediate problems. This opens up new possibilities and encourages creative problem-solving.
Promote growth
Expect to be gently challenged to expand your perspective and step beyond your comfort zone. A good coach will encourage you to try new approaches, question limiting beliefs, and embrace opportunities for development.
Meet you where you are
A leadership coach understands that every leader’s journey is unique. Sessions are tailored to your current situation, goals, and pace, ensuring the experience is relevant and supportive. For example, you may be struggling to even make time for leadership development. See No Time for Leadership Development? Six Strategies to Get The Most Out of It
Coaching Only Works If You Want It
Here's the uncomfortable truth: coaching only works if you genuinely want it, and if you're prepared to do the work between sessions. A coach won't fix you, hand you the answers, or do the thinking for you. The real shifts happen in the gaps between sessions, when you test something out, notice what happened, and come back ready to go deeper.
If you're being sent to coaching rather than choosing it, that's worth naming with your coach early. Being honest about your readiness is the fastest route to getting value from it.
🤔 Reflective question: How ready are you, honestly, to act on what surfaces in a session, not just talk about it?
Questions To Ask Before You Hire a Coach
Choosing the right coach matters more than choosing the right method. Before you commit, ask:
What's your coaching approach, and what training or accreditation do you have?
Have you coached leaders facing challenges similar to mine?
What does a typical engagement look like, and how will we know it's working?
How do you handle confidentiality, especially if my organisation is paying?
What will you expect from me between sessions?
A good coach will welcome these questions. If someone gets defensive, that tells you something too.
Summing Up
Leadership coaching is a confidential partnership built to help you grow into the leader you want to be. Maybe you want to sharpen specific skills, build deeper self-awareness, or work through a particular challenge. A good coach supports you through all of it, creating a safe space where you are encouraged to take action, explore new options, and stretch beyond your comfort zone. With the right coach, you will not only reach your goals but also discover new possibilities for yourself and your team.
Ready to experience leadership coaching for yourself?
