What Is Leadership Coaching?

Leadership coaching helps prepare individuals and teams with the skills necessary to lead businesses, keep up with the fast pace of workplace changes, and manage obstacles for personal and professional development and growth. It may be the key to fighting disengagement in the workplace and improving retention, productivity, and morale. Coaching can make companies more competitive, with management and executive teams that are resilient and more capable of withstanding change.

Some businesses hire internal coaches, while others partner with external leadership coaches. In either case, the demand for skilled professionals grows as many companies look to coaching programs to support their employees and boost productivity. 

Continue reading to explore leadership coaching and the various forms it may take, along with its benefits and how you can break into the field.

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Types of leadership coaching 

Leadership coaching helps people become better leaders. However, it doesn’t only benefit people directly from the receiving end of the coaching sessions. It also can indirectly benefit everyone who works with them. When it comes to different types of leadership coaching, you can break it down into two main categories: Coaching types and coaching formats. 

Coaching types

Leadership coaching types vary depending on the intended client and the coaching focus. Examples include:

• Executive coaching: Focuses on upper management, including those in the C-level

• Business coaching: Focuses on performance for varying management levels

• Strategic coaching: Encourages creative thinking to help overcome obstacles

• Behavioral coaching: Focuses on leaders’ mindsets and behavior patterns

• Targeted coaching: Coaching based on specific needs, such as skill development

Coaching formats

In addition to providing various services, leadership coaching can take one or more formats. Examples include: 

• One-on-one: Coaches meet individually with clients, creating a partnership and directly addressing that individual's needs.

• Peer coaching: This leadership coaching format involves a coaching relationship between two or more colleagues who provide support, feedback, and suggestions to each other.

• Group coaching: This quickly growing format typically involves two or more people, often those on the same team, meeting with a coach to work toward common aspirations.

What is leadership coaching used for? 

Leadership coaching provides professional development, giving the people on the receiving end guidance on building relationships, improving self-confidence, and ultimately improving performance. Leadership coaching helps individuals and teams build managerial skills and helps engage people in developing their skill sets and learning how to use them effectively. It also helps accelerate leaders' path to success and boost their ability to guide others. 

Leadership coaching can help drive organizational success, transforming individuals and teams and empowering them. It can prepare and infuse existing leaders with new life and excitement, teaching them some of the latest management skills and helping them overcome obstacles. It also allows people to move into new roles, grow with the company, and achieve long-term results. 

Typical leadership coaching clients

As a leadership coach, you might work with all types of clients or specialize in a specific area, such as team building, sales coaching, or change leadership. Alternatively, you could specialize in coaching particular types of leaders, demographics, or people working in specific industries.

Coaching clients could include: 

• Members of the C-suite (CEOs, CHROs, CIOs, COOs, CFOs)

• Executives (existing or new)

• First-time leaders moving into management roles

• Employers with leadership potential in need of professional development

• Underrepresented demographics and groups

Benefits and challenges of leadership coaching

Leadership coaching is an essential practice with various benefits. The primary one is that leadership coaches support effective leaders, which boosts personal and professional development and strengthens businesses. However, if you’re considering working as a leadership coach or building an executive coaching career, you will likely face some challenges. 

Leadership coaching benefits

When companies leverage the power of leadership coaching as part of the professional development of supervisors, managers, and other types of leaders and potential leaders, advantages include:

• Improved company performance and faster achievement of goals

• Stronger leadership skills among current and potential leaders

• Helps leaders establish healthy habits and a work-life balance 

• Encourages self-reflection, strengthens resilience, and challenges limiting behaviors and beliefs

• Helps maximize individual strengths and create cohesive teams 

• Provides clarity and a neutral perspective to aid leaders in coping with and overcoming challenges and obstacles

• Enhanced confidence and decision-making abilities

• Boosts motivation and engagement while increasing innovation

Leadership coaching challenges

While the benefits can be remarkable, coaching also has some challenges. For example, leadership coaches may exacerbate problems without proper training and potentially miss a leader's need for psychological support. 

Additional challenges may include:

• Overcoming clients' resistance and quickly gaining respect to establish a strong rapport based on trust 

• Difficulty managing conflict effectively, both among clients and their peers and between yourself and your clients

• Leaders may forget what they learn during leadership coaching sessions unless they have opportunities to put it into practice.

• The need to establish realistic goals and expectations and maintain confidentiality

How to build a career as a leadership coach 

Although there is no single defined path toward this career, it shares many characteristics with other life coaching positions. It requires a combination of training and skills. Education, experience, and certification can give you the credentials and expertise to launch a successful coaching career. 

Do you have the desire to help others reach their potential, provide opportunities for professional development, and provide a supportive, safe environment that encourages self-reflection? A career in leadership or executive coaching may be a good match. But first, you need to develop experience, knowledge, and skills you can parlay into the advice and guidance you’ll provide your clients. 

The following sections explore the credentials and skills that can help you build your coaching career.

Educational requirements

Although the industry doesn’t define any formal requirements, you will typically need a bachelor’s degree at a minimum. Earning your bachelor’s in business or psychology can help you start your career. However, an advanced degree may open the door to more job options and a stronger salary.  

Certification

Not all employers require certification. Still, earning credentials as a leadership coach can help demonstrate your skills and expertise. It’s a way of providing employers and clients with concrete evidence of your mastery of the principles and ethics involved in the practice. 

During training for leadership coaching certification, you'll be able to advance your skills and unlock the door to improved credibility. In turn, you may have more opportunities and earn a higher salary. Typical certifications require some professional experience and passing an exam. Depending on the certification, you will likely need to renew it periodically and engage in continuing education.

Some popular leadership coaching certifications include: 

• Professional certified coach (PCC), International Coaching Federation

• Master certified coach (MCC), International Coaching Federation

• Certified professional coach (CPC), College of Executive Coaching

• Advanced certified professional and executive coach (ACPEC), College of Executive Coaching

Coaching experience

You might start in the business world, gaining professional experience in the workplace and, eventually, as a leader. Doing so can help you grasp your future clients' situations and circumstances. You could also consider working as a career coach for a time, which helps hone your ability to coach others. Ultimately, your professional experience should strengthen your knowledge and skill set to serve your clients better. 

Skills 

Your education and credentials provide tangible evidence of your work preparing for your career. During that preparation, you will learn essential skills such as: 

• Robust knowledge of what it takes to lead an organization in addition to working with organizational systems

• Leading leadership and professional development programs 

• Ability to manage your own emotions and remain professional even amid high-pressure circumstances

• Experience working as part of a C-suite team or prior coaching experience on that level

• Capability to adjust communication styles as needed to meet client needs

• Emotional intelligence with the ability to guide teams and individuals in sharpening interpersonal skills and leadership strategies

Job outlook and the average leadership coaching salary 

The job outlook is promising if you’re considering becoming a leadership coach. Data from the International Coaching Federation revealed a 54% increase in coaching practitioners worldwide between 2019 and 2022 [1]. This information suggests that the ongoing demand for leadership and executive coaches is partly driven by the changes brought about by COVID-19 and the shifting needs of the workplace.

According to Glassdoor, leadership coaches make an average base pay of $93,535 in the US. The potential for making commissions, bonuses, and other additional compensation brings the average total income to $124,808 [2]. Similarly, executive coaches in the US make a base pay of $188,829, with additional compensation bringing the average total pay to $326,050 [3].

Taking the next step with Coursera

Promote leadership skills throughout your organization by developing employees who innovate and inspire. With the Leadership Academy from Coursera, employees can learn the skills needed to lead your business into the future. With Coursera for Business, you’ll build effective managers at every level with beginner and advanced-level leadership content, including 40+ SkillSets to drive soft skill proficiency across the entire organization.  

Be a Leader, Develop a Leader, a five-hour course offered by Case Western University on Coursera. It can help learners understand concepts like business psychology and change management to improve their ability to support other leaders. Conversations That Inspire: Coaching Learning Leadership and Change from Case Western University or Managing as a Coach from UC Davis to develop coaching skills further. 

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