TL;DR: Leadership challenges don’t always show up as obvious performance problems. They can appear as unclear expectations, weak accountability, recurring conflict, overdependence on managers or difficulty leading through change. Leadership coaching gives leaders dedicated time to work through these challenges while developing the capabilities they need to lead more effectively.
Organizations don’t usually decide they need leadership coaching because everything is going well. More often, something has started to shift. A manager is struggling with a growing team. Communication isn’t as effective as it used to be. Accountability is inconsistent. A capable employee has been promoted into leadership and is discovering that leading people requires a very different skill set.
None of these automatically means someone is a poor leader. Leadership responsibilities change as organizations and teams grow, and the capabilities that helped someone succeed in one role may not be enough for the next.
Leadership coaching can provide a place to work through those challenges while developing practical skills that can be applied on the job. Here are five signs it may be worth considering.
1. Accountability Is Inconsistent
When accountability is weak, leaders often find themselves repeatedly following up, stepping in to solve problems or carrying responsibilities that should belong elsewhere on the team. Employees may be unclear about what they own, deadlines can slip and difficult performance conversations may be postponed.
The challenge isn’t always that people don’t want to be accountable. Sometimes expectations haven’t been made clear. In other cases, a manager may be uncomfortable addressing missed commitments or may unintentionally take responsibility back when an employee struggles.
Leadership coaching can help managers examine their role in that dynamic. That might include becoming clearer about expectations, improving delegation, addressing performance concerns sooner or learning how to hold someone accountable without taking over the work themselves.
2. Communication Problems Keep Resurfacing
Most teams will experience misunderstandings and disagreement. The concern is when the same communication problems continue to surface without being resolved. Leaders may avoid difficult conversations because they don’t want to create conflict, or approach them so directly that the other person becomes defensive. Information may not flow effectively between departments. Employees may leave meetings with different understandings of what was decided. Over time, relatively small communication problems can begin affecting trust and collaboration.
Coaching gives leaders an opportunity to look at their own communication patterns and consider how they might approach conversations differently. Developing stronger listening skills, adapting communication to different people and becoming more comfortable with productive conflict can change how a leader handles these situations in the moment.
3. The Manager Has Become the Bottleneck
A leader can have a highly capable team and still find themselves involved in almost every decision. Questions come back to them. Problems wait for their input. Work slows down when they’re unavailable.
This often happens to people who were strong individual contributors before becoming managers. Their expertise helped them advance, so when something needs to be done, jumping in can feel efficient. In the short term, it often is. Over time, however, the team can become increasingly dependent on the manager. Developing as a leader means learning when to provide direction and when to create space for someone else to think, decide and take ownership. Leadership coaching can help managers strengthen delegation and coaching skills while becoming more intentional about where their involvement adds value.
4. A Strong Performer Is Struggling with the Move into Leadership
Promoting someone because they’re excellent at their job makes sense, but being technically strong doesn’t automatically prepare someone to lead people.
New managers suddenly find themselves responsible for things they may never have had to do before, including:
- Providing useful feedback
- Delegating work and responsibility
- Navigating conflict and difficult conversations
- Motivating and engaging different people
- Holding others accountable
- Managing their own priorities while being responsible for the performance of a team
This is one of the reasons we distinguish between doing the work and leading the work. New and emerging leaders often benefit from development while they’re making that transition rather than waiting until problems become established habits.
One-on-one leadership coaching gives them a confidential place to bring real situations they’re encountering, consider different approaches and practise applying new leadership skills as their responsibilities grow.
5. Leaders Are Having Difficulty Navigating Change
Change puts leadership capability under pressure. A new structure, rapid growth, different expectations or a shift in organizational direction can create uncertainty even when the change itself makes good business sense. Leaders play an important role in how employees experience those transitions. They need enough clarity to explain what’s happening, listen to concerns, make decisions when not everything is known and help people understand what the change means for their work.
A leader who is struggling with the change personally may find it difficult to provide that clarity to others. Coaching creates space to work through those challenges, understand what is within the leader’s control and determine how to communicate and lead more effectively through the transition.
Coaching Should Be Connected to the Leader’s Real Work
Leadership development is most useful when it connects directly to what a leader is experiencing. A manager doesn’t necessarily need another abstract lesson on delegation if they’re currently struggling to hand off responsibility to a specific employee. They may need an opportunity to examine why they’re holding on, determine what effective delegation would look like and then try a different approach.
That’s how X5 approaches Leadership Development Coaching. Our framework looks at development across Leading Self, Leading Others and Leading the Organization, with coaching grounded in the situations the leader is actually navigating.
Depending on the leader and their role, coaching might focus on:
- Leading Self: self-awareness, emotional intelligence, focus and personal accountability
- Leading Others: communication, delegation, coaching, conflict and accountability
- Leading the Organization: influence, leading change, decision-making and strategic thinking
The focus will be different for every leader because development should reflect both the individual and what their role requires.
When Should You Consider Leadership Coaching?
You don’t need to wait for a leadership problem to become serious before introducing coaching. It can be equally valuable when someone is stepping into a new role, taking on a larger team or being prepared for greater responsibility. The common thread is a gap between what the role now requires and the leadership capabilities or habits someone currently relies on. Coaching provides dedicated time to work on that gap while the leader continues doing the real work of leading.
X5 Management’s Leadership Development Coaching is designed for supervisors, managers and developing leaders who want to strengthen their leadership capability through confidential one-on-one coaching and practical application.
Seeing some of these signs within your organization? Let’s talk.
About the Author
Kris Schinke, MBA, is VP Integration and a Leadership Coach with X5 Management. She works with leaders and teams to strengthen leadership capability, improve communication and turn development into practical action. Her coaching focuses on helping leaders build greater self-awareness, strengthen how they lead others and develop the capabilities they need as their responsibilities grow.
Exclusive Insights for Growth—Join Our Newsletter!
