Leaders and a Coaching Mindset
My friend and colleague Kerri Sutey wrote a nice article for Forbes entitled Transformational Leadership in 2025 – Why Embracing a Coaching Mindset is Key to Success. Here’s her LinkedIn post that shares a condensed version of the article.
I appreciate what Kerri is saying, and I agree with her points.
I want to add a “Yes, and…” to the article that I think is equally important to her points.
That is, I don't want leaders to fall into the trap of being too—
Professionally Coachy,
Asking too many questions,
Being too abstracted from the technical or business domains, and
Leaning too far back and not being in the arena with their teams.
This is a problem that Agile Coaches have suffered when they've been told to or decided to lean too far into "professional coaching"
Leaders have enough challenges to overcome without falling into this trap!
Could Today’s Leaders Benefit from Professional and Agile Coaching Skills?
If this is Kerri’s primary point, I wholeheartedly agree.
Yes! Yes, they can!
However, they also need to develop a myriad of skills outside of professional coaching. And using these skills probably takes priority in many situations over coaching skills.
For example, today’s leaders must be able to lead in VUCA environments, be comfortable with continuous change, understand how to lead distributed, multi-generation, and cultural teams, and get on the field (the Arena) with their teams as appropriate.
They need to know when it’s time to lean back (coach) as a leader and lean forward (lead from the front) as a leader.
And the list of requisite skills goes on.
Kerri, thanks for bringing coaching into leadership. I guess I’m emphasizing the reverse—bringing leadership experience into coaching.
Stay agile, my friends,
Bob.
Bob, you surfaced a critical point:
Professional coaching skills alone will not meet the moment.
Leaders must still earn trust through technical credibility, decisive action, and real-world execution.
A team will not follow a leader who can ask the right questions but cannot lead them through the fire.
Professional coaching is not a replacement for leadership.
It is a force that makes leadership stronger.
The highest-performing leaders know when to:
• Coach for ownership
• Mentor for skill
• Command for clarity
• Decide for velocity
This is not about toggling between postures.
It is about embodying human development and operational excellence; simultaneously, relentlessly, and without excuse.
Professional coaching, when done right, does not weaken leadership.
It turns leadership into a sharper, more resilient weapon.
Thanks for pushing this conversation forward.
The future does not belong to those who pick between coaching or leading.
It belongs to those who can do both, with excellence, under pressure, at scale.
We are not lowering the bar.
We are raising it; for ourselves, for our teams, and for what leadership must become.