The Other 50%: How Executive Coaching Falls Short

As uber coach Marshall Goldsmith so famously wrote: what got you here, won’t get you there. It’s no secret that, once foundational leadership skills are in place, it’s not ‘what’ leaders do that get in their way, it’s ‘how’ they do it. With ‘relationship with my manager’ continuously topping the list of why people leave organizations and Gallop surveys repeatedly pointing to low levels of employee engagement worldwide, executive coaching has become the go-to strategy to strengthen leadership capability. But are we seeing the return on this investment? Recent studies by Deloitte, McKinsey, and Bain point out a lack of leadership capability and bench strength as continuing to be the top issues that are keeping senior executives up at night. This session will explore where executive coaching falls short and how organizations can improve their ROI by looking beyond the work of the coachee to the broader organizational system. It’s time to move from the individual to the collective when it comes to coaching as a developmental tool.


Each year, companies funnel billions of dollars into the executive coaching industry to help their leaders adapt to new expectations, but increasingly these efforts are falling short. What is getting in the way? The root of the problem is an overemphasis on individual accountability and an under-emphasis on the critical role of stakeholder support. In our session, we will introduce a coaching model that provides a clear road map for how to move from an individual view of leadership development through coaching to a collective approach that builds a strong internal coaching culture. We’ll explore how internal coaches can better support behavior shifts in leaders and share the critical success factors for building action plans that drive accountability and results.