"The best coaches don't just keep time—they create time for growth"
We often develop the most as leaders when we're least expecting it. As an industrial organizational psychologist who has spent decades studying what makes leaders thrive, I've discovered that some of my most meaningful takeaways intersect with my own growth journey.
The Unexpected Leadership Coaching Laboratory
Hindsight has a way of illuminating patterns we couldn't see in the moment. Let's journey back a few decades to my own pre-school days. Playdates were usually orchestrated by well-meaning parents, and I vividly remember my mother's suggestion that I "exchange phone numbers" with other children. At five years old, I interpreted this literally—thinking I should tell my friends to call someone else instead of me. Once mom clarified the operational definition of "exchanging numbers," the real learning began.
What happened next became a simple but powerful lesson in leadership, coaching and just taking care of people. To get right to the point - apparently, I was politely declined future playdates. Mom was told I was "too bossy." Keep in mind this was a few decades before we started to question the validity of giving that label to girls - but I'm confident the judgment was accurate. I was an only child. We lived far away from extended family and up to that point pre-school was my main way of connecting with kids my own age.
Mom's solution to this was simple. A good playdate, like any productive work meeting, shouldn't last form ore than two hours. We set the microwave timer twice, each for an hour. For the first hour, my guest would give direction and control our activities. She could choose —arts and crafts, dolls, computer games, or anything else available. I was to act as the gracious host, ensuring she knew all her options while yielding decision-making authority entirely to her. When disagreements arose about Barbie's career choices or wardrobe decisions, I was to defer to my guest's preferences.
During the second hour, roles reversed. I could direct our activities, but with a crucial caveat: I needed to ensure my guest was genuinely enjoying herself (with as much emotional intelligence as is possible from a four-or five- year-old).
I'd suggest we pretend to be co-executives at important companies—usually involving fashion, toys, or "being the boss of a hospital" (my number one career aspiration at age five, thanks to St. Elsewhere).
The Science Behind the Coaching
What my mom intuitively understood on her own connects with the science and practice of coaching and developing effective leaders.
The playdate intervention worked because it addressed the foundation of leadership: taking care of people. Leaders need to be the answer people need in the moment. Her 'intervention' was as simple as it was brilliant. It directed my learning and focus to the core behaviors that make a good leader, host, and friend. These behaviors lay the groundwork for building trust. Her actions allowed me to support a 'successful playdate' in a way that supported my own authentic behavior. She could have mandated specific behaviors, or arranged activities for us, but instead gave me the guidance and set expectations that allowed my time and relationship with my friend to flourish. If we switch to a work context, we know that coaching and leadership that supports our true values, interests, and ways of working drive not just results but retention, team connection, and well-being.
The timer wasn't just a clever parenting tool—it was a coaching mechanism that forced me to practice what we now call situational leadership. A host takes on the role of leader in a lot of ways and over the two-hour playdate how I led depended on the needs of my guest. By alternating between supporting and directing roles, all while focused on the enjoyment and experience of others, I received a micro-lesson in emotional intelligence.
The Leadership Development (+ Trust) Crisis
Today's organizations face a stark reality: over three hundred billion dollars is spent annually on coaching and developing leaders. Earning the trust and commitment of the workforce, however, remains a consistent challenge. This means it's probably not the investment but our focus and approach. If we ask enterprise leaders about their key goals culture and innovation come out on top. But our development efforts fall short of building the core interpersonal and team building skills that make those transformations possible.
Employees not only crave more immediate and personalized support for learning and growth but require it to build the skills needed to tackle skill shortfalls. Let's think back to childhood again. Consider how quickly we act when we're parenting or coaching children. Surely we can apply some of the same urgency (and consistency!) to how we lead and support developing leaders. Adult leaders and children are both seeking to learn and overcome old mindsets and behaviors. Both groups can grow faster with quick support, coaching, and instant feedback loops.
Evidence-Based Leadership Development: Moving Beyond Intuition
The rewards of investing in coaching and development are high. Large studies find ROI for companies investing in coaching and development can reach or exceed seven times the initial investment. The key word there is can: more than half of leadership development programs fail to deliver results. Why do some leadership development initiatives succeed while others fail?
Let's look at the participants: those being coached and participating in leadership development. When asked what they need the most communication tops the list of areas for growth. For nearly half of coaching participants it's their primary focus.
We're probably losing sight of basic skill-building in areas like communication in pursuit of big picture outcomes. We're eager to build resilience and potential to adapt to change and innovation but it's hard for that to happen without if communication and the basics of relationship building fall short. The top-line results we're seeking start by strengthening the fundamentals:
- Adaptability: Leaders know how and when to switch roles and adapt to the situation. We pivot and adapt to support others.
- Building systems and spaces for creativity: Like the anecdote from my childhood, we build in systems for learning and sharing that nurture creative thought.
- Transparency: Clear structure and expectations, like those set in my story, eliminate ambiguity about roles and responsibilities
The Coaching Methodology That Works
We know coaching should start before there's a problem we need to correct. Areas like appreciative inquiry and positive organizational psychology provide clear evidence for both maximizing strengths as we tackle opportunities. Organizations are expanding their culture for coaching culture by connecting it to the employee experience.
If we think about how we've developed throughout our lives, not just at work, we can find some key takeaways for coaching and developing ourselves and our teams as leaders.
1. Clear Structure and Boundaries
I joked that a good playdate is like a good meeting in that it doesn't last more than two hours. Boundaries and time matter. The two-hour timeframe my mom came up with provided clear roles and expectations. With coaching, we know we gain the most benefit from regularly scheduled engagements we can count on, with a program lasting about six months on average. The first step of any successful learning and development engagement is setting expectations and ensuring everyone is on the same page with the timeline and responsibilities.
2. Immediate Feedback and Adjustment
Mom responded with urgency to feedback from other children (through their parents) on my 'playdate performance.' Coaching in the moment is key. When building coaching engagements, or development opportunities, consider how feedback can be maximized.
3. Skill Transfer and Application
Undoubtedly you can recall key moments and lessons from your own childhood and adolescence that cemented lessons for how you treat people, lead, and serve today. Those lessons influenced your mindset and practice as an adult. Unfortunately a too often overlooked consideration is considering how will participants apply what they learn in practice. A senior leader I worked with recently set specific expectations for each leader to share how specific strategies and techniques were applied each month and the results from those applications. The accountability and specificity of this approach makes sure everyone is aware if progress falls short. Only about 20 percent of training or behavior change initiatives are successful. Not planning for, or measuring, how learning transfers keeps our failure rate high.
Play, Learning, and Growth
Now, what if we could take parts of how we learned as kids and use them to maximize growth? Many of the most successful coaching and development programs involve embracing a new role, sharing something new, and going back to what helped us grow as young people.
1. Reverse Mentoring Programs
Create structured opportunities for senior leaders to learn from junior employees. Implement reverse mentoring programs that intentionally pair high-potential emerging talent with experienced leaders in a formal framework. These programs facilitate candid, two-way learning—providing senior leadership vital insights into evolving workplace culture, technology adoption, and frontline employee experience, while empowering junior employees to contribute to strategic dialogue and organizational evolution. Establish regular sessions with defined objectives, clear expectations, and mutual feedback mechanisms to maximize impact and ensure that both leaders and mentees benefit from diverse perspectives. This approach not only bridges generational gaps but also fosters agility, inclusivity, and innovation by connecting decision-makers directly to the real-time challenges and aspirations of their teams.
2. Leadership Rotation Exercises
Design team projects so that leadership responsibilities intentionally rotate in a structured sequence—ensuring every team member has the opportunity to both lead initiatives and actively support others. This cyclical approach encourages individuals to experience the demands, challenges, and rewards intrinsic to both leadership and collaboration. By systematically shifting roles, participants build agility, empathy, and a deepened appreciation for effective followership as well as stewardship. These exercises deliberately mirror real workplace dynamics, fostering balanced development of strategic influence, communication, and accountability. Over time, such intentional leadership rotation generates a culture of shared ownership and continuous learning, equipping teams to respond with greater adaptability and cohesion to evolving business needs.
3. Coaching Skills Development
Organizations are developing leaders and managers at all levels to be coaches. To maximize impact, implement comprehensive programs that equip all leaders—not just those in the C-suite—with essential coaching skills. Focus on strengthening core capabilities such as active listening, thoughtful question-asking, and the delivery of supportive, constructive feedback. These are the competencies that enable leaders to facilitate growth, build trust, and respond adaptively to team needs, much like the principles I internalized during my earliest lessons as a (more) gracious host. A coaching-centric culture where every manager is empowered to guide, support, and uplift reinforces a thriving environment for continuous performance improvement and team connection.
4. Real-Time Performance Feedback
Nearly all employees (94%) prefer real-time feedback to formal reviews. Establish proactive systems that enable immediate, in-the-moment behavioral coaching—resembling the way my mother would step in promptly and thoughtfully when playdates started to unravel. These systems should empower leaders and managers to recognize and address challenges or teachable moments as they arise, delivering real-time feedback and support that aligns behaviors with organizational values and expectations. Just as swift parental intervention can turn a potential conflict into a developmental milestone, structured coaching touchpoints help ensure that feedback and course correction aren’t reserved for annual reviews or after issues escalate, but instead are embedded as part of everyday interactions. By cultivating an environment where constructive feedback is both timely and routine, organizations can accelerate the development of essential leadership capabilities—fostering continuous improvement, deeper trust, and a culture of accountability across the team.
Measuring Leadership Development ROI
The question every CHRO asks is: how do we measure leadership development effectiveness?
Consider measuring ROI with both leading (behavior) and lagging (retention, sales, key business metrics) indicators. Here's a list of behaviors to consider measuring pre-and-post coaching and development:
- Behavioral Flexibility: Can leaders adapt their style and approach to the needs of different situations?
- Emotional Regulation: Do they maintain composure under pressure?
- Empathy and Perspective-Taking: Can they understand and respond to others' needs?
- Collaborative Skills: Do they create environments where others can succeed?
The Path Forward: Creating Your Organization's "Timers"
The most important lesson from my playdate anecdote isn't about childhood development—it's about the power of intention in leadership growth. Leadership coaching proves to be an effective solution for developing leaders to address today's workplace challenges, but only when implemented with a clear path and destination in mind.
Every organization needs its own equivalent of my mom's timer: planned interventions that force leaders out of their comfort zones while providing safety nets for learning. Whether through formal coaching programs, mentoring relationships, or peer learning initiatives, the key is creating systematic opportunities for leaders to practice in a safe and trust-giving environment.
Next Steps on Your Growth Journey
People are unique. It's a fact we simply cannot ignore. It's not surprising that recent research, drawing on both multi-source data and advanced measurement techniques, finds that coaching supports the greatest gains when it supports us leading authentically. Coaching and development work when they maximize what makes us unique.
Given the importance of our differences, what's a solid path to creating a coaching and development program that supports them? As you think about your own development journey, or your organization's development and coaching strategy, consider these steps:
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Assess Current Leadership Effectiveness: Where are the gaps? Tools like 360-degree feedback can support you in targeting obstacles.
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Implement Structured Coaching Programs: With assessment complete, build a realistic program that lasts about six months. One-and-done interventions fall short of delivering the learning and behavior change we need to see lasting results and growth.
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Create Feedback-Rich Environments: We thrive from real-time feedback, making continuous coaching essential. Feedback loops are simple to start and keep motivation going.
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Develop Internal Coaching Capabilities: Reverse mentoring and coaching are powerful. Set the expectation with junior and less tenured leaders that not only will they grow, but they will support the growth and success of the team, regardless of role.
What lesson did you learn in childhood that sticks with you today? Undoubtedly not only the lesson, but how you learned it, carries with it a practical application for coaching and learning today? The answers to these questions will determine not just who your leaders become, but who your organization becomes in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
Ready to transform your approach to growth?
