Executive coaching trends: What leaders are actually working on right now
In the video: We sat down with two exceptional coaches, Anna Inama and Peter Jerkowitz, to dig deeper into how managing reactions under pressure shows up in their day-to-day work. Development doesn’t start with skills. It starts with clear visibility into how a leader’s behavior shows up under pressure—and the specific adjustments that will increase their impact. And that’s a lot of the work our coaches are doing to support your leaders becoming the best versions of themselves.
After reviewing goals from hundreds of active coaching engagements, three clear patterns emerged.
We spend a lot of time talking about the best use cases for executive coaching—identified successors, high potentials, leaders in transition. This month, we wanted to go deeper: not who is being coached, but what they're working on.
After reviewing goals from hundreds of active coaching engagements, three clear patterns emerged. What surprised us wasn't the themes themselves—it was the order they need to be addressed in.
- Delegation and empowerment. The single most common goal across our client base, by a significant margin, is delegation. But it rarely shows up as a time management problem. It surfaces as a leadership effectiveness issue. Leaders who built their careers on expertise and execution are now expected to scale through others. In coaching, this translates into specific shifts: clarifying decision rights, resisting the urge to step in, holding others accountable for outcomes, and redefining what “value add” looks like at their level.
- Making thinking visible. Many leaders have sound judgment, but their thinking isn’t always accessible to stakeholders. Coaching goals sound like: articulate the rationale behind decisions, frame trade-offs clearly, align stakeholders before critical meetings, and simplify complex issues without diluting substance. This is less about polish and more about influence—ensuring strong thinking translates into organizational traction.
- Managing reactions under pressure. Self-awareness, emotional regulation, and confidence in a larger role show up consistently. Not as abstract concepts, but as performance risks: shutting down in conflict, over-indexing on consensus, reacting defensively to challenge, or hesitating in high-stakes forums. In coaching, these patterns are surfaced with candid, behaviorally specific feedback and worked through in real time so leaders respond more intentionally when it matters most.
Do these themes resonate with the work you do in executive development and talent management each day? We'd love your thoughts.
