Why most organisations aren’t getting full value from coaching
By Professor Rebecca Jones
Coaching has become a central feature of leadership and talent development. Most organisations now invest in executive coaching, leadership coaching, or manager-as-coach training, recognising its potential to strengthen capability and drive behaviour change. Yet, despite this growing commitment, the impact of coaching remains significantly below what it could be in many organisations.
The problem is rarely the coaching itself. Instead, it stems from a lack of strategic focus, inconsistent governance, limited evaluation, and cultural conditions that do not fully support coaching taking root. As a result, coaching becomes something individuals experience, but not something the organisation leverages as a deliberate driver of performance, inclusion, or leadership effectiveness.
At Shape Talent, our work across sectors shows a consistent pattern: the potential for coaching is almost never fully reached – not because organisations doubt its value, but because the structures surrounding it are not designed to maximise its impact.
Coaching without strategy: Activity instead of alignment
A fundamental challenge is that coaching is often treated as a standalone activity rather than a strategic tool. Leaders request coaching, HR teams procure it, sessions take place, and individuals gain insight. There is, however, often no clear articulation of why coaching exists in the organisation, what strategic outcomes it is meant to support, or how it connects to broader people and business priorities.
Without this line of sight, coaching tends to operate in pockets. It may support an individual leader well, but it is less likely to influence capability at scale or contribute to organisational objectives such as succession planning, cultural transformation, or inclusive leadership.
Strategic alignment is the foundation of high-impact organisational coaching. When coaching is explicitly linked to priority outcomes, embedded within people strategy, reviewed regularly, and benchmarked externally, its ability to drive measurable results increases dramatically. Yet few organisations have this level of clarity or structure.
Culture: The often-invisible enabler
Even where strategic intent exists, coaching can only thrive within the right organisational culture. A coaching culture is not created by simply offering coaching to more people. It is created when leaders consistently model curiosity, reflection, open dialogue, and constructive feedback. These behaviours signal that coaching is not remedial or transactional, but an integral part of how the organisation works and develops its people.
In many workplaces, however, time pressure, limited psychological safety, and a preference for rapid problem-solving over reflective inquiry restrict the conditions coaching requires. Without a culture that encourages learning, experimentation, and genuine conversation, coaching remains peripheral rather than embedded.
Strengthening coaching culture involves visible leadership sponsorship, opportunities for internal coaches and coaching-skilled leaders to connect and learn from one another, and communication that normalises coaching as part of everyday leadership practice.
Equity and inclusion: Expanding who coaching is for
A mature coaching strategy places equity at its core. Too often, access to coaching is shaped by seniority, visibility, or informal networks, unintentionally restricting opportunities for individuals who could benefit most.
When coaching is distributed transparently and equitably, aligned to development opportunity rather than hierarchy alone, it becomes a powerful mechanism for accelerating underrepresented talent and strengthening inclusion. This requires organisations to monitor who receives coaching, ensure their coaching pool is diverse, and review patterns of participation to identify and address potential disparities.
Equitable access signals that coaching is part of the organisation’s commitment to fairness, development, and belonging.
Deployment: Using coaching at the moments that matter
Another common missed opportunity is that coaching is deployed too narrowly. Many organisations default to offering coaching to senior leaders or individuals perceived as high potential, missing the opportunity to embed coaching support at key transition points or moments that matter across the employee lifecycle.
Organisations that use coaching strategically consider where it can have the greatest systemic impact, such as during leadership transitions, team formation, career crossroads, or periods of significant change. They also explore multiple formats, including team coaching, group coaching, internal coaching communities, and coaching skills for leaders.
Thinking more broadly about when and where coaching is used helps extend its value beyond individuals to teams and the organisation as a whole.
Governance and measurement: The missing discipline
Perhaps the most overlooked drivers of coaching effectiveness are governance and impact measurement. Without agreed definitions, standards, contracting processes, or expectations for internal and external coaches, the experience of coaching can vary significantly across the organisation. Without meaningful evaluation, leaders lack the insight needed to understand return on investment or to inform future strategy.
Effective coaching governance creates consistency, protects quality, and ensures coaching spend is aligned with organisational goals. Equally, structured evaluation, such as capturing goals, outcomes, and anonymised thematic insights, allows organisations to learn from coaching at scale. When evaluation data feeds into talent, leadership, and culture planning, coaching becomes not only a development tool but an intelligence source that shapes organisational decision-making.
Reimagining coaching as a strategic lever
Coaching has immense potential to accelerate leadership capability, strengthen inclusion, and improve organisational performance. But this potential is realised only when coaching is supported by strategy, culture, equity, robust governance, and meaningful evaluation. Organisations that take this more intentional approach see coaching become a catalyst for systemic improvement rather than a collection of isolated interventions.
To help organisations begin this journey, Shape Talent offers a free Coaching Strategy Scorecard and Coaching Strategy Lab, enabling HR and Talent leaders to assess their current maturity and explore how to elevate the strategic impact of coaching across their organisation.
FAQs
Q. What is an organisational coaching strategy?
A. An organisational coaching strategy defines why coaching exists, who it is for, how it is deployed, and how impact is measured. Unlike ad hoc coaching provision, a clear strategy aligns coaching with business priorities such as leadership capability, succession planning, inclusion, culture change, and performance outcomes.
Q. Why doesn’t coaching always deliver strong ROI in organisations?
A. Coaching underperforms when it lacks strategic alignment, governance, cultural support, and evaluation. In many organisations, coaching happens in isolation, without clear success measures or connection to broader people strategy, making its organisational impact difficult to evidence or scale.
Q. How can HR & L&D leaders align coaching with business strategy?
A. HR leaders can align coaching with business strategy by:
- Linking coaching objectives to organisational priorities
- Defining target populations and moments that matter where coaching is beneficial
- Embedding coaching into leadership and talent frameworks
- Reviewing coaching outcomes alongside other people metrics.
This ensures coaching supports both individual development and organisational performance.
Q. What does a strong coaching culture look like?
A. A strong coaching culture is characterised by psychological safety, reflective leadership behaviours, curiosity, and open dialogue. Leaders model coaching behaviours, coaching is normalised rather than remedial, and learning conversations are part of everyday leadership practice.
Q. How can coaching support diversity, equity and inclusion?
A. When coaching is distributed equitably and transparently, it becomes a powerful tool for accelerating underrepresented talent. This requires monitoring access to coaching, ensuring diverse coaches with the lived experience and knowledge of the barriers underrepresented talent can face, and aligning coaching provision to development need rather than seniority or visibility alone.
Q. Who should have access to coaching in an organisation?
A. High-impact organisations move beyond offering coaching only to senior leaders. Coaching is most effective when deployed to embed learning or at key transition points, such as:
- New leadership roles
- Role or career transitions
- Return from parental leave
- Periods of organisational change
This approach increases impact while supporting fairness and inclusion.
Q. What governance is needed for effective organisational coaching?
A. Effective coaching governance includes:
- Clear definitions and standards for coaching
- Consistent contracting and ethical frameworks
- Quality assurance for internal and external coaches
- Alignment of coaching spend to strategic priorities
Governance protects quality, consistency, and return on investment.
Q. How should organisations measure the impact of coaching?
A. Organisations should measure coaching impact by capturing:
- Coaching goals and progress
- Individual and organisational outcomes
- Anonymised themes emerging across coaching engagements
When used responsibly, this data provides valuable insight into leadership capability, culture, and systemic challenges.
Q. How can coaching insights inform wider talent and leadership decisions?
A. Aggregated coaching insights can inform succession planning, leadership development priorities, culture initiatives, and inclusion strategies. When evaluation data feeds into HR and talent planning, coaching becomes a source of organisational intelligence rather than a standalone intervention.
Q. How can HR leaders assess their current coaching maturity?
A. HR leaders can assess coaching maturity by reviewing strategy, culture, equity, deployment, governance, and evaluation. Tools such as a Coaching Strategy Scorecard provide a structured way to benchmark current practice and identify opportunities to increase impact at scale.