Being told you're getting leadership development coaching ahead of a bigger role is often exciting and slightly unnerving in equal measure. Most people accept the offer without really knowing what the next few months will look like — how many sessions there'll be, what's expected between them, or how anyone will judge whether it's worked. That uncertainty isn't unusual, and it isn't really the individual's fault; providers vary enormously in how clearly they explain the process before it starts.
This piece walks through what a well-run leadership development coaching programme typically involves from first conversation to final review, the coaching and mentoring techniques used along the way, and how it differs from the leadership mentoring and broader coaching and mentoring services it often gets bundled together with.
Before the First Session: Getting the Brief Right
A leadership development coaching programme that skips proper scoping tends to drift. Before any coaching begins, there should be a clear conversation involving the individual, their manager, and usually someone from HR or people development, covering what specifically the coaching is meant to achieve. Preparing for a step up to director level requires very different focus areas to improving how someone handles conflict within an existing role, and conflating the two produces vague, unfocused sessions.
This scoping stage should also surface any existing feedback — appraisal comments, 360-degree results, or specific incidents that prompted the coaching in the first place. Coaches who start without this context often spend the first few sessions rediscovering things the organisation already knew, which wastes time better spent on actual development.
The Opening Sessions: Diagnosis Before Direction
The first one or two sessions of most leadership development coaching programmes focus on building an accurate picture of where the person currently stands, rather than jumping straight into skill-building. This often draws on a mix of coaching and mentoring techniques, including psychometric assessment to surface blind spots, structured self-reflection on recent situations, and sometimes informal input gathered from colleagues.
It's worth being wary of any programme that skips this stage entirely and moves straight to generic leadership advice. The value of leadership development coaching comes precisely from tailoring the work to the individual's actual gaps, not from delivering a standard curriculum regardless of who's in the room.
The Middle Stretch: Where the Real Work Happens
The bulk of a leadership development coaching programme, usually spanning several months, involves working through specific situations as they arise in real time. Rather than abstract discussion, effective coaching tends to focus on live decisions: an upcoming difficult conversation, a restructuring the person is leading, or a stakeholder relationship that's proving tricky.
Solution-focused questioning is common here, helping the person work through their own thinking rather than being handed answers. Between sessions, many programmes ask for short reflective notes on how a particular approach played out, which keeps the learning connected to actual practice rather than confined to the coaching room. This is also often the stage where leadership mentoring, if it's running alongside formal coaching, adds the most value — a mentor's account of a similar situation can complement the more structured coaching work with grounded, specific experience.
Reviewing Progress Partway Through
A leadership development coaching programme worth its cost includes a genuine checkpoint partway through, not just a final review. This is the point to honestly assess whether the original goals still make sense, whether the coach and coachee relationship is working, and whether any adjustment in focus is needed. Skipping this step is one of the more common reasons programmes end without clear evidence of impact — nobody checks in until it's too late to change course.
This checkpoint ideally involves the same people from the initial scoping conversation, not just the coach and coachee in isolation, so the organisation can confirm the coaching is still aligned to what it originally needed.
What a Good Ending Looks Like
The final stage of leadership development coaching should include an honest assessment against the goals set at the outset, not simply a warm send-off. This might involve revisiting the original feedback or 360 data, discussing specific examples of changed behaviour, and agreeing what ongoing support, if any, is needed once formal sessions end.
Many people find that leadership mentoring becomes more valuable at exactly this point — once the structured coaching has built a capability, an experienced mentor can help sustain it as the person continues applying it in a bigger or different role.
How This Fits Within Broader Coaching and Mentoring Services
Leadership development coaching is often one part of a wider set of coaching and mentoring services an organisation offers, and treating it as entirely separate from mentoring or general coaching support tends to waste the connections between them. Providers such as Frankie Kington typically design leadership development coaching with an eye to what happens before and after the formal programme, rather than treating it as an isolated intervention with a hard stop at the final session.
Questions Worth Asking Before Starting a Programme
Before committing time and budget to leadership development coaching, it's worth getting clarity on a few practical points:
- What specific goals were agreed at the outset, and who was involved in setting them?
- Is there a genuine progress checkpoint partway through the programme, not just at the end?
- Which coaching and mentoring techniques will actually be used, and why?
- What happens once the formal coaching ends — is there any ongoing support?
- How will success be assessed, beyond general satisfaction with the sessions?
A provider who can answer these clearly, with a defined structure rather than a loose promise of "tailored support," is usually the safer investment.
Bringing It Together
Leadership development coaching works best as a structured journey, not a series of disconnected conversations: proper scoping before it starts, honest diagnosis in the opening sessions, focused work on live situations through the middle stretch, a genuine progress checkpoint, and a closing review that actually measures against the original goals. Understood this way, and connected sensibly to leadership mentoring and wider coaching and mentoring services rather than treated in isolation, it becomes far more likely to produce change that outlasts the final session.
FAQ
How long does a typical leadership development coaching programme last? Most run between six months and a year, long enough to work through real situations and see whether behaviour change actually sticks once the person is applying it independently.
What happens in the first session of leadership development coaching? The opening sessions usually focus on understanding the person's current strengths and gaps, often drawing on existing feedback or assessment data, before any specific skill-building begins.
Is leadership development coaching the same as leadership mentoring? No. Coaching tends to be more structured and time-bound with defined goals, while mentoring is generally looser and draws more on a mentor's own lived leadership experience.
How is progress measured during a coaching programme? Good programmes include a checkpoint partway through and a final review against the goals agreed at the outset, ideally involving the same people who scoped the original brief.
Can leadership development coaching and mentoring run at the same time? Yes, and many people find the combination effective, using coaching to build a specific capability while a mentor offers grounded, experience-based perspective alongside it.
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