Modern Leaders Don’t Just Lead - They Coach

Authors: Lisa Haydon and Jill Brown

The Shift Leaders Can’t Ignore

When we scanned external trends and ongoing conversations about leadership, one theme stood out: leaders who coach outperform leaders who command. 

Research from Harvard Business Review makes it clear: the command-and-control model is no longer viable.

Your millennial and modern leaders aren’t resisting this shift. In fact, they’re driving it. They’re strong in engagement. They believe in coaching. They want to be coached, and lead with coaching themselves.

But belief doesn’t equal performance. Where they stall is in execution under pressure. That’s where you come in.If you’re a leader of leaders, your coaching skills are the difference.

How you coach your modern leaders is how you’ll get performance out of them.

The Data and Discipline

Our Pivotal Leadership: High Performance Redefined  blueprint reports that millennial leaders hold very strong confidence (81%) in their ability to coach.

Behind that confidence is a picture of how they see themselves using coaching to lead: supportive and accountable, curious about what drives each person, committed to personal growth, trusting their teams to solve problems, and providing timely feedback.

Confidence is not the same as competency.

The intent is there, but the foundational coaching skills are underdeveloped. As both authors have seen in practice, many leaders think they’re coaching when they’re actually advising. That’s where the Pivotal Growth diagnostics and Vision Coaching's coaching skills program connect.

The Pivotal Leadership blueprint shows that engagement, Flex Capacity, and inspiration are the most powerful multipliers of performance. Coaching is the competency that activates these strengths, and the way leaders turn belief and connection into results.

Meanwhile, Vision Coaching’s Using the Coach Approach (UCA)™ equips leaders with the skills to making coaching create impact and outcomes. This includes connecting with presence, asking sharper questions, assessing options, and embedding accountability.

Together, they provide both the where and the how of leadership modernization. Diagnostics reveal the opportunity. Coaching skills embed the competency. The result is a coaching culture that sustains performance.

Coaching in Everyday Leadership

This isn’t about launching another program. It’s about how you show up in daily conversations.

When leaders coach in one-on-ones, meetings and project updates, they don’t rescue teams with answers. They activate ownership. This discipline is what converts engagement into performance at scale.

Teams stop waiting for direction and start delivering results. That’s the discipline modern leaders want — and that leaders of leaders must practise.

Coaching Is a Competency, Not a Soft Skill

It’s tempting to dismiss coaching as a soft skill. That’s a mistake. Coaching is a core leadership competency and one that, when practiced enterprise wide, builds a coaching culture.

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Advising isn’t coaching. True coaching takes both skill and practice to drive performance.

- Lisa. W. Haydon

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Pivotal Growth’s High Performance Redefined blueprint shows the most influential drivers of performance sit in how leaders engage others. Coaching activates those drivers. It deepens trust, mobilizes teams, strengthens accountability and accelerates execution.

Closing the Gap

The gap is not belief. Modern leaders already believe in coaching and want to be coached. The gap is skill and that belongs to leaders of leaders.

The message is clear: the majority of the workforce already believes in coaching. What’s missing is the skill at the top. PGI’s blueprint and diagnostics provides the roadmap, and Vision Coaching’s UCA program builds skills and practise discipline.

Together, Pivotal Growth and Vision Coaching prepare leaders of leaders for the workforce that’s already here and the future that’s coming.

About the Authors

Pivotal Growth Inc. is a women-owned leadership development firm that redefines how organizations develop leaders. Our clients leverage proprietary, AI-enabled diagnostics and our modern leadership performance system blueprint. Our methodology and system transforms leadership from instinct-driven to performance-driven, giving executives a repeatable, scalable way to grow leaders and deliver measurable results. 

For two decades, Vision Coaching Inc has supported the development of leaders across North America through top-tier leadership coaching and its proprietary Using the Coach Approach™ program. With more than 25 internationally accredited coaches, the firm is dedicated to unleashing courageous leadership that strengthens trust, accountability and growth in people and organizations. To find out more, visit www.visioncoachinginc.com.

Lisa W. Haydon

Lisa W. Haydon is a leadership strategist and credentialed executive coach who left a corporate career to redefine how leadership drives performance. As Founder and CEO of Pivotal Growth Inc., she built a proprietary diagnostic and modern leadership system now trusted by Fortune 500 and high-growth enterprises. Lisa is recognized for combining sharp business acumen with a bold, human-centric approach that equips leaders to outperform and deliver transformational results.

Jill Brown

Jill Brown is an experienced executive coach and leadership development practitioner who helps operational leaders build practical coaching skills that convert direction into ownership and results. She specializes in the Using the Coach Approach (UCA)™ methodology, turning meetings and 1:1s into high-impact coaching moments.