What to do before commissioning executive coaching

“Our Commercial Director needs a coach!”

A practical guide for HR, L&D and Talent leaders commissioning executive coaching

“We think our Commercial Director would benefit from some executive coaching.”

Or perhaps the Commercial Director comes to you directly and says they’d like a coach.

If you work in HR, L&D or Talent, where do you go from there?

It can be tempting to start thinking about budget, coaches and availability. We’d encourage you to start with a different question.

How does this connect to what the organisation is trying to achieve?

It’s a question that can catch people out. The Commercial Director may want to become more confident, improve their influencing skills or operate more strategically. All reasonable development goals. Before commissioning coaching, though, we need to understand why those things matter to the business.

CIPD’s coaching guidance starts in the same place: organisational context. It recommends considering the organisation’s strategy and priorities before moving on to practical decisions about who will deliver coaching and how it will be implemented. It also says coaching should be considered alongside other development interventions and used when it is clearly the best way to help someone develop.

Start with the organisation

What is the organisation trying to achieve, and what does it need from this leader to help make that happen?

Perhaps the business has an ambitious growth strategy and needs the Commercial Director to spend less time in operational detail and more time looking at future markets and opportunities.

Perhaps they need to challenge more at ExCo and influence decisions beyond their own function. Perhaps the business is changing and they now need to lead across a much broader group of stakeholders.

That gives us the starting point.

Draw the line of sight back to the leader

Once we understand what the organisation needs, we can ask what the Commercial Director needs to do differently.

Take confidence. “Build confidence” could easily become a coaching objective. But what would greater confidence change?

Perhaps we’d expect the Commercial Director to contribute more readily at ExCo, challenge their peers when they disagree, make decisions without repeatedly seeking reassurance, or trust their team enough to let go of some of the operational detail.

Business objective  →  what the organisation needs from the role  →  what the leader needs to do differently  →  the impact we expect to see

That gives the coaching a much clearer line of sight to the business.

Ask for a business case

HR or a sponsor, alongside the leader can create a simple business case for their coaching.

It doesn’t need to be War and Peace. Why are we considering coaching? What needs to change? What would we expect to see happening differently? What impact would that have on the team or business? How will we know?

This gives the coaching direction without telling the coach and leader what must happen in the coaching room. It also gives you something useful to come back to when you evaluate the investment.

The business case also tests commitment. If the leader cannot see anything they want to work on and has little interest in what the coaching could achieve, that is worth understanding before the organisation commits the money.

CIPD specifically recommends assessing an individual’s readiness for coaching and their motivation to achieve the desired outcome before coaching starts.

Is coaching the right intervention?

The business case should make this much easier to answer.

Does the Commercial Director need space to think, challenge assumptions, explore how they are showing up and make changes to their behaviour? Coaching may be a good fit.

Do they lack particular knowledge or skills? Training might be more appropriate. Would experience, advice or access from someone who has operated at that level before be more useful? Mentoring or sponsorship may add more value. Is there a performance issue that has not been addressed directly? That needs a different conversation.

Coaching is not a universal answer, it should only be used when it is clearly the best way to help the individual learn and develop.

We shouldn’t get as far as choosing a coach until we’re comfortable that coaching is the right response to the need we’ve identified.

Decide how you’ll know whether it worked

This is where the original business case becomes useful again.

If we said at the beginning that greater confidence should result in the Commercial Director challenging more effectively at ExCo, we can revisit that. What is the Commercial Director noticing? What is their sponsor noticing? Are colleagues experiencing them differently? Has it affected the decisions they are making or the way their team operates?

Not every benefit of coaching will translate neatly into a financial figure. But there should be a credible line back to the reason the organisation invested in the first place.

It also gives HR a far stronger answer when someone asks, “What did we actually get for that investment?”

Agree who needs to know what

Organisational coaching usually involves three parties: the leader, the sponsor or organisation paying for the coaching, and the coach. Those relationships need clear boundaries.

The organisation should know what the coaching is there to achieve and have an appropriate way of reviewing progress. The leader also needs to know that what they discuss with their coach remains confidential.

The current ICF Code of Ethics, effective from April 2025, requires the coach to agree roles, responsibilities and confidentiality with the client and sponsor before coaching begins. It also requires a clear agreement about what information will be exchanged, and how.

At TLC, we use three-way conversations at agreed points in our longer programmes. The leader, sponsor and coach can review objectives and what is changing without the coach reporting back on what has been discussed in individual coaching sessions.

Before you start looking for a coach...

If someone comes to HR tomorrow and says, “I think our Commercial Director needs a coach,” we’d ask:

• What is the organisation trying to achieve?

• What does it need from the Commercial Director to help achieve it?

• What needs to change in what the leader does, says, behaves or experiences?

• What difference would that make to the business?

• Is coaching the right intervention?

• Does the Commercial Director want to do the work?

• How will we know whether it has worked?

• Who needs to know what, and how will progress be reviewed?

Then start talking about coaches.

By that point, you have a proper brief and a much clearer basis for deciding whether the investment makes sense.