When Culture and Coaching Collide

There's a well-known saying that culture eats strategy for breakfast. The same can be true of leadership development.

We can coach a leader to collaborate more, delegate, challenge differently or become more strategic, but every day they're also learning from the organisation around them.

They notice what gets rewarded. What gets challenged. How the most senior leaders behave. What happens when somebody gets something wrong. And, ultimately, what it really takes to succeed there.

When the coaching and the culture are reinforcing the same behaviours, we've seen leaders fly. When they're pulling in opposite directions, even a highly committed leader can find change difficult to sustain.

We've seen both.

In one organisation we've worked with, development isn't simply something that's talked about. It's visible in how the organisation is led.

Senior leaders talk openly about their own development. There's an acceptance that nobody has all the answers, alongside clear expectations and accountability. People are encouraged to learn as they go. Success is recognised publicly and developmental feedback is handled privately and constructively.

When people step into bigger leadership roles, development is actively encouraged. Getting support isn't seen as a sign that somebody is struggling; it's part of becoming even better at what they do.

Importantly, both the culture and the systems around those leaders are pulling in the same direction.

Development isn't simply something written in a set of organisational values. It's reinforced by how senior leaders behave, how feedback is given, what happens when someone steps into a bigger role and what people see being recognised and rewarded.

We've watched leaders develop in that environment and the progress can be significant.

They're doing the work, of course. Coaching can't take the credit for everything that changes. But they're surrounded by conditions that give them the opportunity to try something different, learn from it and keep developing.

We've also seen what happens when the messages don't quite match.

An organisation might say it wants its leaders to be innovative, collaborative and results-driven. All perfectly reasonable aspirations.

But what if the everyday experience tells them something different?

Imagine an organisation where results dominate everything else and senior leaders largely operate within their own areas. That behaviour inevitably becomes visible to the leaders below them.

Now imagine one of those leaders is receiving executive coaching and is actively working on building stronger relationships and collaborating more effectively across the organisation.

They start doing it.

They reach across boundaries, involve colleagues earlier and try to build a stronger relationship with another part of the business.

But the response from above isn't positive.

They're questioned about why they're getting involved. They're encouraged to focus on their own area. Meanwhile, delivering results independently continues to be recognised and rewarded.

What does that leader learn?

Not from their coach, but from the organisation around them?

They learn that collaboration might be something the organisation says it values, but staying in their lane is what actually gets rewarded.

This is where looking at executive coaching through a systemic lens becomes important.

The stated culture might say collaborate, but if the behaviour modelled from above, the way performance is judged and the response when people do collaborate all say don't, the system is sending a much stronger message.

So, what can organisations do?

This doesn't mean embarking on a huge culture change programme before offering somebody executive coaching.

There are some much simpler places to start.

Be clear about what you actually want to change.

Rather than identifying 'strategic thinking', 'collaboration' or 'executive presence' as broad coaching objectives, go further.

What would that look like in this person's role? What would they be doing differently? What would colleagues notice? What difference would it make?

And then ask another question: is there anything in our organisation that might make that behaviour difficult?

Look at what's being modelled from above.

If you want a leader to collaborate more, what are they seeing from the senior team?

If you want them to delegate, what happens when something goes wrong?

If you want them to challenge constructively, how is challenge received?

This isn't about blaming senior leaders. Often we're simply unaware of the messages our own behaviour sends.

Think about what gets recognised and rewarded.

Organisations can unintentionally reinforce the very behaviours they're trying to change.

If results are all that matter, people will naturally pay attention to results. If somebody gets praised for rescuing every problem themselves, it becomes harder to convince them that developing their team and letting go is equally valuable.

Sometimes relatively small changes in what we notice, ask about and recognise can reinforce the development we're hoping to see.

Keep talking about progress.

Executive coaching needs confidentiality. Leaders need somewhere they can think openly, challenge themselves and explore what's really going on without wondering whether that conversation will find its way back into the organisation.

But confidentiality doesn't mean the organisation can't evaluate whether its investment is working.

Objectives can be agreed at the outset. Sponsors and leaders can talk about what's changing. Progress can be reviewed. Stakeholders can notice differences in behaviour.

You don't need to know what's being discussed in the coaching room to ask whether anything is changing outside it.

Coaching is only one influence

Executive coaching can give a leader space to think, recognise patterns, challenge assumptions and experiment with different ways of leading.

But when they leave that coaching conversation, they return to an organisation that's influencing their behaviour every day too.

That's why culture and the wider system matter.

When the behaviours we're developing through coaching are also modelled, encouraged and rewarded by the organisation, we've seen just how quickly leaders can grow.

The greatest impact comes when they're all pulling in the same direction.