Coaching:
challenges and limits

Coaching is offered for almost every area of life – from competitive sport to the boardroom. Yet there are no uniform standards for quality, price or training. Anyone who expects a directly measurable result will therefore be disappointed.

That is not an argument against coaching. It is an argument for clarifying the prerequisites before you release a budget. Because coaching rarely fails because of the coach. It fails because of three conditions that nobody checked beforehand.

Condition 1: participation instead of consumption

“I’m having myself coached” leads nowhere. In addition to consent, coaching requires the coachee’s active willingness to reflect and to question their own attitude and behaviour. Passively letting it wash over you does not work here.

The goal is concrete: the coachee should change their perspective, behaviour or attitude in such a way that they can cope with the current challenges. With increasing complexity and speed of change – described in the literature as dynaxity – this need grows. But that does not automatically create willingness. Anyone who waits at this pace pays for the hesitation elsewhere.

Condition 2: acceptance in the organisation

In organisational and human resources development, one question comes before all others: How is coaching viewed and recognised in your organisation?

Without a solid answer to this, coaching has only a limited effect. If it is dismissed as “humbug” or ridiculed, the very prerequisite on which everything builds is missing – the coachee’s consent and participation. In that case, coaching makes no sense, regardless of how good the coach is.

A lack of acceptance has an unpleasant side effect: anyone who receives coaching is quickly regarded as a problem case. An offer becomes a stigma. That is why the question of culture belongs before the choice of provider – not after it.

Condition 3: the right variant

Two distinctions determine the effect:

• Coaching or training? Training conveys knowledge and skills. Coaching works on perspective and behaviour. If you order one and need the other, you pay twice.
• External or internal? That depends on whether the coaching objective is task-centred or person-centred. For sensitive personal issues, an external coach creates the necessary distance.

Make the benefit for the individual and for the company transparent. As long as both remain vague, the effect remains vague too. If the issue is less about changing behaviour and more about better decisions, sparring with a counterpart who thinks it through with you without sharing in the decision is the more suitable format.

What this means for leaders

The most effective lever lies not in booked coaching but in leadership style. Leaders who bring coaching elements into everyday work – questions instead of instructions, reflection instead of judgement – sustain their employees’ performance potential without external appointments.

Conclusion

Coaching is not a product that you buy and consume. It works when three things come together: the coachee’s willingness, acceptance in the organisation and the right variant. If one of them is missing, the budget is better spent elsewhere. Introducing instruments without clarifying the prerequisites is one of the patterns that make change initiatives fail.

Check these three points before you look for a coach. This sequence saves money and protects the credibility of the instrument in your organisation.

How leadership builds trust in everyday work is the subject of the article “Leadership that builds trust”. Why culture cannot be decreed is described in “Change leadership and corporate culture”. You will find the framework for diagnosis and execution under Services.