When Pressure Is High, Coaching Helps Leaders Lead Better
By Suzie Thoraval
Why coaching is a practical tool for grounded judgement and sustainable performance
“We cannot see our reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.”
When I first moved from being a lawyer into leadership, I realised quite quickly that being good at the work and being good at leading the work were not the same thing.
As a lawyer, I had built my confidence around being capable, responsive and thorough.
Leadership asked something different. It asked me to delegate, to stop measuring my value by how much I personally delivered, and to learn the difference between doing the doing and leading those doing the doing.
That shift did not come naturally. A coach helped me notice where I was holding on to the work, where I was slipping back into execution instead of leadership, and where I needed to trust and empower others if I was going to grow into the role well.
I have had coaches at various points in my career ever since. When I moved into executive life, when I transitioned into business ownership and my board career, and I still work with one now. She helps me focus on what will make the biggest difference to my business rather than being pulled into everything at once.
Why this matters more in uncertain environments
In uncertain, high-pressure environments, leaders often assume they need more answers, more learning or training. In my experience, what they often need most is better space to think.
Coaching creates a disciplined pause in the middle of the chaos to make more deliberate choices.
It is a bit like cleaning the windscreen while still driving the car. The road does not stop being demanding. But you can see more clearly, respond more wisely and stay steadier at the wheel.
Pressure narrows thinking. Under strain, even capable leaders become reactive, controlling or rushed, falling back on habits that belong to an earlier chapter of their career.
Research has found positive overall effects of workplace coaching across performance, skills, wellbeing, coping and goal-directed self-regulation. It has also found that coaching helps organisations strengthen leadership development, engagement, retention and burnout prevention.
Coaching builds adaptive stability, the capacity to stay grounded and clear-headed even as the conditions around you keep changing.
High performers use coaching
I do not see coaching as something people turn to only when something is wrong. Thoughtful, ambitious people use it because they understand that success does not remove blind spots.
Bill Gates has said everyone needs a coach. Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, made the point that someone external to the situation can see what the person in it cannot always see for themselves.
The most effective leaders I know use coaching for the same reason great athletes do. At that level, an honest outside perspective on situations is as important as the effort you are putting into your leadership.
What got you here won't get you there
One of the risks in pressured environments is that leaders keep pushing forward with habits that made them successful in the past but are now limiting. As Marshall Goldsmith says, "what got you here won't get you there."
I have seen leaders promoted because they are excellent operators, only to become bottlenecks because they still retain too much responsibility for doing the work. I have seen capable people avoid difficult conversations to keep the peace. I have seen talented leaders work incredibly hard yet remain stuck in reaction mode because nobody has helped them climb a tree to check whether their team hacking through the jungle is heading in the right direction.
Coaching helps interrupt that pattern earlier, and before the cost becomes too high.
Would coaching help me?
Ask yourself:
Where is pressure pulling me back into habits that no longer match the leader I need to be?
What am I still holding too tightly because letting go feels uncomfortable?
What conversation or decision am I avoiding that may be costing me more than I realise?
What might become possible if I led this next phase more deliberately?
I'm here if you need me
If you are leading in an environment that feels uncertain, demanding or heavier than it used to be, you do not have to work it all out on your own. Sometimes the most effective next step is not pushing yourself harder, but creating the space to think more clearly and lead more deliberately.
If this resonated, I'd love to hear what comes up for you. I'd be very happy to have a conversation about whether coaching might make a meaningful difference at this point in your leadership. And if you know someone who might benefit from reading it, please feel free to share.
