Coaching is a dynamic partnership, where the coach partners with the coachee through a question-based creative process to find inspired solutions. We respect and believe in each coachee's expertise and act as a partner to help unlock potential. In turn, we look to the coachee to direct an impactful goal, focus, and purpose for the coaching conversation.

At Talent Praxis, we provide coaching services for individuals ranging from emerging leaders to directors, senior vice presidents, and C-suite executives. We partner with high performers looking to invest in their growth and goals. Our calls provide a space for forward-looking strategic thinking and self-discovery.

See below for inspiration on what you may want to discuss in coaching.

Coaching Process

Four Most Covered Topics in Leadership Coaching

These are the most common topics that leaders cover in coaching:

Setting and achieving impactful goals
Managing your team for high-performance
Nurturing strong relationships
Working and leading strategically

See more on each of these topics below.

Setting and Achieving Impactful Goals

This may be focused on a motivating vision and purpose for your team, goal-setting, prioritization, communicating goals, or time management.

This topic may come up due to a natural cycle at the company where you are setting goals for the next year or quarter or petitioning for more headcount. This may also come up when the direction, targets, or KPIs of your team have shifted and you are looking to rally your team behind a new vision.

If your team is disorganized or lacking clear goals and KPIs, it may be due to unclear, miscommunicated, or nonexistent team goals. In this environment, you may feel uncertain about how your team is performing against expectations. Your team members may be missing targets that you thought were well communicated. Your team members likely have a lot on their plate and are unsure of what to prioritize. The interconnected nature of your work may lead to rushed timelines, challenging deadlines, or unfair expectations.

When attention is lacking on this topic it may feel like you or your team members are in need of focus, drive, motivation, and willingness to do the work. You may also get feedback from others in leadership that feels different than what you would expect to hear. You may think your team is performing well and find that others think differently.

By communicating a well-defined vision and purpose for your team, you ensure alignment and commitment from both your team members and company leadership, as everyone understands the crucial role your team plays in contributing to the overall success of the organization. With clear goals and priorities, you and your team members have a clear focus and drive. You can more easily have conversations around progress, potential roadblocks, and opportunities, and you’re easily able to advocate for the hard work and success of yourself and your team.

In leadership coaching, you are the expert in yourself, your role, your team, and your organization. Your coach partners with you to establish an environment and ask questions that enable you to establish a clear vision, mission, and purpose for your team. You can discuss your goals with your coach to consider how they could be more specific, measurable, actionable, or relevant. You can discuss your strategy to consider how to communicate the goals and vision in a way that is clear and motivating. You could also consider how to use your goals as a north star to inform prioritization and time management.

In coaching, we’ll work together to turn your ideas into actions that achieve results.

Managing Your Team for High Performance

This likely includes setting clear and actionable expectations, delivering useful feedback, and delegation. This would also include longer-term or strategic planning for ongoing high performance.

As a leader, whether you are directly managing or influencing the performance of others this can take up the majority of your time. It is important to have a strategy for performance management that allows you to develop your low performers while spending quality time with your middle performers and creating space for your high performers.

It is also important that you have time to step out of the weeds and look at the broader strategy. Performance management should not only be the day-to-day performance of your current team members but also the long-term aggregate performance of your team. Over time are you able to reliably meet or exceed expectations regardless of changes to staffing, structure, or goals?

The first step here is to have a good handle on how well your team as a whole is performing against expectations, which further demonstrates the importance of effective goal-setting.

As a next step, consider the fundamentals. How well do you:

Communicate clear and actionable expectations?
Deliver regular feedback or information your team members need to be successful?
Delegate or distribute the work to your team in the most effective way?

These are not innate skills; instead, they require continuous practice. You should be capable of responding to each question with concrete and objective strategies, methods, and behaviors you, as a leader, actively employ every day.

The three questions above cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. Instead of saying to yourself “Yes, I communicate clear and actionable expectations,” dig deeper: “How do I effectively communicate expectations? What are the results of my actions?”

Your coach can act as a partner in these self-reflections. As coaches, we specialize in the how and why. We may ask:

What strategies do you employ?
What becomes possible because of those strategies?
What does all of this allow for you as a leader?
What opportunities do you have?

These questions go beyond the surface level typically covered in management training programs, as they aim to unearth hidden opportunities and delve into more profound strategic considerations.

Once you have a strong foundation and practice for setting expectations, delivering feedback, and effectively delegating, you’ll begin to look at the bigger picture. This includes contemplating questions such as:

In 1 year or 3 years, what have I put in place to ensure my team is able to sustainably hit our goals?
What are my strategies around talent development or succession planning?
What allows my team to stay agile to changes in the market and company with new technology, shifting priorities, or goals?

These are all topics you can bring to your coach to begin the process of transforming ideas into concrete actions in collaboration with fellow leaders and team members.

Nurturing Strong Relationships

This likely includes topics around developing influence and trust, communication, aligning expectations, and strategic listening.

With leadership defined as influencing others towards common goals, the ability to build and nurture strong relationships is key. You may start by identifying those you need strong relationships with:

Who are the key stakeholders in your work?
Who supplies you with information, tools, or approval that you and your team members need to be successful?
Who consumes, interacts with, or benefits from the work that you do?
Who is a part of ensuring your work is done effectively?
Who impacts your ability to achieve goals?

Once you have these key relationships identified you want to consider:

What motivates and drives these individuals?
What are their goals and ambitions?
Why do they work here? What fulfills them about their role or responsibilities?

You could then discuss or consider what a strong relationship means to you, your team, and your organization. Similar to performance management, you want to avoid asking yourself yes or no questions. Instead of, “Yes, I develop influence and trust very well,” consider, “How do I develop influence and trust? What does this look like in practice, and what are the results that suggest my strategies are effective?”

In these conversations, your coach can be a very helpful partner to challenge your assumptions, consider your biases, and develop strategies to test the efficacy of your approach.

At Talent Praxis, we exclusively work with the high performers that companies are investing in. We rarely focus on addressing glaring deficiencies; rather, we provide space for you to consider strategic opportunities. To determine if relationship-building is a useful focus for coaching, consider: if you spent more time and intentionality on your strategy to nurture strong relations, what could be possible?

Working and Leading Strategically

This looks like focusing on the most valuable and high-impact work while proactively engaging in future opportunities. This likely includes developing your custom leadership strategy and style. This also may include advocating for yourself and your interests.

You may approach this topic by foundationally considering:

Your personal values and goals
Why you are a leader and/ or manager
Your personal leadership style
What you enjoy most about your work
Your workstyles, approach, and habitual tendencies

Your ability to focus on the most valuable and high-impact work is driven by a deeper awareness of yourself, your goals, and how you operate. To lead your team strategically you need to know yourself and structure your role and team in a way that is fulfilling to you while still providing value to your organization.

As a leader, you may know that you love collaborating with people, diving deep into formulas on a spreadsheet, or really crunching numbers and analyzing data. Discuss these things with your coach to consider how you can utilize your strengths and personal preferences to develop a strategic work and leadership style.

You could also zoom out more on this topic to think critically about the time you spend away from deadlines, priorities, and tangible goals, including:

When do you spend time getting to know your team members?
How do you spend time exploring your industry, competitors, or customers?
Where can you make time to network and learn from others?

Your coach will support you in formulating strategies to prioritize tasks that might not have an immediate effect on your daily responsibilities but are likely to significantly enhance your personal fulfillment and long-term strategy.

Additionally, think about your own motivators, goals, and ambitions. In coaching, this means moving past the title or compensation you hope to achieve and, instead, delving into what truly motivates and excites you about your professional endeavors. This includes reflecting on questions like:

If you could spend more time on things that keep you very engaged and fulfilled, what would that look like?
What value do you hope to deliver as a leader and what inspires you?

Ultimately, your work with your Talent Praxis coach will develop your self-awareness and consider opportunities for your own growth, development, and enjoyment, all while aligning with the needs of your team and organization.

See more on the core topics we cover here and sign up for our newsletter for tools directly in your inbox.

The Four Most Discussed Topics in Leadership Coaching