Building Strong Leaders for Tomorrow: The Power of Coaching in Succession Planning
Your succession pipeline has to be ready for the next steps faster than ever before. Here are eight reasons why coaching supports organizations that are preparing for leadership transitions in the near and long-term future.
1. Coaching Accelerates Leadership Readiness
Coaching is personalized – meaning it’s targeted for each individual’s strengths and weaknesses. Preparing leaders to take on larger roles involves development in:
- Executive presence
- Decision-making
- Strategic thinking
- Communication
- Leading through complexity
- Influence
Successors need accelerated readiness for complex, ambiguous roles. Coaching directly enhances the leadership behaviors that predict success in these higher-level roles.
Impact: Reduces time-to-fill for critical roles, strengthens bench depth, and measurably accelerates behavior change.
2. Coaching Improves Retention of High-Potential Talent
It’s critical to support your high-potential talent – or they may become someone ELSE’s high-potential talent. Not only will they feel invested in and valued, but they will be supported in their career goals. Meaning? Coaching dramatically improves retention.
Impact: Reduces the risk of losing successors before roles open. Coaching stabilizes the bench.
3. Coaching Builds Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is a valid predictor of leadership success. Coaches help successors grow authentically by better understanding:
- Strengths and how to leverage them
- Development gaps that could derail them
- Leadership behaviors that need improvement
- Perceptions that others have of them
Impact: Lowers the risk of leadership failure after placement.
4. Coaching Strengthens Performance in Stretch Assignments
Succession planning often relies on stretch assignments as development (and testing grounds). Coaching supports these by:
- Helping leaders navigate uncertainty
- Being a sounding board for new challenges
- Accelerating learning
- Helping them apply new behaviors into the “normal work”
Impact: Stretch roles become more effective and a safer environment for development.
5. Coaching Supports the Shift from Tactical to Strategic Mindsets
Coaching helps fill the gap often found in mid-level successors – moving from “doing the work” to leading through others, thinking organizationally, and driving long-term strategy (to name a few).
Impact: Coaching creates future-ready leaders rather than expanded individual contributors.
6. Coaching Supports the Emotional and Behavioral Transition Into Leadership
Coaching supports successors grow in areas like:
- Emotional intelligence
- Managing conflict
- Leading change
- Resilience
- Influence
Impact: Strengthens leaders’ ability to handle complexity and build confidence.
7. Coaching Creates Leaders Who Develop Other Leaders
Coaching helps successors learn how to:
- Coach their own team
- Develop bench strength under them
- Build culture, not just drive performance
This multiplies leadership capacity across the organization.
Impact: The succession pipeline grows deeper and more sustainable.
8. Coaching Provides an Objective, Neutral Development Partner
While internal mentoring has its place, a Coach:
- Offers an external perspective
- Provides honest feedback with no hidden agenda
- Helps successors navigate internal politics ethically
- Focuses purely on development, not evaluation
Impact: More balanced development and fewer blind spots.
The Bottom Line:
Coaching makes succession planning more reliable, faster, and “people first”.
It helps successors:
- Grow faster
- Take on more complexity
- Become more self-aware
- Become more confident and capable
- Stay longer
Coaching empowers future leaders to step confidently into their roles, ensuring the business is led by capable, forward-thinking successors.
