Not sure if leadership coaching is right for you? Learn the 10 signs it's time to invest in coaching and what to expect from the experience.
Her Success Coach helps women leaders build confidence, overcome self-doubt, and lead with clarity. Cambridge-trained, evidence-based coaching for senior women in tech, business, and finance.
Leadership coaching used to be reserved for executives in crisis. Today, it's increasingly recognised as a strategic investment for any leader who wants to grow intentionally. But how do you know when the time is right?
The short answer: coaching is most valuable during moments of transition, growth, or friction. It's not about fixing something broken. It's about unlocking potential that's ready to emerge. Let me share some specific scenarios where coaching makes the biggest difference.
If three or more of these resonate, coaching is likely to be a powerful investment in your growth.
Moving into a new role, joining a new organisation, or shifting from individual contributor to people leader. These transitions are among the highest-risk moments in a career. Research from the Harvard Business Review shows that 40% of leaders fail within the first 18 months of a new role. Coaching during transitions dramatically improves the odds of success.
You're performing well and want to reach the next level faster. Perhaps you're eyeing a VP or C-suite role, or you want to increase your influence and visibility. Coaching here acts as a catalyst, helping you identify the specific shifts in behaviour, thinking, and presence that will accelerate your trajectory.
Something isn't working and you can't figure out why. Maybe you're in conflict with a peer, struggling to motivate your team, or feeling burnt out despite doing work you used to love. Coaching helps you see the pattern beneath the symptom and make changes at the root cause level.
If you've never worked with a coach before, here's what a typical engagement looks like:
Discovery call: A complimentary conversation (usually 30 to 45 minutes) where we explore your situation, goals, and whether coaching is the right fit. There's no pressure. This is about mutual fit.
Goal setting: In the first session, we define clear, meaningful goals for the coaching engagement. These become the compass for our work together.
Regular sessions: Typically 60 to 90 minutes, every two to four weeks. Each session is a structured conversation designed to deepen your thinking, challenge assumptions, and create actionable next steps.
Between sessions: You'll have reflection exercises, experiments to try, and insights to integrate into your daily leadership. This is where the real transformation happens.
Review and evolution: Periodically, we'll review progress against your goals and adjust the focus as you grow. Coaching is a living process, not a rigid programme.
The International Coaching Federation reports that 86% of companies that invest in coaching see a positive ROI. For individual leaders, the returns include faster career progression, improved team performance, better decision-making, and higher personal satisfaction.
But the most significant return is harder to quantify: the shift from leading reactively to leading intentionally. When you understand yourself deeply, your triggers, your strengths, your values, you make better decisions, build stronger relationships, and create more impact. That's the kind of return that compounds over an entire career.
The best time to start coaching isn't when things are falling apart. It's when you have the energy, ambition, and self-awareness to invest in your growth. The leaders who get the most from coaching are the ones who start before they're desperate, while they still have the bandwidth to reflect, experiment, and grow.
If you've read this far, you're already thinking seriously about your leadership development. That's exactly the kind of intentionality that coaching builds on.
Iveta Dulova is an executive and leadership coach for women with a decade of experience in global technology and a Masters in Coaching and Leadership from the University of Cambridge. She works with women managers, directors, and founders across technology, financial services, and consulting who want to build executive presence, negotiate with confidence, and build a career that reflects their values rather than their fears.
This page is part of the Her Success Coach resource library — a collection of practical articles, frameworks, and coaching programmes designed for women leaders. Explore in-depth guides on leadership confidence, career transitions, executive presence, imposter syndrome, delegation, strategic thinking, and difficult conversations at work. Book a 30-minute Clarity Session to discuss your goals, or join an on-demand course to develop the skills you need at your own pace.