Coaching is not a once-in-a-while intervention. It’s not something you do when you have time or when there’s a problem. It’s a culture. A way of being with people. A commitment to developing them through conversation.
Building a coaching culture requires several things working together.
First, it requires belief. Real belief that people have answers inside them. That your job isn’t to fix them or direct them but to help them think. If you don’t believe that, coaching will feel like a waste of time. It will feel inefficient. But if you believe it, everything changes.
Second, it requires permission. Permission to take time for development conversations. Permission to ask questions instead of giving answers. Permission to not have all the solutions. Most organisations and families create environments where this feels risky or wasteful. You have to make it safe. You have to protect this time.
Third, it requires skill. Learning to ask good questions. Learning to listen without planning your response. Learning to reflect back what you’re hearing. Learning to sit with silence. These are skills. They take practice. They take intention.
Fourth, it requires consistency. Coaching conversations can’t be a once-a-year thing. They have to be regular. Built into how you operate. Part of the rhythm of the relationship. Weekly conversations. Monthly check-ins. Regular space for thinking together.
Fifth, it requires reciprocity. People know when you’re genuinely interested in their development versus just checking a box. Coaching only works when it’s real. When the coach genuinely wants to help the person think more clearly. When there’s genuine investment.
Anders Ericsson’s research on deliberate practice shows that people improve when they have feedback and opportunity to practice. A coach provides both. A coach creates space for someone to practice thinking. To try things. To learn from what happens. To reflect and adjust.
But the coaching has to be relational to work. It’s not transactional. It’s not a formula you apply. It’s genuine investment in someone’s becoming. It’s real relationship where both people care about the other’s development.
I know of a family business in Kenya where the founder started having monthly coaching conversations with his team. He asked them to think through their challenges. To generate options. To commit to next steps. He didn’t tell them what to do. He asked them what they wanted to create. He asked them what was possible. He asked them what they would commit to.
Within a year, the team was different. More capable. More innovative. More committed to the work and to each other. Not because they’d gone to training. But because they’d been coached. Because someone had created space for them to think. Because someone believed they had answers inside them already.
In a London non-profit, the leadership team decided that coaching conversations would be central to their culture. Not performance management. Not feedback conversations. But actual coaching. Actual inquiry into how people think and what’s possible.
They trained everyone. Not to be formal coaches. But to have coaching conversations. To ask better questions. To listen without fixing. To create space for thinking.
The culture shifted. People felt developed. People stayed. People grew. People brought their full selves to work because they knew someone was invested in their becoming.
If you want to build a coaching culture, here’s what to do.
Start with yourself. Learn to coach. Get trained if you can. Practice asking questions. Practice listening. Practice reflecting back. Practice sitting with silence.
Model it. Have coaching conversations visibly. Let people see what it looks like. Let them understand that this is how you show up.
Train others. Give people permission and skill to coach each other. Don’t keep coaching as something only leaders do. Make it how everyone relates.
Make it structural. Build coaching into regular conversations. Weekly, monthly, quarterly. Make it part of how you operate. Protect this time.
Make it relational. Let it be genuine. Let it be messy sometimes. Let it be real. Let it be about real people thinking through real challenges. (Cannon-Bowers et al., 2023; Ericsson, 2007; Kapoutzis et al., 2024; Mahon, 2023).
Building a Coaching Culture: How Development Happens Through Conversation
