The instinct for leaders is to step in, offer a solution, and move things forward.
But more of them are learning to do the opposite: pause, ask a question, and let someone else find the answer. That shift — from solving problems to guiding others through them — is at the core of professional coaching, a discipline that’s changing how leaders think and act.
“People in leadership don’t necessarily set out to change their management style, but many are discovering that their old communication habits no longer work,” says Jim Gavin, PhD.
Gavin, a certified master coach and licensed psychologist, has spent more than 50 years practicing and teaching in the field. Along with Dr. Madeleine Mcbrearty, he launched the John Molson Executive Centre’s Professional Goal-Centric Certified Coach program at Concordia University in 2006 to give aspiring coaches a way to train and be certified through an academic institution.
Two decades later, he has witnessed the rapid growth of the coaching field — not just for those wanting to become coaches, but among leaders and other professionals seeking more effective ways to lead in an ever more challenging and unpredictable workplace.
When professional coaching started gaining traction in the mid-1990s, Gavin noticed something familiar in it. Its focus on growth, resilience, and human adaptation closely aligned with his own values as a clinical and organizational psychologist.
Jim Gavin, Certified master coach and psychologist
As the field matured, organizations like the International Coaching Federation established standards that grounded coaching in ethical practice and empirical research, helping give the field greater credibility.
“Meaningful and effective coaching became accessible,” Gavin recalls. “It was practical, it was solutions-focused, and it helped people move forward and make change.”
Participants in the Concordia program arrive from across sectors, expecting they’ll learn how to coach others using their own expertise. But to help others grow, the work begins with themselves.
Through self-reflective exercises, participants notice how often they interrupt, jump to solutions, or rely on one-sided ways of communicating. Habits that once looked like competence begin to reveal themselves as barriers to other people’s growth.
“Our participants often don’t grasp how challenging this work will be,” Gavin says. “Sooner rather than later, they realize they have to change in fundamental ways — and that’s not always easy.”
Gavin recalls working with a C-level executive, widely respected for decisive problem-solving. He believed this was what made him successful but soon realized how it also limited his effectiveness.
His days were consumed by fixing other people’s problems, leaving little time for his own role, and unintentionally disempowering those he was trying to help. He realized how difficult it was for him to step back and trust his team.
Coaching offered him a different approach. Instead of jumping in with answers, he learned to reflect — to ask questions and guide employees toward their own solutions. Over time, his team grew more confident and capable, helping him realize their true capacities while also giving him time to focus on higher-level decisions.
“He felt deep gratification in hearing them acknowledge their own brilliance rather than his alone,” Gavin notes.
For many leaders, the challenge is also generational. As industry reports confirm, younger employees are less likely to accept top-down authority the way previous generations did. Millennials and Gen Z-ers are more likely to question decisions, expecting to hear the rationale for why things have to be a certain way.
That often creates friction with professionals who grew up in a world where direction flowed one way and authority was rarely questioned. Organizations need to retain younger talent, but the patterns that once produced compliance no longer work, and the majority of leaders recognize that continuing the old approach isn’t viable.
Coaching does not ask leaders to abandon authority. It asks them to use it differently — less as control and more as a way to create capacity in others.
People come to coaching for different reasons — to share their experience, mentor others, or rethink how they lead — but they all converge on the same realization: how they show up in conversations matters as much as what they know.
Learning how to guide a discussion, ask better questions, and support progress without taking over are some of the core techniques of coaching. But Gavin says the best coaches go even further.
“A great coach works at a deeper level,” Gavin notes. “They have the capacity to sense what is not spoken and inquire in ways that awaken insight and creativity in an atmosphere of trust and support. Resistance to change softens in a conversation that is filled with hope and possibility.”
Gavin says that level of awareness can’t be fully taught, but it can be developed over time.
After two decades, Gavin has witnessed how developing the skillset to foster open, safe, and meaningful dialogue transforms not just the individual leaders but the environments they create.
“When leaders use coaching to develop the capacity of others,” Gavin concludes, “they strengthen their teams, their organizations, and the wider world they serve.”
© Concordia University
