For organisations committed to "growing your own", the best next step is to "grow each other"
February 12, 2025

Coaching Pairs are based on the principle that individual leaders choose the colleague who will be their coaching partner for a six month period. At the end of this period, they form another Coaching Pair with another member of their team.
This takes place in a completely transparent way, during an Awayday for the group of leaders involved in Coaching Pairs.
This year I will be working alongside a number of organisations in testing out this idea, and will report back through this site on the impact of Coaching Pairs, and the lessons learnt, as we go through 2025.
The ideal way in is for the Chief Executive to introduce Coaching Pairs for their extended leadership team: their top team, together with all of their direct reports. This enables the CEO to establish this new process of cross-team coaching as a core part of their leadership model.
Where the CEO is initially slightly hesitant about the idea, and another Chief Officer is a natural enthusiast, it can be great to let them run with it at first.
So often the leader who's the greatest enthusiast for an idea that's people-based, and has been little tested, is the one who's best placed to test it out and make a success of it.
How Coaching Pairs work ...
During the course of an Awayday, leaders are invited to team up with a colleague with whom they have a positive connection, and who they trust, as part of a Coaching Pair.
In order to keep these informal support arrangements separate from line management responsibilities, coaching partners can not share the same functional responsibilities.
As a general rule, coaching pairs meet together for at least an hour each month. During this time you support each other, as equals, in stepping forward more confidently as leaders and letting go of any habits - that we all have - that result in you getting in your own way, as a leader. More is explained below, when we describe the six key elements of Coaching Pairs .
After 6 months the team comes together again and leaders share their key insights from their time in their Coaching Pair. They then pair up with another colleague for the next round of Coaching Pairs over the coming six months, to support each other in continuing this process of stepping up more, as a leader.
Through each round of Coaching Pairs, we strengthen our culture as one in which we become ever more committed to the success of others in the team, just as we appreciate their commitment to our success as leaders.
We capture this below:
You pair up with a
colleague in your extended
leadership team as
coaching partners
As equals, you support each other with your growth targets, drawing on feedback from colleagues
After 6 months the team comes together to pool insights and learn from each other
Every 6 months you pair up with a new coaching partner and support each other in growing as leaders

In agreeing to join a Coaching Pair, you agree to help each other grow as leaders. There are six
key elements to Coaching Pairs:
01
WORKING WITH SOMEONE WE TRUST!
If we are to be truly open with our coaching partner, we have to trust them. EVERYTHING starts with trust.
This is why it is so important that everyone in a Coaching Pair CHOOSES their coaching partner. We need to be able to tell ourselves that we assume the best of them, just as they asssume the best of us.
02
CHAMPIONING EACH OTHER
As well as trusting our coaching partner, and feeling trusted by them, we also need to rate them as a leader - and feel that this is reciprocated!
If we are to take on board any feedback that we'd rather not hear, we have to believe that the person saying these words believes in us and sees us as a leader with real potential.
Some of us have difficulty with this. Part of our challenge is that we don't take ourselves seriously enough as a leader, and then assume everyone else thinks the same way!
In our Coaching Pair we need to be okay about recognising the strengths that we already have as a leader, and from that starting people feel comfortable about discussing those areas where we might be more effective as a leader.
We need to be relaxed about discussing our talents as a leader, and our areas for improvement, at one and the same time.
This is why we need our coaching partner to CHAMPION us, reminding us that whilst we want to get a lot better as a leader, we already have a lot to offer.
We need confidence AND humility AND a desire to improve!
With all three, we can use our time in our Coaching Pair as a springboard, to help us become a better team player and a better leader all-round.

03
EACH FOCUSING ON 1 OR 2 TARGETS FOR GROWING AS A LEADER
Working in a pair with someone we trust, and who sees themselves as a champion of ours, makes possible this third key element of Coaching Pairs. We support each other in asking what are the key ways in which we most want to grow as a leader.
It's always best just to concentrate on one or two leadership behaviours that we each want to work on.
If we create a shopping list, we can easily feel overwhelmed. And the longer the list, the more likely we are to start on the easy items that really won't make much of a difference at all!
This is why we believe that it is best to concentrate on tackling one or two behaviours of ours, as leaders, that need to change in some significant way if we really are to take significant steps forward in raising our game as leaders.
This involves each of us in asking our coaching partner two key questions:
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What do we sometimes DO as a leader that means we end up getting in our own way?
For example, avoiding difficult conversations, over-arguing our case, giving up when something becomes difficult, not listening hard enough when others disagree with us, and so on.
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Do we think that if we could CHANGE this particular habits of ours, it should enable us to have a greater impact, as a leader?
So often, we say to ourselves and others, "I am as I am!" Every successful leader knows this isn't true. We all have to negotiate with ourselves, and in the process let go of some bad habits that we have hung on to for rather too long, if we are to become better leaders.
04
INVITING FEEDBACK ABOUT OUR IDEAS FROM OTHERS IN THE TEAM
Once you and your coaching partner have agreed on the one or two aspects of your own leadership styles that you most want to work on, this is when you want to take your ideas to a small number of colleagues in your team and ask their advice.
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"I'm asking you this because I would so value your honest view. Do you think I've put my finger on the right two issues for me to work on, if I really am to raise my game as a leader?"
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"If you're not sure, can you tell me another aspect of how I manage my role that you think I should work on changing, to become a better leader? You've seen me in all sorts of situations and I'm sure I have a number of habits that get in the way of me being a more effective leader . With your help, I want to see what it is so that I can do something about it."
Som of your team colleagues will be asking your advice about their one or two growth goals as leaders.
They now offer you their advice, just as you will shortly be offering them yours, as EQUALS, who both want the other to succeed, knowing that the more we all succeed the more awesome the team will become.
05
TESTING OUT WHAT IT'S LIKE TO GROW AS A LEADER
Back in our Pair, we share the feedback we've had from some colleagues in the team. The fact that WE chose who we spoke to should help us in taking on board any difficult messages they gave us.
This is when we need our Coaching Partner to remind us that WE are in the driving seat:
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"You've sounded out others in the team whose views you value, and it's now up to YOU to decide which one or two leadership behaviours of yours you most want to work on."
We know that for this exercise to be worthwhile, the one or two challenges we want to set ourselves need to be pretty tough. Tough, but doable!
As well as knowing that we WILL be stretching ourselves to achieve what we want, we DO believe that it's within our power to adjust these behaviours in some way.
To support us with this, our Coaching Partner encourages us to think practically about our next steps, just as we have already done for them, or will be doing very soon!
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"So, tell me one of the leadership behaviours of yours that you want to do something about, either by dialling it down or maybe by dialling it up!
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WHAT exactly do you envisage yourself doing differently? And have you got an important meeting, or other event of some sort, when you can try out the 'new you'?"
We help each other think as practically as we can about how we can test out our resolve. And we emphasise the importance of going into this on the basis that the very fact that we're either tackling a bad habit of ours, or trying to grow a new habit, means that we already know that the experience will be a success.
In the business of improving as leaders, we don't do failure! The only issue is how big is the improvement.
Even if we find that our attempt at a new leadership style didn't quite work, the fact that we're attempting it will move us forward. Either we'll find that this wasn't the behaviour that's key to us stepping up more as a leader, or else we'll discover that there is some other way in which we need to break the old habit or develop a new one.
WHATEVER THE OUTCOME, the fact that we've been focusing on improving as a leader means that we'll have moved forward.
We'll continue to do so, too, because once we really engage with our own growth and development as leaders, this becomes a habit in its own right.
06
SHARING LESSONS LEARNT AND CHOOSING A NEW COACHING PARTNER
It's important to keep on reminding ourselves that Coaching Pairs aren't just about us and our particular Coaching Partner working together in our supportive bubble, occasionally asking each other for advice about how we can become better leaders.
The key to really strong teams is that all members of the team share a common commitment to supporting everyone else in the team in stepping forward as leaders, knowing that if and when they "smash it" they will be thrilled, on the basis that when one member of the team succeeds the whole team succeeds.
This is why it's fundamental to the design of Coaching Pairs that at the end of each six-month cycle, the team comes together for a half-day or day-long Awayday, during which people are given a chance, if they wish, to share what they have learnt from their time in their Coaching Pair.
We can all learn so much from hearing others tell their stories about what has succeeded for them, and what hasn't worked.
Coaching Pairs should work brilliantly for all those of us who like to learn by doing, and trial and error, testing out ideas about how best to improve our particular ways of working as a leader, and knowing that we have a "safe space" to fall back on, with a trusted and supportive colleague.
There are bound to be some who go along to a team Awayday and say they want to stay with their current coaching partner for another six months. If and when this happens, we all need to try to resist the temptation, because of the importance of Coaching Pairs in building a stronger team.
Just as we chose our first coaching partner, so will there need to be a stage in the Awayday after the first round of coaching pairs when we all need to choose someone else to become our second coaching partner.
With our new coaching partner we refresh our top one or two targets for growing as a leader. We also consult with a number of others in the team and seek their feedback too, before settling on the one or two growth targets we want to have in our sights until we think we've cracked them, at which stage we ask what next to keep on with this process of continuous improvement as a leader.
We all know that in each Coaching Pair we're in it for each other, we're in it for the team, and we ARE also in it for ourselves.
As we start a new round of Coaching Pairs every six months, we refresh our commitment to raising our game and excelling as leaders.
Coaching Pairs really do offer the prospect of a team culture that involves every member of the team championing everyone else through a practice that makes this manageable and personal and constantly developmental.
After a few rounds, Coaching Pairs should become self-sustaining, a symbol of a team that believes in each other, that clearly has a passion for our shared mission, and wants to offer shared leadership that is all about growth and development and ambition and stretch - and being there for each other.
It's an exciting proposition!

Once you start, there'll be no looking back. Coaching Pairs will become a natural part of how you work together as a wider leadership team.
No big drama, no gimmicks. Just the practice of a team that helps each other grow as leaders.
On the next page we suggest how to make best use of your time in Coaching Pairs. PLEASE make a point of skimming this page before your first session with your new coaching partner.