Coaching can be a powerful catalyst for growth in the modern workplace, helping individuals to build confidence, foster greater clarity and unlock their fullest potential. But too often, organisations overlook its true value and lasting impact- often confusing it with mentoring or training.

For the latest episode of our Talking with…podcast, our Director Richard Archer was joined by special guests, ACC coach, Ruth Murphy and Transformation Director and ILM level 7 executive coach and mentor, Lauren Schogger to discuss the true power, practice and potential of coaching in today’s workplaces.

With their combined wealth of coaching, we knew Ruth and Lauren were the ideal guides to help us explore the fascinating world of coaching and understand why transformation leaders need to start taking greater advantage of it.

Click below to listen to the podcast episode or continue reading for a summary of Laura and Ruth’s insights.

Coaching vs. Mentoring 

With approaches that look remarkably similar from the outside, it’s easy to see why many professionals confuse coaching and mentoring and believe they are the same thing. However, while often subtle, there are crucial differences between the two.

Mentoring is generally a more directive approach towards personal development, where a mentor draws on their own personal experiences within an industry or role and transfers their knowledge and insights to a mentee. This can provide the mentee with a tried and tested step-by-step guide into successfully navigating specific challenges, while also avoiding common pitfalls or mistakes.

This is where coaching differs. Lauren Schogger describes it “empowering people to come up with their own solutions” which indicates that the role of a coach is to help people to figure out their own path, not to tell them exactly how to reach their end goal. Unlike mentors, coaches also don’t rely on their own lived experiences and aren’t always experts in their coachee’s specific line of work. Ruth Murphy added that in her experience she’s found “it’s sometimes better when you’re completely impartial because you're allowing the coachee to think for themselves.”  

While they might not be able to share the latest industry specific news or advice, coaches can use this impartiality to facilitate their coachee’s self-reflection and autonomy through insightful questioning. This provides opportunities for coachees to develop their own strategies, solve problems and take greater ownership of their decisions, without being influenced by their coaches’ career journey.

Coaching as a Rehearsal Space

In complex transformations, leaders often have to make high-stakes decisions, navigate unforeseen issues and take part in emotionally charged conversations in order to reach their end goal. In these situations, the need for personal reflection is not always considered a priority – with many leaders expected to simply carry on, despite the high pressure they’re under.

Ruth explained that coaching should be considered an invaluable “rehearsal space” where leaders and professionals are given the chance to pause, reflect and “declutter their thoughts” before stepping into these challenging scenarios. This safe space gives valuable time and opportunity to test ideas, explore alternatives, air concerns and even practice potential dialogues in a confidential environment, free from judgement and criticism, while also cultivating psychological safety.

In the modern workplace, psychological safety, where professionals can confidently ask for help, make suggestions and challenge the status quo without negative repercussions, has become increasingly important. Without it, people stop learning, hide their concerns or simply stay silent — which stifles development, innovation and inclusion.

By investing in coaching, whether through internal programs or external partnerships, and fostering safe environments for continuous learning and reflection, organisations can enhance the psychological safety of their teams, while also cultivating deeper collaboration, trust and resilience. This proactive approach empowers leadership teams to navigate challenging transformations with greater confidence and agility, even when under pressure.

Building a Coaching Culture 

Coaching should be accessible to all, but unfortunately, this isn’t a reality within many organisations. Often, it’s a privilege reserved for a select few within senior leadership, typically because of perceived ROI, budgets or simply a lack of awareness. This means that coaching remains concentrated at the top and fails to be widely integrated, despite its numerous benefits.

Both Lauren and Ruth admitted to witnessing this lack of accessibility first hand, with Ruth calling for more “democratised coaching” – where everyone, regardless of their job title should have access to the growth and reflection that coaching can provide. When coaching is accessible to all, it helps to build more self-awareness, accountability and adaptability across the entire organisation, not just at the very top.

Instead of coaching being an exercise that only happens in formal sessions with external coaches, organisations can instead start building a coaching culture, where all levels adopt a shared mindset or set of behaviours related to key coaching principles such as peer feedback or active listening.

Lauren shared that organisations should be embedding these principles into their daily routines, such as performance reviews, one-to-ones or team meetings if they want their coaching culture to be long-lasting. It needs to become second nature to everyone and not be seen as a one-off HR initiative. Coaching should be “a tool that would be helpful for anyone to have in their toolkit”– not just leadership. 

We’d like to thank Ruth and Lauren for joining us on our Talking with…podcast series. If you'd like to be the first to listen to our expert podcast interviews or are interested in listening to our previous episodes, you can subscribe to us on Spotify.

Recommended resources:  

• Nancy Kline  –  Time to Think: Listening to Ignite the HumanMind  
• Sir John Whitmore  –  Coaching for Performance: The Principles and Practice of Coaching and Leadership  
• Myles Downey  –  Effective Coaching: Lesson’s from the Coach’s Coach  
• Erin Meyer –  The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business  
• Peter Hawkins  –  Leadership Team Coaching: Developing Collective Transformational Leadership  (and related works)