71% of global leaders are experiencing increased stress, up from 63% in 2022. 54% of those leaders are concerned about burnout and 40% have considered quitting.

These statistics from “The Global Leadership Forecast 2025,” published by global leadership consulting firm DDI, paint a picture of leadership in crisis. They show a leadership pipeline not just under severe strain, but “potentially facing a structural breakdown.”

The way that many leaders are navigating their roles has to change. As does the organizational support and leadership development offered to these leaders.

Coaching as a Stress Management Strategy

The situation is dire, but not without hope and solutions. “The Global Leadership Forecast 2025” reports that leaders who practice stress management in the form of self-reflection, engaging in open discussions and leveraging learning resources are 1.5 times less likely to intend to leave their roles within the next year.

Coaching ticks all of these boxes, and as far as well-documented, successful leadership development and training  opportunities are concerned, coaching has become a key cornerstone for leadership development, talent retention and culture building in many global organizations.

“Coaching is here to stay,” an HR.com article shares, and “beyond traditional one-on-one executive coaching, we’re seeing innovative implementations like team coaching, group coaching, and specialized onboarding support.”

Coaching Gets Results

According to the International Coaching Federation, coaching can lead to:

• Up to 670% return on investment (ROI)
• Over 19% increased employee engagement levels
• Over 12,500 hours saved

The “Coach Approach:” Turning Pressure Into Purpose

As Dr. Marilyn Atkinson, founder and president of Erickson Coaching International explains, coach training and adopting a “leader as coach” approach teaches leaders skills not just to “manage stress,” but to transform it into purpose, clarity and creative action.

“One of the most powerful contributions of solution-focused coaching is its ability to help people ‘think futures,’” Atkinson elaborates. “When individuals are caught in worry or limitation, their creative capacity contracts. Solution-focused coaching reverses that, however, by cultivating the visionary mindset of design thinking, thereby encouraging leaders and teams to generate multiple, interconnected pathways to success.”

Leaders starting coach training often brush off techniques like associated and dissociated visualization, saying “I’m not the visual type,” but with training, they can quickly build this capacity, adding another skill to their toolset, and becoming adept at quickly shifting direction when needed, and exploring alternative approaches without losing focus on core goals.

“This flexible, imaginative and adaptive way of working not only yields better results — it also makes the process deeply rewarding,” Atkinson explains. “When people learn to envision and adapt creatively, they rediscover joy in their work, and teams become energized by a shared sense of purpose.”

Leading With Resilience, Courage and Compassion

As “The Global Leadership Forecast 2025” report outlines, purpose-driven leaders are more engaged, more committed to their teams, and more likely to stay in their roles. And key to a leader’s sense of purpose is “equipping leaders with strong interpersonal skills like emotional intelligence and communication that enable more meaningful interactions and enhance purpose.”

Atkinson concurs, sharing, “We are living in an era of intense global economic, political, and social change. For today’s corporate leaders, the challenge is not only strategic — it is deeply emotional. Human beings naturally struggle with negative emotions, and this period in history has sharpened our awareness of them: sadness, anger, and at times, a sense of futility. Yet even a short encounter with solution-focused coaching can assist leaders to explore their next steps effectively. By transforming reaction into reflection, and pressure into purpose, resilience coaching enables leaders to find balance, and lead with both courage and compassion. In a volatile world, this inner steadiness is fast becoming a core foundation of sustainable leadership.”

2 Real-World Scenarios — And Why Coaching Wins

What does a solution-focused “leader as coach” approach look like in real life? Here are two scenarios that unpack the traditional management approach versus a coach approach. The key, as shown in both scenarios, is to teach leaders techniques to activate resilience, ownership and creativity — not by avoiding problems, but by changing the angle of inquiry entirely.

Scenario 1: The Overwhelmed Team Lead

• Context: Cathy is a high-performing project manager on the verge of burnout. Her team has missed several deadlines, and she’s spiraling into micromanagement and frustration. What would you do?
• What the traditional approach might be: Her department head might say, “Let’s do a root cause analysis to determine what’s gone wrong and where you’re falling short.”
• Versus the solution-focused coaching approach: Instead, the department head asks open-ended questions like: “What’s one example of a time when the team did meet a tough deadline? What was different about that?”; “What’s one small step you could take this week to help the team regain momentum?” Or, “If this project felt manageable again, what would you be doing differently?”
• Outcome: Cathy leaves the conversation reconnected to her strengths and with a clear micro-step to delegate more effectively. Rather than drowning in what’s broken, she reactivates a sense of agency. Within weeks, the team regains alignment and internal collaboration scores improve on the next pulse check.
• Why the “coach approach” wins: It replaces stagnation with forward motion. The leader coaches for insight and action, not diagnosis — reviving resilience without blame.

Scenario 2: The Frozen Innovation Pipeline

• Context: A research and development (R&D) division has stalled. The team has great ideas but lacks follow-through. Leadership is frustrated by the “talk but no traction” dynamic. What would you do?
• What the traditional approach might be: Leadership launches an accountability audit, applying pressure to hit key performance indicators (KPIs) and creating stricter oversight.
• Versus the solution-focused coaching approach: The team’s director, Bernard, is trained in coaching. In a quarterly planning session, he facilitates with a neutral “coach position” and uses future thinking: “Imagine it’s six months from now and our pipeline is buzzing with energy — what’s happening differently?”; “What’s already working that we could do more of?”; “What would be a bold but possible first step?”
• Outcome: Instead of blame or pushback, the team codesigns a lightweight prototyping schedule that fits their strengths. They launch two micro-experiments, work toward deadlines and execute successfully.
• Why the “coach approach” wins: It bypasses resistance and sparks collective ownership and team coherence. By focusing on what’s already working, the team finds momentum through strength, not scrutiny.

A Culture Shift

Traditional management approaches often focus on diagnosing problems, which keeps leaders and teams anchored in the past.

Coaching, by contrast, begins with curiosity about potential and capacity. Instead of asking what went wrong, coach leaders ask: What is possible now? What have you learned from this challenge? What resources or strengths are already present? This shift from analyzing deficits to exploring opportunities changes everything.

That’s why, over the last 10 years, the coaching approach to management has spread quickly as a key factor in sustainable organizational development.

The Future of Sustainable Leadership

Strong companies understand that collaboration, innovation and alignment emerge through intentional communication and shared purpose. They first focus on relevance and then build with visionary products and services. And most importantly, they invest in their people’s personal development, equipping them with the skills to remain agile, resilient and solution focused in the face of ongoing change and pressure.