Using Coaching Practices to Support Leadership and Management Development

Using Coaching Practices to Support Leadership and Management Development

Between 2011-2016, the USAID-funded Leadership, Management, and Governance (LMG) Project designed and delivered a wide range of programs to develop inspired leaders, sound management systems, and transparent governance at all levels of the health system to deliver more responsive services to more people. The LMG Project was the most recent program in 30 years of investment in stronger leadership and management by the USAID, with each project innovating to build on the lessons learned in the past.

One of these innovations was the adoption of a suite of practices and techniques adapted from the field of professional coaching to support leadership, management, and governance activities in the health sector. Prior to the LMG Project, Management Sciences for Health had piloted this coaching approach in Nicaragua, Nigeria, and Tanzania. Due to promising early results, the LMG Project scaled up the approach, integrating these coaching practices into a wide range of programs with substantial variation in size, context, and the challenge addressed by the program.

This technical brief examines five years of lessons learned on the enablers and barriers to successfully integrating coaching practices to support leadership, management, and governance programs based on two standards of success: that coaching takes place and that coaching adheres to the practices, methods, and principles adopted from professional coaching.

Download the Communication and Coaching Skills Program guide to learn more about this approach.