MF’s Head of Coaching, Louise Taylor Walls, explains how Coaching+ turns insight into action — combining reflection with practical skills to help leaders communicate with clarity, confidence and impact.
Executive coaching has earned its place as a cornerstone of leadership development. When done well, it creates a highly personalised space for reflection and growth — helping people pause, gain deeper self-awareness and clarify where they want to go next.
Through this process, coaching encourages individuals to recognise where their strengths lie, spot where there’s room to grow and, crucially, identify the changes that would make the biggest difference to their impact and career progression.
But coaching isn’t just reflective — it’s forward-focused and action-oriented. Once someone has clarity about their goals, coaching helps them explore what might be holding them back.
These barriers typically fall into one of three areas:
- Drive is all about motivation and energy. Coaching helps people connect with the positive outcomes of change and reflect on what’s at stake if nothing shifts.
- Opportunity looks at whether the environment, role and relationships around the individual support their growth — and, if not, how that could be reshaped.
- Skills refer to the practical capabilities needed to succeed. Sometimes, it’s not the will or the context that’s lacking, but the know-how.
At Management Futures, one of the most common skills gaps we see is around communication. Whether it’s influencing stakeholders, handling high-stakes conversations or speaking with confidence in senior forums, even experienced leaders can feel unsure how to get it right.
That’s why we created Coaching+ — a powerful combination of executive coaching and tailored Leadership Communication Skills Training, delivered by our team of experienced skills coaches.
This isn’t off-the-shelf training. It’s practical, relevant and designed around the real challenges leaders face day to day — a bespoke approach that meets people where they are and helps them move forward.
When coaching and training come together in Coaching+, the results can be transformational. Coaching brings the 'Why' and 'What'. Communication skills training helps deliver the 'How' — providing a safe space to practise, learn new techniques, get feedback and build confidence.
For HR professionals supporting leadership development in today’s fast-moving, complex environment, combining executive coaching with communication skills training is a smart, effective approach. It helps develop self-aware, agile leaders who don’t just understand the importance of communication — they know how to do it brilliantly.
And in a world where communication is make-or-break, that’s a capability worth investing in.
