The winding road of leadership coaching in the post-pandemic era

Sunil Deshmukh

11 Aug 2021

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Nobody could have predicted a couple of years ago that humanity would find itself in a strange world, where stepping out with one’s face exposed may be a severe threat to one’s health and even life. We cannot even sigh properly behind our masks when we’re out, exclusively for very important work. But to be human is to adapt, and we have been adapting to this world in our own inventive ways. Leadership coaches are well-versed with the phenomenon of change and lost no time in embracing change by adopting the virtual medium as soon as lockdowns started taking effect.

In the pre-pandemic days, interacting in person in meetings, getaways and even over weekends were indispensable to form a strong mentor-mentee rhythm. Today teaching, coaching, mentoring have completely shifted online. 100% digital classes – a possibility we used to talk about a few years ago, has already become common. Although we don’t even see our neighbours anymore, we can meet people from the other end of the globe and even collaborate with them effectively through digital interfaces.    

So what is the direction for leadership coaching in the post-pandemic, new-normal digital era? The leaders today are occupied by diverse challenges – limitations of WFH, no social life, constant fear of the virus, always present among family, myriad distractions of kids, kitchen commotion, deliverymen at the door, it goes on and on. They are caught up with a lot and are not able to think the big picture, and their state of mind is a mish-mash of analytical and emotional. As the role of leadership changes, so should the nature of leadership coaching.

The leader of today goes through a bunch of emotions as (s)he manages work remotely, family, employees, health, household, kids, meetings, and as such needs a new set of leadership skills.