As local government leaders wrestle with complexity, scrutiny and shrinking budgets, executive coaching is no longer a luxury – it's a strategic necessity for a sector under pressure but full of potential.
When I talk to chief executives, directors and senior leaders across the West Midlands, one theme comes up again and again: ‘There is no time to think.'
In the rush to balance budgets, deliver transformation and meet new expectations from government and residents, our leadership teams have almost no protected space to pause, reflect and plan. Yet those pauses – those rare moments of clarity – are precisely what determine whether we lead by reaction or by intent. That's where coaching comes in.
Across the West Midlands, we've seen how structured, high-quality coaching transforms the confidence of leaders and strengthens whole organisations.
What could your team achieve if you had more space to pause and think? The West Midlands Public Sector Coaching and Mentoring Pool, which West Midlands Employers leads on behalf of councils and partners across the region, and our executive coaching service has been doing exactly that for 17 years – helping thousands of managers and leaders reclaim the ‘thinking space' they've lost.
In the last year, the Coaching and Mentoring Pool alone supported 441 individuals across local government, health, fire, police and education partners. Together, that's more than 1,100 hours of thinking time protected for leaders who often have none.
This isn't just a saving of £244,000 compared to commercial rates – it's proof that collaboration makes development possible even when under pressure.
This November, colleagues from across the UK will gather for the Public Sector Coaching and Mentoring Conference 2025, exploring the theme ‘Beyond the storm: The art of coaching and mentoring when nothing stays still'
If nothing stays still, how do we as leaders stay grounded? We'd love you to be part of that conversation. There's a lingering myth in some corners of our sector that coaching is for people who are struggling, or that it's a nice-to-have once the urgent work is done. The opposite is true. Coaching is the discipline of creating thinking time – and in an environment where we make multimillion-pound decisions on people's lives and futures, that's not indulgence, it's responsibility.
As the West Midlands Regional Workforce Strategy highlights, the leadership challenge ahead is one of resilience, inclusion and innovation. Coaching is one of the few tools that directly enables that vision – it strengthens leadership from the inside out and acts as a strategic lever for developing capability across the workforce.
When a chief executive has space to test ideas with an experienced, confidential coach, they make braver and more values-driven choices. When a director develops reflective habits, they lead with more empathy and precision. When a head of service learns to coach their own teams, they build a culture of trust and accountability that no policy document can replicate. And when teams across the organisation use coaching approaches in their everyday work, leadership becomes everyone's business, creating momentum for change from within.
Across the West Midlands, councils are showing what this looks like in practice. Every one of our 40 plus subscribing organisations is building internal and external coaching capacity, creating ripple effects that reach far beyond the senior team. Many are blending traditional mentoring with team coaching, reverse mentoring and ‘coaching in complexity' approaches that reflect the modern public-service environment.
What we're doing in the West Midlands is more than matching coaches and coachees – it's building an ecosystem. Through the Coaching and Mentoring Pool, we've created a professional community of more than 480 qualified coaches and mentors from across public services – from directors, managers and officers to nurses, police and fire leaders. To complement, we have a pool of more than 30 executive coaches, many of whom are former chief executives, section 151 officers, directors and HR leaders – and some of whom also volunteer their expertise within the regional pool.
The timing could not be more critical. The pressures on local government are huge. Coaching gives leaders the perspective to stay strategic rather than reactive; to spot possibilities, not just problems. At a time where we have recruitment challenges and huge expectations on candidates ‘stepping up' for the first time, with a shrinking talent pool in statutory roles, we need to support our internal talent with coaching to progress.
In our region, we're proud that more than 200,000 public sector staff are now supported through organisations participating in the Coaching and Mentoring Pool. That means the collective thinking power of our leadership community is being deliberately developed – not left to chance.
If we want to attract, retain and empower the next generation of public sector leaders, we have to show that leadership development is not an optional extra, it's part of the deal. We can't talk about succession planning or career desirability without first investing in the people already leading the system.
So my challenge is simple: if we believe that great leadership changes outcomes, creating time to think isn't a ‘luxury' – it's the foundation of good governance.
And if you want to see that in action, join us at the West Midlands Public Sector Coaching and Mentoring Conference – see www.wmemployers.org.uk for more details.
Rebecca Davis is chief executive of West Midlands Employers
