In an era defined by disruption and complexity, building strong teams has never been more critical. Paula Brennan explores why team coaching is emerging as one of the most powerful investments organisations can make — fostering collective resilience, unlocking innovation, and enabling teams to thrive in turbulent times.
Over the course of my career, I’ve come to realise that coaching doesn’t just transform individuals, it can transform teams.
I’ve worked with some brilliant coaches, each one offering a unique kind of support. A careers coach helped me weigh the pull of organisational life against the freedom of independence. A leadership coach guided me through a senior transition reminding me that “you can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.” A systemic coach encouraged me to explore the deeper question of where, and with whom, I really belong.
Each of these experiences was transformative and deeply personal. I wondered what would happen if my team had access to this kind of support? Would it ripple into stronger relationships, clearer communication, and better outcomes for all of us?
Years later, while facilitating a leadership development programme, I watched this question come to life. Leaders, supported by coaches, were able to step out of the team, observe the dynamics from a distance, and return with fresh insights. When shared with the team, those insights sparked rich, challenging discussions and they almost always led to a shift in performance.
It wasn’t team coaching per se, but it was the start of my passion for coaching that doesn’t just aim for better leadership – but for better, stronger, more connected teams.
Team Coaching in a BANI World
We often talk about the volatility and uncertainty of today’s world and Jamais Cascio’s BANI framework gives us a lens and a language to explore it:
- Brittle: where structures that seem strong can suddenly fracture
- Anxious: where uncertainty breeds paralysis
- Nonlinear: where cause and effect are no longer predictable
- Incomprehensible: where complexity exceeds our ability to fully understand
In a BANI world, teams face pressure to adapt faster, collaborate more effectively, and make decisions amid the ambiguity – all against a backdrop of growing anxiety. Within this reality team coaching becomes not just helpful, but critical.
What is Team Coaching?
Team coaching is about fostering collective intelligence: moving beyond individual performance to fundamentally transform how people work together. It reveals hidden dynamics, builds trust, and strengthens the relational fabric that teams rely on, particularly under pressure.
It helps teams to:
- Understand how they communicate, decide, and collaborate
- Tap into their diversity of thought and experience
- Experiment with new ways of working together
- Stay connected to purpose and to one another, even in turbulence
Systemic team coaching goes a step further. It sees teams within the wider ecosystems they operate in: organisations, sectors, communities and global systems. The ability to read and respond to those external forces is critical.
Leading Through Complexity: Why Teams Matter More Than Ever
The case for team coaching has never been stronger. We’re living through an era of rapid and often disorienting change: geopolitical upheaval, economic uncertainty and a climate emergency. These forces demand more of leaders, and more from teams: they require distributed leadership, seamless collaboration, and a high level of agility.
As Edgar Schein reminds us, “The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture.” In this environment, team coaching becomes a way of shaping the kind of relational culture that allows teams to thrive under pressure.
Team coaching is becoming a strategic necessity. It can accelerate a team’s journey to high performance, support healthier ways of working, and equip organisations to meet the demands of a complex world.
A different kind of investment
For organisations already investing in leadership development, team coaching is a powerful next step. It doesn’t replace individual growth — it amplifies it, by weaving it into the fabric of collective success, transforming leadership from a solo act into a shared capability.
As the ground continues to shift beneath our feet, we need teams that are not just high-performing, but deeply connected — to each other, to their purpose, and to the systems they serve. Team coaching helps us build those teams.
Get in touch to see how team coaching might support your team.
