What is Shadow Coaching?

Shadow coaching is real-time coaching, observing work practices and communication flow at the place of work. It fundamentally means taking your coach to your work environment e.g. a team or client meeting or presentation in real-time and in a real job environment. This greatly increases newfound awareness, which in turn enhances better work practices.


Why Shadow Coaching?

Shadow coaching is a powerful and effective tool used during coaching with executives, leaders and teams striving for excellence.  Leaders typically experience 4 main benefits from being shadow coached: 

  • A direct impact on the leader’s performance through increased awareness, growth in confidence, positive shift in leadership style, and recognition of blind spots. 

  • Because the leader and the coach reflect together on what has just been observed, the learning can be significantly greater than self-reflection only by the leader. 

  • “Learning on-the-job”, because it is real and based on actual events it provides the possibility to reflect on the spot and be able to practice the learning almost immediately. 

  • The wealth of verbal and non-verbal information allows the coach to see what is really going on, and it can then be used as a basis for reflection and coaching for performance enhancement, potentially creating opportunities for improvement that would not have been otherwise possible.

How Does Shadow Coaching Work?

  • The coach will be present either virtually or physically in meetings, presentations and real-life work situations in which they are able to observe the leader interacting with others.  

  • Ideally, the coach is introduced to the group by the leader, who shares that they are in a coaching process, and the coach makes it clear that they are there only to support the ongoing growth of the leader and not to evaluate anyone. 

  • The coach will strictly observe and not intervene in the meeting, remaining as invisible as possible. 

  • Debriefing will take place as soon as is possible following the meeting(s) and will include specific details and examples that help the leader to gain in self-awareness.

  • Shadow coaching can be part of a single meeting or take place over multiple meetings and in different settings, depending on the specific objectives of the leader.