Stakeholder Centered Coaching
Sustainable leadership change comes from involving the people around you, not from willpower alone
Marshall Goldsmith's Stakeholder Centered Coaching method, validated through research with 86,000 participants worldwide, proves that leaders improve not through willpower or courses but through a systematic process of gathering confidential feedback from colleagues, publicly committing to change specific behaviors, and following up regularly to ask for ongoing ideas. The critical insight is that behavior change without perception change is useless in leadership - if your team does not perceive that you have changed, you have not changed in any meaningful sense. The method works because follow-up conversations serve a dual purpose: they keep the leader accountable and they retrain the perceptions of the people around them. Leaders who follow up systematically show dramatic improvement, while those who skip follow-up show improvement no better than random chance, regardless of their actual behavior changes.
- Leaders get better because of themselves and the people around them, not because of coaches or courses
- Behavior change without perception change is meaningless in leadership
- Systematic follow-up is the single most important variable in sustained improvement
- Self-limiting beliefs like this is just the way I am are the biggest barriers to growth
- It does not matter what leaders say - it only matters what others hear
- Gather Confidential 360 FeedbackCollect confidential feedback from 15-20 stakeholders including direct reports, peers, board members, and superiors. The average person Goldsmith coaches gets feedback from 18 people. This creates a comprehensive picture of how you are perceived that is impossible to dismiss as one person's opinion. The feedback will be hard to hear because most leaders are not accustomed to honest input about their behavior.Pro tipThe feedback should cover both strengths to leverage and specific behaviors to change - do not focus only on negativesWarningExpect emotional resistance when reading the feedback - this is normal and does not mean the feedback is wrong
- Respond to Feedback with GratitudeGo back to every stakeholder and express genuine gratitude for their participation. Share what you learned about your strengths. Name the specific behavior you want to improve. Apologize without excuses for past shortcomings. Then ask: if you have ideas to help me become better at this in the future, what might they be? Listen, take notes, say thank you. Do not judge, critique, or explain. This conversation sets the foundation for the entire improvement process.Pro tipSay and instead of but when transitioning from strengths to areas for improvement - but negates everything before it
- Follow Up Every Two MonthsThis is the critical step that separates leaders who improve from those who do not. Every two months, return to each stakeholder and say: two months ago I said I wanted to improve at X. Based on the last two months, give me ideas for the next two months. Repeat at four months, six months, eight months, ten months, twelve months. Goldsmith's research of 86,000 people shows that leaders who do this systematically show huge improvement while those who skip it show no improvement.Pro tipThe follow-up serves dual purpose - it keeps you accountable AND it retrains stakeholder perceptions of your behaviorWarningWithout follow-up, even genuine behavior change goes unnoticed because people see what they expect to see
- Sustain the Practice as Ongoing DisciplineLeadership improvement is not a destination but an ongoing practice. After the initial 12-month cycle, continue with periodic check-ins. Each new behavior improvement becomes easier because you have established the habit of seeking feedback and following up. The process also builds deeper trust relationships with stakeholders who see you consistently investing in growth.Pro tipAfter mastering one behavior, select the next highest-priority behavior from your original feedback and repeat the cycle
Marshall Goldsmith's landmark Leadership is a Contact Sport study tracked 86,000 leaders across industries and countries. Leaders were given feedback, committed to change, and were measured on improvement. The single variable that predicted improvement was whether they systematically followed up with stakeholders to ask for ongoing ideas.
Goldsmith spent 45 years coaching the world's top executives before someone asked him the pivotal question: does anybody ever really change? At that point he had no research to prove it. This launched his landmark study of 86,000 leaders across the world, which definitively showed that the key variable separating leaders who improve from those who do not is systematic follow-up with stakeholders. The method draws from his mentor Paul Hersey's pragmatic approach to definitions and his recognition that smart, successful people often sabotage themselves with the belief that this is just the way I am.