Coaching for comms
When I was doing my undergraduate degree, MySpace was a thing, Facebook was only just emerging, and traditional media was still the dominant force shaping public debate.
A lot has changed since then.
Today, people working in communications are expected to navigate an enormous and constantly evolving ecosystem.
Depending on the day, you might be:
- developing a communications strategy
- writing a media release
- pitching an op-ed
- managing social media
- producing graphics or videos
- updating a website
- analysing data
- advising on an emerging issue
Often, you’re doing several of those things at once. And you’re doing it in the context of an always on, 24-hour news cycle, in an environment rich with misinformation and disinformation, declining trust in institutions, increasingly fragmented audiences and rapidly changing technology.
Fun!
For communications people working in small for-purpose organisations, there’s often the additional challenge of being the sole comms person. You might even wear other hats that come with responsibilities like fundraising, advocacy, and events.
There might not be a more senior communications person in the organisation to test an idea with, help you work through a tricky issue, or reassure you that yes, that stakeholder request really is asking you to achieve six different objectives with one LinkedIn post.
That’s one of the reasons I think coaching can be so useful for communications people. But the particular approach to coaching depends a lot on where someone is in their career and what their goals are.
For someone who is relatively early in their career, coaching might involve building confidence, navigating relationships across an organisation, or figuring out how to move from constantly responding to requests towards doing more planned and strategic work.
For someone stepping into a communications management role, their goals might be around building a high performing team, influencing decision-makers, or building relationships with key stakeholders.
Coaching creates a space to unpack challenges and tricky scenarios without the pressure of needing to have an immediate answer.
The value of coaching comes from having the time and space to slow things down, articulate what’s going on, notice patterns, explore different options and work out what feels right.
Often my role as a coach is simply to ask questions, reflect something back, or help someone untangle a persistent problem.
I’ve now had the opportunity to coach communications people at different stages of their careers and in different organisations, and I genuinely love it.
Partly because comms people are usually dealing with really interesting problems. But also because I know how useful this kind of space can be.
I love being coached myself.
Running an independent consultancy means I don’t have a traditional manager or leadership team around me every day. Having someone I trust who I can reflect with, unpack challenges with and test my thinking with has become an important part of how I work.
It doesn’t mean I leave every coaching conversation with a perfectly formed answer. Often I leave with a better question.
And in communications, where there is always another deadline, notification, request, platform, meeting or emerging issue competing for our attention, making space to think might be one of the most valuable things we can do.
Joanna Le is a strategic communicator and purpose-driven leader, on a mission to create positive social change. She is also a Collaborator at For Purpose.
19 August 2026
For Purpose provides coaching and training for people working in comms.
