Originally Posted on The Coaching Tools Company as Why Team Coaching, Why Now? Navigating the Complexity of 2025 Through Collective Change | By Jennifer Britton
As we move through 2025 the nature of work continues to shift beneath our feet. Teams, leaders and individuals are navigating complexity, changing ecosystems, and burnout at unprecedented levels. Traditional leadership models are no longer enough.
The world of coaching is responding—and the call for team coaching has never been louder.
Team coaching offers a vital bridge between insight and impact. It’s not just about helping people perform better. It’s about helping teams think together, grow together, and deliver together in real-time, real-world contexts.
In this article, we explore why team coaching matters right now, what makes it unique, and how coaches can step into this vital space of collective transformation.
The 2025 Landscape: What’s Changed
In just a few short years, seismic shifts have reshaped how teams function. Five years ago, in Reconnecting Workspaces and the Remote Pathways podcast, we began to spotlight the myths and realities of a changing workforce. Today, many of the assumptions of HOW and WHERE we work have become a reality, even if not yet fully embraced.
Here are some of the realities of work in 2025 for many organizations:
- Workspaces are varied in how they work. Many have been ordered back to the office. Others operate in hybrid models, with in-person attendance 3-4 days a week.
- Change is a constant for most organizations.
- Connection is key. In human-centric workplaces, people feel that they can do their best work.
- Pace and overload. Leaders and team members alike are stretched thin. Busyness replaces clarity.
- Trust breakdowns. After years of constant change, trust erosion is a quiet epidemic.
- AI integration is rising. Automation is accelerating—but so is the need for human alignment, emotional intelligence, and collaboration.
- Interdependence is increasing. Results are no longer siloed—they are shared, requiring teams to function as cohesive systems.
In this context, team coaching isn’t a luxury—it’s a strategic necessity.
What Team Coaching Brings That Other Modalities Don’t
Let’s clarify: team coaching is not the same as facilitation, training, or group coaching.
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Team coaching helps real teams:
- Align around purpose and direction
- Improve how they communicate and collaborate
- Strengthen both RELATIONSHIPS and RESULTS
- Address dysfunctions, silos, and trust gaps
- Learn and grow within the context of their actual work
- Build sustainable practices, not just attend one-off sessions
The Case for Team Coaching in 2025: 3 Critical Reasons
1. Teams Are the Engine of Business and Strategy
Today’s organizations succeed (or fail) through teams. Whether it’s product launches, service delivery, or innovation—work happens in teams. Supporting team performance is one of the highest-leverage moves leaders can make.
2. Culture Lives in Teams
While culture might be set at the top, it lives and breathes in team dynamics. If you want to shift engagement, inclusion, or resilience—start at the team level.
3. Collective Intelligence Is Now a Competitive Advantage
The best teams don’t just complete tasks. They think together, adapt together and evolve together. Team coaching builds this collaborative capacity.
What Makes Team Coaching Different (and More Demanding than 1:1)
“You’re not just coaching individuals in a team. You’re coaching the invisible space between them.”
Team coaching requires more than simply “scaling up” your 1:1 coaching. It’s a different set of muscles. You must be able to:
- Fade in and fade out of the team system – our work as coaches is to build team capacity and help them translate WHAT we are doing in the coaching to their work context
- Work with team dynamics in real time
- Support both RELATIONSHIPS and RESULTS simultaneously
- Hold presence with multiple agendas, personalities, and emotional undercurrents
- Facilitate trust and psychological safety for individuals AND the group
- Stay aware of external stakeholders, power structures, and unspoken tensions
Are You Ready to Coach Teams?
The ICF Advanced Certification in Team Coaching (ACTC) is the global standard for coaches ready to deepen their impact in this space. Launched in 2022, it requires:
- 60+ hours of team coaching education
- 5+ team coaching engagements (with real teams) over a five-year period
- A minimum of 5 hours of team coaching supervision
- Successful Completion of the ICF Team Coaching Assessment
Even if you’re not pursuing ACTC, developing the capabilities to coach teams will elevate your practice and your professional value.
Tools That Support the Journey
As the field matures, so do the tools available. Consider integrating:
- The Six Factors of High Performing Teams model for assessments and coaching (Explore more in my TEDx talk)
- The Pause–Focus–Create–Activate reflection cycle for team learning
- Conversation Sparker Tools like visuals, metaphors, and cards to deepen insight
- Structured debriefs like Ripple Reflection Pages to capture learning and action
Final Thought: Teams Continue To Be the Engine of Change and Growth
“You can’t build the future of work on yesterday’s habits. Team coaching helps us build habits, clarity and connection, together.”
If you’re a coach ready to expand your impact—or a leader wondering how to better support your teams—this is the moment to lean in.
In 2025, the real power isn’t in more answers. It’s in stronger teams that can hold the right conversations for their moment, so that they can chart their way forward.
Ready to Start?Join us for our 60 of 125 hour ACTC – CCE pathway, designed for coaches ready work at the collective level with groups and teams. Or join the Conversation Sparker Experiential Roadshow to learn the tools that spark the conversations that need to happen. |
If you enjoyed this article, you may also like:
- 6 Ways to Feel more Confident in Leading Group and Team Coaching by Jennifer Britton
- Challenging Team or Group? The 5 Team Dysfunctions with Ideas to Build Trust by Julia Menard
- How to Boost Your Confidence in Group and Team Coaching by Jennifer Britton
