Our Learning Philosophy at Coachable

At Coachable, we don’t just believe leadership starts with a coaching mindset, we know it. We’ve seen it transform teams, reshape culture and accelerate performance. Leadership programmes must go beyond concepts and competency frameworks to drive measurable behaviour change. 

And yet so many development programmes look exactly the same as they did 10 years ago. Same content, same frameworks, same delivery.

The risk?

• Your leaders manage, but they don’t coach
• They act, but they don’t pause to think or reflect
• They talk about high performance, but avoid challenge and conflict

That’s not standing still. That’s moving backwards. And that doesn’t feel very Coachable.

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Having worked with hundreds of leaders and dozens of organisations across the tech, financial services and creative sectors, here’s what we know people crave:

• Leaders want to be better coaches and their teams want that too. Coaching behaviours like active listening, curiosity, feedback and challenge build trust and confidence, whilst improving decision-making and autonomy (win-win!)
• Leaders want to learn from each other, not just from experts. Stories, insights and sharing of experiences brings a real richness and depth that often lacks in traditional training.
• Leaders don’t need more content. They want space to think, practice and embed new habits. 

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And here’s what we know from a learning perspective:

• Feedback, challenge and change management are the three biggest areas leaders struggle with, and knowing how to coach can help you do all three!
• Leaders and the business need to be challenged, so our role as your leadership development partner is to challenge your leaders as much as it is to challenge you; our goal is to ensure our programmes deliver tangible and measurable ROI not just a “nice” experience
• Theory isn’t enough. Theory alone is like teaching someone a single recipe; it works once, but doesn’t build confidence in the kitchen. We go deeper. We teach the principles behind the recipe, so leaders understand why things work, not just how. With the right psychological insight and practice, leaders develop the confidence to adapt, improvise and lead with intent.

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Embedding Coaching into our Learning Practice

To coach well, leaders first need to experience it for themselves. That’s why we design learning that builds self-awareness through coaching, not just as a skill to learn, but a process to feel. This dual lens helps leaders understand both how coaching changes them and how to use it with others.

We also layer core concepts intentionally over time with what we call “laddering”. Trust, values, active listening and feedback aren’t taught in isolation; they’re revisited and re-contextualised to deepen understanding. Like building a house, we lay strong foundations first, so when we introduce more complex concepts, the ground is already solid.

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Coachable Hierarchy of Learning

This approach underpins our Coachable Hierarchy of Learning. Just as Maslow mapped human needs, we’ve mapped the conditions that allow leaders to shift from knowing → doing → embedding.

1. Psychological Safety: Without safety, learning doesn’t happen. It’s the foundation for vulnerability, reflection and real behavioural change. The way sessions are designed, opened, and facilitated, especially by a coach, creates the conditions for stretch and experimentation to happen.

2. Self-Management: Leaders must manage themselves before they can lead others. Learning must support emotional regulation, intentional decision-making and behavioural flexibility, particularly under pressure.

3. Influence and Communication: Performance culture is shaped in conversation. Learning at this level focuses on listening, clarity, adaptability and the ability to communicate with presence and purpose.

4. Coaching as a Practice: Coaching isn’t just a module, it’s a mindset and a leadership muscle that needs to be built over time. At this stage, leaders learn to embed coaching behaviours into how they lead, not as an add-on, but as a way of working.

5. Culture and Systems Impact: This is the ‘ripple effect’ stage, where the work of one leader shapes the performance of many. This is where leaders begin to shape the culture around them, role modelling the behaviours that influence team norms, systems and long-term performance.

It’s no accident that coaching sits at level four, not at the base. The first three stages create the conditions for coaching to be meaningful, not mechanical. Without safety, self-awareness and clear communication, coaching risks becoming a tool leaders use, rather than a mindset they embody.

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Applying this in Practice: Further

Our flagship programme, Further, brings the Coachable learning philosophy to life—through structure, behavioural depth, and real-world application.

It’s built around six core behaviours we believe define Coachable leadership: Conscious, Coach, Challenge, Collaborate, Candour and Connect. These are taught not as standalone modules, but as an interconnected behavioural system, deepened over 14 weeks. An additional Celebrate module reinforces participants' continued growth.

The design is intentional:

• Little and often for habit formation
• Facilitated by coaches, not trainers
• Backed by neuroscience to support behaviour change

With a Net Promoter Score of 95 and 90% of participants reporting a direct impact on their leadership performance, Further isn’t just engaging, it’s highly effective. But more importantly, it’s a real-time case study of everything we believe learning should be: human, applied and behaviourally sticky.

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"Truly the best thing I’ve done is sign up for this course. Can’t recommend highly enough for any leader." - Pauline Taylor, Head of People, HowNow

“Saying Further is brilliant is an understatement. Any leader would benefit from this, regardless of their seniority.” - Leo Selie, Global Support Manager, Zapier

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Bespoke Design

While Further offers a “plug and play” experience, many of our partnerships require something more tailored.

When we design bespoke leadership programmes, we don’t approach it like a traditional L&D provider. Our approach is more product than programme: rooted in design thinking, user research and behaviour-first learning architecture.

We co-create the experience with you as a People team, starting with a Discovery to help uncover not just surface-level needs, but cultural blind spots, tension and ambitions that often go unspoken. As for the actual process, there’s some more depth over on our Bespoke page, but just as a chef wouldn’t give away their best recipe, our lips are sealed! 

Ironically - much of our approach comes from a coaching mindset: curiosity, listening and challenge to ensure we have measurable impact. If you’re partnering with Coachable, expect to be coached!

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“I loved the creativity and the collaboration throughout the whole process. I was really blown away by this phase of the project, I didn't expect to walk away feeling I'd had development myself” - Claire Mackinlay, OVO Energy

“Great job to the People Development team and Coachable! I truly believe this partnership should continue together, you create magic!” - Participant, Rise Programme, OutSystems

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Whether collaborating on our Further programme, Masterclasses, Executive Coaching or a Bespoke leadership programme, all of our work is underpinned by our learning philosophy and values: Inspire with Coaching, Make it Extraordinary and Be a Human. 

If you’d like to chat about our learning philosophy here at Coachable, or you’re intrigued to understand how a partnership with your organisation might work, drop us a message. Together, we can rid the world of shitty bosses!

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