What is the difference that makes the difference in systemic team coaching®?

As coaching continues to evolve, many individual coaches are finding themselves nudged into new territory: working with teams. It’s a shift that can feel both exciting and a bit unnerving. You might be used to the depth and intimacy of one-to-one coaching, but now you’re being asked to support leadership teams navigating complex, messy and often ambiguous challenges. So, what really makes the difference when stepping into the world of systemic team coaching®?

From individual insight to collective intelligence

Traditional one-to-one coaching focuses on personal insight, behaviour change and goal achievement. It’s powerful, transformative - and often insufficient when applied to the complex dynamics of leadership teams.

Systemic team coaching®, by contrast, is not just about helping individuals perform better within a team. It’s about enabling the team as a whole to think, learn and act together in service of their stakeholders. The shift is from individual insight to collective intelligence.

Why this matters now

Organisations today are facing challenges that are increasingly ambiguous, fast-moving, and interconnected. Leadership teams are expected to navigate uncertainty, drive transformation and deliver results - all while modelling collaboration and resilience.

In this context, systemic team coaching® offers a way to build teams that are not only high-performing but also adaptive, reflective and aligned with the wider system they serve.

The trap of “group coaching”

Many experienced coaches make the understandable mistake of treating team coaching as “group coaching” - essentially a series of one-to-one sessions held in a group setting. But this misses the point.

Systemic team coaching® is not about coaching individuals in parallel. It’s about working with the team as a living system. That means paying attention to relationships, patterns, roles and the team’s impact on - and from - the wider organisation.

The difference that makes the difference

So, what is the real differentiator? It’s the systemic lens.

This lens allows the coach to:

• See the team as a dynamic system, not just a collection of individuals.
• Work with the team’s purpose, not just its performance.
• Engage with stakeholders beyond the team, including customers, partners and the organisation itself.
• Surface and shift patterns of interaction that limit the team’s effectiveness.
• Help the team become more self-aware, self-regulating and self-improving.

It’s this systemic orientation that transforms team coaching from a tactical intervention into a strategic enabler.

What experienced coaches need to unlearn

For coaches used to working one-to-one, stepping into systemic team coaching® requires more than new tools - it requires a mindset shift.

You may need to unlearn:

• The belief that insight equals change.
• The habit of focusing on individuals rather than relationships.
• The tendency to avoid conflict rather than work with it.
• The assumption that your role is to help fix, rather than to facilitate.

Systemic team coaching® invites you to hold the space for the team to do its own work - messy, real and transformative.

Building your confidence and capability

If you’re an experienced coach considering this transition, here are some ways to build your confidence:

• Get trained: Look for programmes like the AoEC’s Systemic Team Coaching Certificate® (Practitioner) that focus specifically on systemic team coaching®, not just team facilitation.
• Find a mentor: Work with someone who has walked this path and can help you navigate the shift.
• Start small: Begin with a leadership team you know well and be transparent about your learning journey.
• Reflect systemically: Use supervision and peer learning to explore your own systemic patterns and blind spots.

A final word for commissioners

If you’re commissioning coaching services for your organisation, ask yourself: are your leadership teams being supported in a way that matches the complexity of their challenges?

Systemic team coaching® is not a luxury - it’s a highly effective intervention and valuable investment for organisations that want to thrive in a volatile world. The difference that makes the difference is not just in the coach - it’s in the approach.