In many Zimbabwean organisations, executive coaching is introduced quietly, often after performance concerns surface or leadership tensions escalate. It is treated as a corrective intervention, reserved for struggling executives rather than high performers.
Yet in a volatile economy marked by currency shifts, regulatory complexity, capital constraints, and sustained decision pressure, waiting for leadership strain before investing in structured executive support is not prudent governance, it is costly delay.
Let’s take a quick look at what executive coaching really is before we go further with this discussion. According to Forbes.com, executive coaching is a series of one-on-one sessions between a coach and an executive, who is generally at a mid to senior level leadership position.
The primary goal of coaching is to boost an executive’s performance and influence within the company. I would like to highlight right at the beginning that executive coaching is not a remedial class for under performers.
According to the same report, the advantages of engaging an executive coach extend beyond the individual to their teams and the broader organisation. Research shows that executive coaching offers a 788% return on investment (ROI), which includes factors like enhanced productivity and improved employee retention.
In Zimbabwe’s business climate, executives are not only managing the business. They are also managing uncertainty itself. The cognitive and emotional load of this environment cannot be underestimated. Every board decision carries amplified consequences.
Every miscalculation compound risk. Executive coaching comes in to enhance both technical and psychological capabilities to cope and to thrive in difficult operating environments. However, in my experience with the corporate world, most organisations look for executive coaches when there are challenges, not as a mandatory prerequisite for individuals responsible for the sustainability of the entity.
Globally, competitive organisations do not wait for fracture before strengthening leadership capacity. Executive coaching is embedded as a strategic tool to sharpen judgment, strengthen emotional regulation under pressure, and provide senior leaders with structured reflection in environments where few can challenge them openly.
Let’s look at the Microsoft case. When Satya Nadella assumed leadership, he prioritised leadership development and growth, mind set transformation, supported by structured executive development practices. The cultural shift that followed was not cosmetic. It repositioned the organisation strategically and revitalised its market performance. Coaching and executive development were not remedial tools. They were levers for competitive reinvention.
Similarly, Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, has publicly acknowledged that coaching significantly sharpened his effectiveness. He once remarked that every leader needs a coach not because they are failing, but because blind spots are invisible from the inside. At the highest levels of leadership, there are few safe spaces for candid challenge. Coaching provides structured, confidential reflection that enhances strategic clarity.
The higher the position, the greater the isolation. Senior executives cannot freely process uncertainty with subordinates. Boards often receive filtered presentations rather than raw deliberation. Peers are competitors. In such an environment, unexamined thinking becomes a governance risk.
This is where Zimbabwean corporate culture must evolve. Let’s be honest. As I alluded to earlier in this article, executive coaching is often viewed as an HR afterthought or a reputational management tool quietly deployed when something is “wrong.”
But in volatile economies, waiting for visible cracks before strengthening leadership capacity reflects a reactive governance mindset. And here is the uncomfortable truth. If coaching only appears in your organisation when performance declines, you are not investing in leadership. You are managing damage.
Executive coaching, properly understood, is not therapy and not motivational speaking. It is a structured thinking partnership focused on sharpening executive judgment, strengthening decision discipline, improving emotional regulation under sustained pressure, and enhancing accountability at the highest levels of leadership.
Boards speak often of risk oversight, succession planning, and sustainability. Yet leadership sustainability is rarely treated with the same structural seriousness as financial oversight.
Governance failures across global markets have repeatedly revealed what happens when executive self-awareness, accountability, and challenge mechanisms are weak. The well publicised instability at “WeWork” highlighted how unchecked executive behaviour and insufficient governance discipline can erode enterprise value rapidly.
While coaching alone does not prevent collapse, structured executive accountability mechanisms strengthen leadership maturity and reduce behavioural risk.
For organisations operating in Zimbabwe’s unpredictable environment, the stakes are even higher. Executives are navigating exchange rate volatility, policy shifts, talent migration, constrained liquidity, and intensified shareholder scrutiny, often simultaneously. Sustained exposure to this level of complexity increases cognitive fatigue and narrows strategic bandwidth.
Decision fatigue is not a theoretical concept. It is a measurable phenomenon that affects judgment quality. Executive coaching mitigates these risks by providing disciplined reflection. It sharpens thinking before decisions are executed. It strengthens composure before conflict escalates. It improves clarity before strategy is communicated to markets.
Companies such as IBM and General Electric have long embedded leadership development and executive coaching within succession pipelines. In these environments, coaching is not an admission of weakness. It is an expectation of serious leadership. The competitive question for Zimbabwean businesses is no longer whether executives are technically competent.
It is whether they are cognitively supported and strategically sharpened in an environment that punishes hesitation and amplifies error. In volatile economies, technically strong but unsupported executives become a liability, that’s a painful truth. Structured executive coaching transforms leadership from reactive survival to disciplined strategy. This is what we need to support growth and exceed organisational targets, not on paper but in terms of real results.
While many executive coaching engagements focus heavily on strategy execution, KPIs, financial acumen, and operational refinement, far fewer address what might be described as the leadership “software.” Technical competence is essential because balance sheets must be interpreted accurately, strategy must be aligned to market realities, and performance targets must be met. However, technical capability alone does not guarantee sustainable leadership impact. Increasingly, organisations are discovering that the limiting factor at senior levels is not knowledge, but mental capacity.
Mental fatigue, prolonged stress exposure, emotional reactivity, and unexamined mindset patterns quietly erode decision quality. An executive may be technically brilliant yet cognitively depleted. They may understand the numbers but struggle with resilience under sustained pressure. They may possess industry expertise yet lack the emotional intelligence required to navigate conflict, inspire confidence, or regulate their responses in volatile environments.
By definition, mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realise their abilities, learn and work well, and contribute to their community. I love to simplify this definition and to refer to mental health as a human system responsible for how they think, feel, behave and relate.
In other words, if the executive is not in a good space in terms of their mental health, their thinking and decision-making is flawed, their ability to relate professionally with stakeholders is compromised and their behaviour in and outside the office puts the organisation’s reputation at risk.
Executive coaching that ignores these “software” dimensions risks polishing technical skills while leaving underlying strain unaddressed. In high pressure economies such as Zimbabwe’s, where leaders operate under continuous uncertainty, strengthening mental fitness, resilience, and emotional intelligence is not peripheral.
It is performance enhancement and protection. When the internal operating system of leadership is stable, technical expertise can perform at its highest level. When it is compromised, even the strongest credentials lose their impact.
Executive coaching is not remedial. It is not a luxury. It is not damage control. It is governance infrastructure. And in Zimbabwe’s current economic climate, governance infrastructure is not optional. It is a strategic imperative.
Jessie Mhaka is an executive coach and leadership strategist, certified by the Institute of Coaching and Mentoring Foundation (ICMF). She is currently the overall coach of the year award holder and the mental health coach of the year with the same institute. She is the Founder and Executive Director of BeMindFit and advises organisations on executive mental fitness, mindset transformations, and sustainable high performance.
