Coaching promotes growth and development by cultivating insight

July 31, 2025 Published by Sharee Johnson

Doctors take pride in being independent thinkers.

Our system requires them to be and trains them to be. Doctors are the decision makers, the leaders, that’s what we all believe right?

Does that mean that you, as a doctor, are less likely to ask for help than other professionals? Perhaps.

Most adults want autonomy and feel like asking for help creates unwanted vulnerability.

The corporate world has a mature coaching environment. After 30 years of experience there are many champions and sponsors of coaching.

The employers:

• pay for their employees coaching through established provider partnerships with external providers
• employ teams of internal coaches to support their workforce
• participate in 3 way meetings to set the coaching frame and review progress with the employee and their coach
• normalise the process of coaching as an effective way to help the employee grow and develop.

In medicine the employer leaves professional development to the individual (independent thinker) after the first couple of years.

You, the doctor, apply and succeed and drive your progress past the various hurdles medicine has established towards Consultant/ Attending, guided by regulatory requirements.
Or your own internal motivation, or perceived external judgement.

Which pathway you are on determines in part, how much support you garner. Your willingness to ask for help also plays an important role. In most scenarios, no one in your organisation is really championing or sponsoring your development…

In most scenarios, no one in your organisation is really championing or sponsoring your development… you are an independent thinker after all!
You can figure it out.

Coaching is in it’s childhood in medicine. Early adopters are using coaching:

• Upwardly mobile performance driven doctors
• Extremely curious doctors who like to check out new things
• Doctors who are deeply concerned about their wellbeing and waning longevity in a career they expected to keep

We are working in an industry that doesn’t really understand how much value coaching can bring yet.
If you are ready to maximise the performance and contribution of your medical team, get serious about coaching.
If you really want to learn, to embed your learning, to reach for your potential, or help your team reach their potential, you need insight. Deep internally motivated learning that matters to you.

Independent thinking is not enough, our egos get in the way. In an effort to demonstrate how independently capable we are, we risk losing our curiosity.  Instead of learning, we double down on what we think we already know. To be truly curious means saying I don’t know, what do you think, who else can we ask, maybe even things like, the uncertainty here is making me nervous.  Independent thinking can be code for I’ve got this, and even show no weakness in medicine.

In coaching you get to work in a confidential space with one or a few others who are wholly committed to your learning, in a safe and brave space that exists to nourish exploration and insight. Deep, true learning. The kind you cannot unknow once you know, because it’s changed you.
You feeling curious, or closed down?

Coaching is an incredibly effective vehicle for behaviour change, insight, collaboration, skill development, team and leadership development, enabling wellbeing.

If you want to lift your medical team’s professional capacity, retain and attract the best people, be an employer of choice, sponsor a coaching program and measure it over the next 12 months. We can help you.

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Sharee Johnson is the Founder, Managing Director, Principal Coach at Coaching for Doctors. She is the bestselling author of The Thriving Doctor: How to be more balanced and fulfilled, working in medicine and a Registered Psychologist. She has written extensively about doctor wellbeing, performance and coaching, delivers workshops to doctors and speaks at medical conferences. You can connect with her on Linkedin and Instagram.

For more like this.

The Thriving Doctor

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Sharee Johnson’s book The Thriving Doctor is available in all good bookstores or online.

Sharee has been coaching doctors since 2014, find out more about her work