Leadership Capacities Overview

Today's fast-paced business environment demands more from leaders than ever before. Traditional leadership skills alone aren't enough to handle the complexity and rapid change your organization faces. Instead, leaders need to tap into something deeper: their ability to reframe how they think, connect, and create impact. This is where leadership capacities come in.

Understanding leadership capacities

While leadership skills help your people with today’s tasks, like giving feedback or managing projects, leadership capacities change how your leaders see and shape tomorrow’s possibilities. They’re fundamental shifts in mindset that empower your leaders to navigate complexity, spark new ideas, and drive real, lasting change.

Think of leadership skills like apps you download for specific challenges. They’re tailored to specific use cases and need constant updates. Leadership capacities are more like system upgrades. Capacities develop over time and keep evolving, helping your leaders meet new challenges head-on.

How leadership capacities shape the Torch coaching experience

At Torch, we believe coaching is most impactful when it’s aligned to your organization’s unique culture and goals. Before your coaching program starts, we work with you to understand what’s happening in your business and pinpoint the capacities your leaders need to be more effective together.  

This context allows us to personalize coaching to your organization and people, helping them develop capacities that last. Here’s how:

1. Spark awareness - Our coaches partner with your leaders to uncover their strengths, identify areas for growth, and create focused development plans that align with your organization’s goals.

2. Practice in context - Your leaders apply new approaches in real-world scenarios, receiving expert feedback and guidance to fine-tune their leadership strategies within your unique business context.

3. Build habits - Through reflection and consistent practice, your leaders develop new ways of thinking and behaving that become second nature.

4. Expand impact - Leaders extend their influence by tackling more complex challenges and supporting the growth of others, creating a positive multiplier effect across your entire organization.

Leadership capacities in action

Leadership capacities show up in your participants’ coaching meetings and right on your Torch admin dashboard.

Coaching Meetings

Torch coaches can see the leadership capacities your organization has chosen to focus on for your coaching program. They also have examples of behaviors that will help your leaders develop each one.

Let’s say one of your organization’s focuses is the Adaptive Mindset capacity. This is “the ability to update your thinking and assumptions when faced with new information or changing situations”. To help your leaders develop this capacity, Torch coaches will guide them in actions that strengthen behaviors like:

• Embracing change and uncertainty

• Asking for feedback to challenge assumptions

• Adapting their approach and shifting priorities as needed

• Applying lessons from past experiences to new situations

Your Admin Dashboard

In Torch reporting, you’ll find coaching insights that include leadership capacities.

• Coaching Themes report - This report gives you real-time data about what your participants are working on in coaching and highlights the top three leadership capacities your people are developing. Learn more about coaching themes.

• Organizational Insights report - This report helps you get a clear picture of the current state of your leaders and organization. It identifies the top five unique challenges for your organization and the three main leadership capacities we recommend your people focus on in coaching to address them. Learn more about organizational insights.

These insights offer valuable input for your strategic planning and help you continuously refine how you use coaching to meet your evolving business needs.

Why leadership capacities matter

By understanding your organization’s context, strategic priorities, and business goals, Torch coaches help your people connect their individual growth to the overall evolution of your organization.

Here’s where it gets really exciting: when your leaders build leadership capacities, they transform your organization’s ability to adapt and thrive. Their improved ways of thinking and behaving naturally spread from person to person, team to team. This leads to stronger leadership at every level and creates a sustainable competitive advantage for your organization. That’s the ripple effect of coaching!