invest in coaching recoup their investments.
Research consistently shows that the quality ICF shows that there is an 88 % increase in productivity and a 51 % increment in team effectiveness. When you coach your marketing managers, you are indirectly investing in every copywriter, designer, analyst, and digital specialist who reports to them. Consider the numbers: a marketing manager leading a team of eight people has a direct impact on eight professionals, their creative output, their wellbeing, and their decision to stay or leave for a competitor. Multiply that across your marketing department, and the impact on campaign quality, speed to market, and talent retention becomes staggering.
Maxwell captures this perfectly:“ Leaders are measured by the calibre of leaders they develop, not the calibre of their own leadership.” The ICF reinforces this by embedding coaching principles into the DNA of organisations, creating what it describes as workplaces that thrive. When an organisation invests in coaching its marketing managers, the return is not linear it is exponential. Every coached manager becomes a multiplier, lifting the performance, confidence, and retention of those around them.
Beyond retention, coached marketing managers make sharper strategic decisions, resolve creative conflicts more effectively, and create psychological safety. The kind of environment where people pitch bold ideas, challenge assumptions, and produce their best creative work. These are not soft outcomes. They drive brand differentiation, campaign performance, and ultimately, commercial results.
A Call to Action for Marketing Leaders Africa’ s marketing landscape is evolving at pace with digital-first audiences, increasingly sophisticated consumers, and a creative talent pool that is young, ambitious, and hungry for leadership that inspires. Our organisations have a tremendous opportunity to build a new generation of brand and marketing managers who lead with both strategic rigour and human empathy. Butthat will not happen by accident.
If you are a CMO, a Head of Marketing, or a marketing director, here is the challenge: look at your management layer with fresh eyes. Not as executors to be tasked, but as leaders to be developed. These are the people who will determine whether your brand strategy lives or dies in execution.
Invest in coaching for this group. A structured, intentional, ongoing coaching and watch the multiplier effect unfold. When the middle of your marketing organisation is strong, the whole brand rises. The greatest marketing leaders don’ t just build campaigns, they build other leaders. Start in the middle and watch the business transform.
Barbra Kingori is an ICF Certified Professional Coach, Managing Partner at Flip The Switch and Founder Red Lilly Africa Limited. You can commune with her via mail at: Partner @ ftscoaching. co. ke.
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