This platform is giving employers a training and development blueprint

If a manager’s job is to train their teams, who is in charge of training the managers?

While many organizations tout their executive leadership programs, as well as career mentoring and education programs, many mid-level managers lack the training and skills to successfully climb the corporate ladder. For Christine Tao, founder of coaching platform Sounding Board, her own swift ascent to the top of the C-suite left her feeling misguided.

“I’d spent my career at places like Google and Youtube, where they have best-in-class leadership development, but I wasn’t high enough in the organization to warrant the investment of a personalized coach,” Tao says. “I got exposed to coaching through a startup, where I was very quickly promoted to executive leadership, and it ended up being one of the most profound professional experiences I had had.”

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Her coach helped her navigate this new transition, teaching her how to lead teams, interact with other executives and communicate effectively as a leader. After several years at various startups, Tao recognized how beneficial this training could be for employees at any level, later partnering with her coach, Lori Mazan, to co-found Sounding Board in 2016.

The platform works with companies to build a training program that’s unique to their organization’s goals and outcomes. Gathering data, Sounding Board then utilizes AI to match employees with a coach, and then guides them through training modules.

“The technology really is enabling a lot of these work streams that previously, for traditional coaching, the coach might have done themselves,” Tao says. “We use technology to make that automated and a lot more scalable, so coaching can have a lot more impact.”

Interest in professional development and coaching is growing in interest among employees: a survey by LinkedIn found that 94% of employees would stay at a company longer if there were learning and development opportunities. A quarter of GenZ and millennial employees said they would quit if not offered an opportunity to learn and grow on the job.

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Coaching can also be used as a DEI tool, Tao says, something more companies are tapping into as they look to expand opportunities for a more diverse workforce and close representation gaps. Currently, women make up just 24% of the C-suite, with women of color accounting for just 4% of those roles, according to 2021 data from McKinsey.

“Leadership gaps start to increase as you go from a manager and then toward executive leadership, and a lot of companies think about deploying coaching to help them close that gap,” Tao says. “We want to build that pipeline to increase diversity on that leadership bench.”

On the day-to-day, coaching can be a tool to help leaders build confidence, and avoid bigger managerial issues down the line, Tao says. No matter what level an employee is, the benefits of coaching services can pay off for them — and for the organization as a whole.

“Especially now with Great Resignation and with the challenge in acquiring talent, companies are really thinking about how to hold onto their employees,” Tao says. “One of the biggest drivers for retention in the workplace today is, does that employee believe that they have a career path in that company? Are they learning and growing? It’s really a core tool for continuing to retain your talent.”