Beyond One-on-One: Why the Future of Leadership Is Systemic
Aug 06, 2025
There’s a limit to what one-on-one coaching can do.
Yes, it’s powerful. Yes, it transforms. But today’s challenges are no longer individual, they’re systemic.
Burnout isn’t just a personal issue. Low engagement isn’t just a team problem. Culture isn’t just about values painted on office walls.
If we want to create lasting impact, we need to zoom out and coach the whole system. That’s where Systemic Team Coaching® comes in.
What Makes Systemic Team Coaching Different?
Systemic Team Coaching® doesn’t treat teams as collections of individuals. It sees the team as a living system. A dynamic network of relationships, goals, tensions, patterns, and possibilities.
Instead of asking, "What does each person need to improve?", we ask, "What can this team achieve together that they could never do apart?"
The coaching lens shifts from personal performance to collective intelligence, shared accountability, and systemic value creation.
1. Beyond the Heroic Leader
We’ve all grown up idolizing the visionary, the lone decision-maker, the heroic leader. But let’s face it, that model is outdated. In complex, fast-changing environments, no single individual has the answer.
Systemic Team Coaching challenges this myth. Leadership doesn’t live in a person; it lives in a network.
We stop looking for the one right answer. And start cultivating the space where answers can emerge, from the collective.
2. From BMW to Momentum
You’ve probably seen it: teams stuck in the loop of Blame, Moan, and Whine (BMW), a concept introduced by Professor Peter Hawkins to describe the common dysfunctional patterns that teams can fall into when under stress or lacking purpose.
Systemic coaching doesn’t just treat the symptoms, it shifts the culture. We explore how unconscious patterns, power dynamics, and old identities shape the team’s current reality. And we create space for new agreements, mature conversations, and shared ownership.
It’s not therapy. It’s transformation. Rooted in data, grounded in purpose.
3. Group vs. Team Coaching
Let’s be clear: group coaching and team coaching are not the same.
Group coaching helps individuals grow, together, but separately. Team coaching helps the team evolve as a unit, including how it relates to its stakeholders, customers, and context.
The goal? To align around purpose, operate as one, and create value beyond the team.
4. Five Disciplines, One Framework
Systemic Team Coaching® uses the Five Disciplines Model to diagnose and shift team performance. It looks at:
- Commissioning: Why does this team exist?
- Clarifying: What is it here to do?
- Co-creating: How do we work together?
- Connecting: Who do we serve and relate to?
- Core Learning: How do we grow, reflect, and renew?
It’s not a checklist. It’s a diagnostic and developmental map that works across purpose, process, and people.
5. The Business Case
Systemic Team Coaching® isn’t just a methodology. It’s a business imperative.
Companies that embrace it:
- Foster agile, resilient, and future-ready teams.
- Tap into the power of collective intelligence.
- Replace top-down leadership with distributed accountability.
- Create cultures that adapt, evolve, and perform—together.
Who Is It For?
For CEOs ready to break silos. For HR leaders tired of treating symptoms. For leaders wanting more than KPIs. For coaches looking to scale their impact.
It’s for anyone who believes leadership isn’t just a title, it’s a dynamic, relational process that lives between people.
Systemic Team Coaching isn’t just about performance. It’s about purpose. It’s not just about the team. It’s about the system.
Systemic Team Coaching® is a registered trademark and intellectual property of Professor Peter Hawkins and Renewal Associates, who have developed and stewarded this professional discipline.
If one-on-one coaching is a mirror… systemic coaching is a window.
A window into what’s possible when people lead—together.
Marjana Laibacher Rogelj, WeQ Co-Creator
Systemic Team Coaching Practitioner, Leadership Maturity Coach
