Creating a Coaching Culture Where Nurses Thrive: Embed, Expand & Elevate
Anyone who has ever cared for infants in the NICU knows that growth doesn’t happen by accident. A fragile baby thrives because we dim the lights, quiet the room, bundle with delicate care and intentionally shape the world around them so they can heal. We engineer the micro-environment that leads to micro-miracles. It’s time we brought that exact same care and approach to how we design our workplace culture. While a single great conversation can spark a nurse’s potential, only a true coaching culture creates the conditions for professional growth over time.
The evidence supporting a coaching approach is undeniable. A comprehensive review by Richardson and colleagues found that coaching is a high impact strategy to elevate nurse outcomes and overall organizational performance. A study by International Coaching Federation (ICF) and Human Capital Institute (HCI) demonstrated that 83% of organizations are expanding their coaching initiatives to assist managers in attracting and retaining Millennial and Gen Z talent. Ultimately, a coaching culture is proven to be one of the most effective ways to drive engagement, enhance collaboration, and improve team success.
The question for nurse leaders is no longer whether coaching works. The question is how to create a culture where coaching becomes part of everyday practice. Much like developmental care in the NICU, a coaching culture is built through small actions repeated consistently over time. Leaders must embed coaching into everyday conversations, expand coaching opportunities throughout the team, and elevate coaching behaviors through recognition and celebration.
For a coaching culture to thrive, leaders should focus on three key strategies: Embed It, Expand It, and Elevate It.
1. Embed it: Create the Environment
In the NICU, we don’t just hope a baby grows. We meticulously design the environment to ensure they do. Every feature of care is intentionally structured to help infants thrive. The same is true for creating a sustainable and successful coaching culture. Gormley and van Nieuwerburgh describe a coaching culture as one in which a coaching approach is embedded throughout the organization and transparently aligned with its strategic goals. The ICF echoes this concept, describing coaching culture as “embedding coaching principles into the DNA of your organization.”
To create that environment, healthcare teams must first learn the language and core principles of coaching. Coaching should be introduced early and reinforced often. Imagine a new nurse’s first day on the unit. Alongside learning about patient safety, communication, and clinical expectations, they should be introduced to coaching as a standard part of how the team learns and grows. Normalizing this approach early on completely flips the script. From day one, coaching is not viewed as remediation—it’s simply how development happens here. Ultimately, healthcare professionals are far more likely to embrace coaching when they understand its purpose and realize it is a personal investment in their professional future.
Strategies to Embed Coaching:
| Introduce Coaching Early | Integrate coaching principles into onboarding curriculum |
| Host Micro-Learning Sessions | Run casual “lunch-and-learns” on coaching fundamentals |
| Launch a “Coaching Question of the Month” | Post a new coaching question in break rooms, huddle boards, and newsletters |
| Include a Coaching Question in Shift Huddles | “What is one thing you’d like to improve today?” “What is one challenge you anticipate?” |
| Distribute Coaching Badge Cards | Provide pocket-sized or badge-attached cards with quick coaching questions |
2. Expand It: Promote Development
Once the environment is set, a coaching culture thrives by spreading outward. Coaching is no longer a luxury strictly for executives and should be extended and accessible to all employees. As Richardson and colleagues summarize, the true benefits of coaching emerge when we scale training and practice across the entire discipline of nursing.
One powerful strategy to expand coaching is through peer coaching. At its core, peer coaching is a collaborative partnership between colleagues at a similar level of training or experience that promotes reflection, growth, and professional development. Consider a nurse who notices a colleague struggling with a difficult family conversation. Rather than immediately offering advice, she asks, “What do you think went well, and what would you do differently next time?” These simple questions transform a stressful moment into a reflective encounter. Because peer coaches often share the same daily experiences and challenges, these relationships can create a safe and empowering environment. The more people experience coaching, the more coaching becomes part of the culture rather than an isolated leadership skill.
Strategies to Expand Coaching:
| Create Peer Coaching Rounds | Pair nurses monthly for structured reflection conversations |
| Empower Coaching Champions | Identify and develop coaching champions who can model and spread coaching skills across the unit |
| Fuel Professional Growth | Support continuing education focused on coaching competencies |
| Sponsor Certifications | Encourage and incentivize staff to pursue coaching certifications |
| Start a Coaching Book Club | Books to inspire your team:
|
3. Elevate It: Celebrate Milestones
When caring for neonates, we don’t wait until discharge day to celebrate milestones. We cheer after the first triumphant feed, the hard-won gram gained on the scale, the relief of a successful extubation, and the countless other milestones.
The same principle applies to coaching cultures. If we want coaching to become part of everyday practice, we must celebrate the small wins along the way such as a thoughtful coaching question, a meaningful debrief or a nurse choosing curiosity over simply giving the answer.
Too often, leaders celebrate outcomes such as quality metrics, patient satisfaction scores, promotions, or certifications. Those are great, but the everyday behaviors that drive those results often go unnoticed. Imagine a team meeting where a nurse is recognized for helping a colleague unpack and process a brutal shift by using coaching tactics. When leaders honor these moments and celebrate coaching behaviors, this reinforces the culture they hope to create. Just remember that simple key to human behavior: what gets celebrated usually gets repeated.
By making coaching visible, leaders communicate that developing others is a valued part of professional practice. Coaching stops being an isolated skill and becomes woven into the very fabric of our excellence.
Strategies to Celebrate Coaching:
| Create a “Coaching Catch” Program | Call out great coaching behaviors using the familiar format as clinical “Good Catch” safety programs |
| Rethink DAISY Nominations | Include coaching stories in Daisy nominations and recognition programs |
| Celebrate First-Time Coaches | Give a quick nod to nurses who lead their first coaching conversation |
| Empower Peer Recognition | Encourage staff to identify and celebrate coaching behaviors they observe in others |
| Highlight Coaching Wins | Celebrate peer coaching wins in newsletters, huddles, or team meetings |
Across all clinical environments, we don’t just cross our fingers and hope for healing. We create the conditions that support it. The same should be true for professional development. When leaders intentionally embed, expand, and elevate coaching, they create a culture where learning, growth, and community can thrive.
Citations:
Richardson, C., Wicking, K., Biedermann, N., & Langtree, T. (2023). Coaching in nursing: An integrative literature review. Nursing Open, 10, 6635–6649. https://doi.org/10.1002/nop2.1925
Aisha K. Brooks, Lisa A. Campbell, Elizabeth A. Madigan, Anitra Johnson, Lakisha Davis Flagg, The Power of Coaching for All: Reimagining Professional Development in Nursing, Nurse Leader, Volume 24, Issue 2, 2026,102689, ISSN 1541-4612, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mnl.2026.102689.
Gormley, H., & van Nieuwerburgh, C. (2014). Developing coaching cultures: a review of the literature. Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 7(2), 90–101. https://doi.org/10.1080/17521882.2014.915863
Hammoud M, Winkel A, Wolff M, Andrews J. Coaching in Graduate Medical Education: A faculty handbook, American Medical Association, 2024.
Human Capital Institute; International Coaching Federation. Building a Coaching Culture for Change Management. International Coaching Federation; 2018. Accessed June 2, 2026. https://coachingfederation.org/research/building-a-coaching-culture
International Coaching Federation. Create an Impactful Coaching Culture. International Coaching Federation; 2024. Accessed June 2, 2026. https://byldcoaching.co.in/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/create-an-impactful-coaching-culture.pdf
International Coaching Federation. Create a coaching culture in your organization. International Coaching Federation. Accessed June 2, 2026. https://coachingfederation.org/get-coaching/coaching-in-my-organization/creating-a-coaching-culture/
About the Author:
Dr. Taryn Hill, MD, MEd, FAAP, is a double board-certified pediatrician in General Pediatrics and Pediatric Hospital Medicine, specializing in the care of hospitalized children. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master of Education from Arizona State University while completing Teach for America Corps, and her medical degree from the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine, followed by completion of residency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Hill founded and co-directed a nationally recognized pediatric residency coaching program and has presented nationally and internationally on academic coaching in graduate medical education.
Learn more about Mead Johnson Nutrition
The material presented in this blog represents the opinion of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of Synova Associates. Synova Associates does not endorse any specific products or organizations but strives to connect its industry partners with leaders interested in product/educational innovation.
