How WLI Uses Coaching to Support Women to Lead and Influence Change
This brief outlines how WLI uses ontological leadership coaching to strengthen women’s ability to lead developmental change. Coaching is used not only to build individual capability but to equip women to influence broader social change. WLI’s approach draws on ontological coaching — which works at the level of ‘way of being’ — alongside developmental and adaptive leadership theory. Through structured reflection on language, emotion and body, coaching helps women build self-awareness, shift internalised norms, increase confidence, clarify goals, and act more intentionally with others. Within WLI, coaching complements training, mentoring, counselling, funded leadership projects and alumni networks, creating a cohesive support ecosystem. WLI also invests in building a cohort of Pacific-based ontological coaches to sustain locally led leadership development beyond the life of the program.