Driving engagement and retention with scaled coaching

Client challenge

Wellstar Health System, one of Georgia’s largest healthcare systems, had already invested heavily in leadership development for senior leaders. But as the organization navigated rapid growth, a major acquisition, and the demands of a shifting healthcare landscape, it became clear that the greatest leadership challenges were happening at the front and midline.

“Some of the greatest leader challenges are really at the front and midline levels… we’ve invested heavily in leadership development, putting more emphasis on our front line and mid-level leadership in terms of outcomes, said Laura Dannels, Chief Talent Officer at the time.

We’re not an organization who believes in just investing in high performers… you’ve got to invest in your entire workforce.”

Wellstar partnered with Sounding Board to bring a more scalable, flexible coaching solution to leaders across the organization.

The solution

Partnering with Sounding Board, Wellstar designed a scalable, personalized coaching program to extend leadership development across the organization while maintaining the quality of one-on-one coaching.

A proprietary 360 assessment, aligned to Wellstar’s leadership behaviors, served as the foundation for each coaching engagement. This ensured development was directly tied to how leaders show up and lead in practice.

“We really wanted to ground the coaching to a framework that matters to our organization,” said Garry Gross, Executive Director of Leadership Development. ‍

“Helping our leaders create an environment where our mission, vision, and values come to life was paramount.”

Program goals:

• Develop leadership capabilities aligned to Wellstar’s mission, vision, and values
• Deliver personalized, relevant development for leaders at all levels
• Strengthen the leadership bench and support succession planning
• Foster a culture of innovation, learning, and engagement

Program overview:

• Personalized, one-on-one coaching for leaders at all levels
• Capability development aligned to Wellstar’s values
  • Serve with Compassion → Builds relationships
  • Pursue Excellence → Drives results, leads teams, and plans strategically
  • Honor Every Voice → Fosters inclusion and respect for differences
• Scalable delivery across frontline, mid-level, and clinical leaders
• Digital tools to track goals, capture insights, and measure progress

This approach made it possible to deliver consistent, high-quality coaching across roles and locations while keeping development relevant to each leader’s day-to-day work.

Results

As the program unfolded, Wellstar began to see a shift in how frontline and mid-level leaders showed up across the organization. Leaders in these critical roles had more consistent support navigating day-to-day challenges, and managers gained better visibility into how their teams were developing. Coaching became a more practical, embedded part of how Wellstar supports leaders in a complex healthcare environment.

Higher engagement and satisfaction

• 96% of participants said the coaching experience was worth the investment
• 99% said they could immediately apply what they learned to their day-to-day work

Measurable leadership growth

Participants reported double-digit growth across leadership capabilities including:

• Executive presence (+16%)
• Organizational collaboration (+14%)
• Strategic thinking (+13%)
• Time management and prioritization (+13%)
• Communication (+11%)

Stronger retention and mobility

• Coached leaders achieved a 90% one-year retention rate
• Retention for coached leaders was 31% higher than non-coached peers
• 3% of participants were promoted into new roles, exceeding organizational goals and industry benchmarks

Learn more about Wellstar’s leadership coaching journey with Sounding Board in this feature in Becker’s Hospital Review.