Executives face a host of challenges that require not only strategic thinking but also personal development. The pressures of maintaining a competitive edge, driving innovation, and managing diverse teams can be overwhelming. This is where executive coaches come into play. They serve as invaluable resources, guiding leaders through complex decisions and personal growth. But what does an executive coach do, and why is their role so important? Let’s dive into the world of executive coaching to uncover its benefits and meaning.

Defining Executive Coaching

Executive coaching is a professional relationship between a coach and an executive aimed at enhancing the executive’s leadership skills, personal development, and professional performance. Unlike traditional training programs, which often focus on specific skills or knowledge areas, executive coaching is tailored to the individual. The coach acts as a guide, helping the executive to identify goals, overcome obstacles, and achieve their full potential, all within the context of their unique circumstances and aspirations.

Executive Coaching Definition

At its core, executive coaching is about personal growth and professional development. It involves a series of structured conversations designed to help executives reflect on their work, identify areas for improvement, and develop strategies for success. These conversations are not just about work-related issues; they delve into the executive’s values, motivations, and long-term vision. The coach provides feedback, support, and accountability, enabling the executive to make meaningful changes in their behavior and mindset. By fostering a safe and confidential environment, the coach encourages honest self-reflection, which is crucial for genuine growth.

In this way, executive coaching fits with the broader definition of coaching. For example, according to the International Coach Federation (ICF), coaching is defined as:

“A partnership with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.”

The Meaning of Executive Coaching

Executive coaching is not about providing quick fixes or giving direct advice. Instead, it’s about empowering executives to find their own solutions and build on their strengths. This approach fosters long-term growth and development, both personally and professionally. By focusing on self-discovery and self-reliance, executive coaching equips leaders with the tools they need to navigate future challenges independently. It emphasizes the importance of resilience, adaptability, and continuous learning in an ever-changing business landscape.

The Role of an Executive Coach

An executive coach plays a multifaceted role, acting as a confidant, sounding-board, and advisor. They work with executives to help them enhance their leadership skills, improve their decision-making abilities, and navigate complex organizational dynamics. The relationship is built on trust and mutual respect, allowing executives to explore new ideas and challenge existing assumptions. Here’s a closer look at what an executive coach does:

Assessing and Understanding

The first step in executive coaching is to assess the executive’s current situation. This involves understanding their strengths, weaknesses, goals, and challenges. The coach may use various assessment tools and techniques to gain insights into the executive’s personality, leadership style, and communication skills. These assessments provide a foundation for the coaching process, helping to tailor the approach to the executive’s specific needs. By identifying core competencies and potential areas for growth, the coach can create a roadmap for development that aligns with the executive’s career aspirations.

Goal Setting and Action Planning

Once the assessment is complete, the coach helps the executive set clear and achievable goals. These goals are aligned with the executive’s personal values and organizational objectives. The coach works with the executive to develop an action plan, outlining the steps needed to achieve these goals. This plan is dynamic, allowing for adjustments as circumstances change and new challenges arise. Regular check-ins ensure that progress is being made and that the executive remains focused and motivated. By breaking down larger goals into manageable tasks, the coach helps to maintain momentum and build confidence.

Providing Feedback and Support

Feedback is a crucial component of executive coaching. The coach provides constructive feedback, helping the executive to recognize blind spots and areas for improvement. This feedback is delivered in a supportive manner, encouraging reflection rather than defensiveness. They also offer support and encouragement, motivating the executive to stay committed to their goals. By celebrating successes and addressing setbacks, the coach fosters a growth mindset, enabling the executive to view challenges as opportunities for learning and development.

Enhancing Leadership Skills

Executive coaches focus on enhancing the executive’s leadership skills, such as communication, emotional intelligence, and conflict resolution. They help executives to develop a leadership style that is authentic and effective, enabling them to lead with confidence and inspire others. This involves exploring different leadership models and techniques, and experimenting with new approaches in a safe environment. By building on existing strengths and addressing weaknesses, the coach helps executives to cultivate a leadership presence that resonates with their teams and drives organizational success.

Leadership Development: Master the Top Leadership and Life Skills

Better lead in life and work to maximise your success. Sign up and access materials for free!

Why Executive Coaching is Important

Executive coaching offers numerous benefits, making it an invaluable tool for personal and professional growth. In a world where change is constant, the ability to adapt and thrive is more important than ever. Here are some reasons why executive coaching is important:

Improved Performance

Through executive coaching, executives can improve their performance by gaining clarity on their goals and developing effective strategies to achieve them. This leads to increased productivity, better decision-making, and enhanced problem-solving skills. As executives become more adept at managing their time and priorities, they can focus on high-impact activities that drive results. The ripple effect of improved performance can be felt throughout the organization, contributing to a culture of excellence and continuous improvement.

Enhanced Self-awareness

Executive coaching helps individuals develop a deeper understanding of themselves, their strengths, and their areas for growth. This heightened self-awareness enables executives to make more informed decisions and build stronger relationships with their teams. By exploring their values, beliefs, and behaviors, executives can align their actions with their personal and professional objectives. This alignment fosters authenticity and integrity, which are essential for building trust and credibility with colleagues and stakeholders.

Greater Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is a key component of effective leadership. Executive coaching helps executives develop their emotional intelligence, enabling them to manage their emotions, communicate effectively, and build stronger connections with others. This involves recognizing and regulating emotions, empathizing with others, and handling interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically. As a result, executives can create a positive work environment where open communication and collaboration are encouraged, leading to higher morale and better team performance.

Increased Confidence

With the guidance and support of an executive coach, executives can build their confidence and overcome self-doubt. This newfound confidence allows them to tackle challenges head-on and lead with conviction. As executives gain confidence in their abilities, they are more likely to take calculated risks and pursue innovative solutions. This proactive approach can drive organizational growth and create a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Benefits of Executive Coaching

The benefits of executive coaching extend beyond individual growth to impact the entire organization. By developing effective leaders, coaching can transform organizational culture and performance. Here are some of the key benefits:

Improved Team Dynamics

By enhancing the leadership skills of executives, coaching can lead to improved team dynamics. Executives who are better equipped to lead can foster a positive work environment, promote collaboration, and drive team success. Effective leadership can break down silos and encourage cross-functional cooperation, leading to more innovative solutions and a shared sense of purpose. Teams that are aligned and motivated are more likely to achieve their goals and contribute to the organization’s success.

Better Organizational Performance

When executives perform at their best, it has a positive ripple effect on the entire organization. Executive coaching can lead to better strategic decision-making, increased innovation, and improved organizational performance. By fostering a culture of learning and development, coaching can drive continuous improvement and adaptability. Organizations that invest in executive coaching are often better positioned to respond to market changes and seize new opportunities.

Increased Employee Engagement

Executives who are committed to their personal and professional growth can inspire their teams to do the same. This leads to increased employee engagement, higher job satisfaction, and reduced turnover. Engaged employees are more productive, more loyal, and more likely to contribute to a positive organizational culture. By investing in the development of their leaders, organizations can create a virtuous cycle of engagement and performance.

Executive and Professional Coaching

Executive coaching is often complemented by other types of professional coaching, which focuses on specific skills and competencies needed for career advancement (such as public speaking or career coaching). Together, these coaching approaches provide a comprehensive framework for personal and professional development. By addressing both the broader aspects of leadership and the specific skills required for success, coaching can equip individuals with the tools they need to thrive in their careers.

Life Coaching and Executive Coaching

Executive coaching and life coaching share similarities, but they also have distinct differences. Life coaching focuses on personal goals and overall well-being, while executive coaching is centered on professional development and leadership coaching. However, both approaches can be integrated to provide a holistic coaching experience. By addressing both personal and professional aspects of life, coaching can help individuals achieve a balanced and fulfilling life. This integrated approach recognizes that personal and professional success are interconnected, and that achieving one often supports the other.

The Importance of Executive Coaching

Executive coaching is a powerful tool for personal and professional growth. By working with an executive coach, individuals can enhance their leadership skills, improve their performance, and achieve their goals. Whether you’re an executive looking to advance your career or an organization seeking to develop its leaders, executive coaching can provide the support and guidance needed to succeed. As businesses face increasingly complex challenges, the demand for skilled and adaptable leaders continues to grow.

In the ever-evolving business landscape, the role of an executive coach is more important than ever. Through their expertise and guidance, executive coaches empower leaders to reach their full potential and drive organizational success. By investing in executive coaching, organizations can cultivate a pipeline of capable leaders who are ready to navigate the future with confidence and resilience.

If you would like to find out more about coaching with Simon and The Right Questions, please do drop me a line via the Contact Page.

I love coaching because I am passionate about equipping people to more effective in whatever it is they want to achieve.

It is a pleasure to work with smart, motivated people who have high aspirations and the drive to achieve their goals.  The people I work with generally are looking for improvement, balance and success in all spheres of their life, knowing that getting this right makes them happier people as well as better leaders.

I know coaching is effective because, as well as scientific evidence, as I have seen the positive changes in my life and others as a result of coaching.

For more on the evidence on coaching, have a look at this scholarly article:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4853380/

Or watch this TED talk:

What is Coaching?

Coaching for me is all about facilitating effectiveness.  As Sir John Whitmore said, it is ‘unlocking people’s potential to maximise their own performance’.

You can read more about the definition of coaching and how it differs from mentoring here:

The Importance of Values

How we think and act, the decisions we make, are largely dependent upon our assumptions and beliefs.  Therefore our values become our compass as we navigate through life.  I think it is very important and rewarding to explore values, in order to understand ourselves.

For me, this is expressed in:

• Being adventurous. Relishing challenge, always learning, and having the desire to explore and pioneer.
• Being values centred. Understanding and living by core beliefs and knowing the values that shape our decisions.
• Coaching effectiveness. Developing the full potential of self and others.
• Being mission focussed. Keeping the end in mind; being focussed on the next goal and determined in gaining progress.
• Providing diplomatic leadership. Serving to lead; by example but with humility.
• Having an international strategic outlook. The world is at our front door, so travel light and leverage small tactical gains to win long-term strategic success.

You can read more about the importance of values by following this link:

What are values and principles and how do they determine why we do things?

Coaching is a Relationship

To understand coaching you have to experience it.  That is why I get the vast majority of my clients through referrals of people that I have coached.  When someone is referred to me I offer an initial session of at least 90 minutes where they can experience coaching first hand and all parties can decide that the coaching partnership is the right thing.

Coaching is a relationship developed by 4 Cs:

• Competence keeps it professional,
• Character keeps it effective,
• Chemistry makes it fun, and
• Confidentiality maintains trust.

Who do I coach?

Due to my other commitments, and my approach to coaching and mentoring, I only do one-to-one coaching for a maximum of 10 individuals at any one time. I also only coach people who are equally dedicated. People’s mind-sets and motivations mean more to me than seniority, sector or any other demarcation.

The people I coach or mentor depend upon the answers to the following questions:

• Do you have an adventurous mind-set?
• Do you want to be challenged?
• Do you want to develop as a leader?
• Do you want to unlock your creativity?
• Do you want to make better decisions?
• Do you want to achieve better balance across all aspects of life?

If the answer is yes to all the questions above please do drop me a line and we can talk further.

Coaching Should Provide a Thinking Environment

I am primarily a coach, rather than a mentor.  As a coach, I am not seeking to impose my answers but rather I endeavour to create the best thinking environment for the coachee.  I have been greatly influenced by Nancy Kline’s approach to coaching as outlined in her excellent book, Time to Think.

You can find out more by reading my post:

How do you create the best thinking environment?

Walking Coaching

I coach in many and various ways, both in-person and remotely, but my preferred way is coaching one-to-one while walking.

Part of this is because I love getting outside and being active.  But it is not just personal preference.  We spend a lot of time in offices, on devices and caught up with the busyness of life.  Getting out for a walk is an antidote to all of that and therefore can open up new perspectives.

The metaphor that life is a journey is a popular one because it is true in so many senses.  Coaching is about going on a journey together and walking helps to embody this sense of purpose, direction and forward momentum.  This physiological approach has a positive effect on our psychology.

If you like this approach you are in good company.  Many highly respected and successful people have discovered the power of going for a walk to think, be creative and productive.  Famous examples include businessman Steve Jobs, Nobel Prize-winning scientist Daniel Kahnemann, and poet William Wordsworth.

You can read more about the benefits of walking here:

The Surprising Power of Going for a Walk

Continual Improvement

Coaching is a journey for the coach as well as the coachee.  I continually seek to develop myself and therefore I have my own coach.

I have leadership responsibilities outside of being a coach.  As well as running my own business I lead in various other contexts to make sure that I am keeping relevant and putting what I say into practice.  As per Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, this is part of my work to ‘sharpen the saw’.

How Long and How Many Coaching Sessions Should you do?

There is no one size fits all approach to coaching.  I do not have a fixed number of length of sessions; instead, I tailor a programme that suits the coachee and what they want to achieve.

I prefer to book sessions for longer periods of time, most frequently 60-90 minutes, in order to give space for some really good thinking, but this is a guideline, not a rule.  Sometimes it will take a day to explore an issue in-depth, at other times a quick 5 to 10-minute phone call is all someone needs.

Because of this bespoke approach and the desire to commit the appropriate time to them I keep my number of clients small.  This means I have to be selective in whom I coach.

---

If you would like to find out more about coaching and have an initial free coaching consultation then please email us using the contact page. Just click on this link: Contact Form

To be an Executive is to be a decision maker

Being an Executive, by definition, is someone who makes decisions and puts them into action. Board members generally have a lot of experience they can lean on when making decisions but being at the top, particularly being the CEO, means that you will face choices and situations that are outside of previous experience.

Even with some prior knowledge the stakes are higher.  Take conflict management for example.  A break down in relationships may have a small operational effect at a lower level whereas at board level it can literally bring a whole organization down. This is where the opportunity to talk through decisions can be vital.

Vision and strategy require time to think

The higher you climb up the leadership ladder the more demands there are on your time.  Above other demands the most important thing as a leader is to set the direction for the team.

It takes discipline to carve out time to think in a busy schedule and yet most people would agree that you need quality head-space in order to refine the vision and strategy for an organization.

Coaching should provide a thinking environment (Kline, 1999).  A good coaching experience should be a place where a person feels completely at ease. It provides more than just a sounding board, it is a creative exercise.  Coaching is a place where assumptions can be challenged and overcome. Visionary leaders such as Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt and Bill Gates new this and used coaches (Eckfeldt, 2017).

We can always be better

You may well have heard the phrase ‘Every day is a school day.’  In other words we always have something new to learn.  Even the wisest and intelligent people realized their limits.  Socrates said “The one thing I know is that I know nothing.”  Einstein encouraged us to never to stop questioning.  Benjamin Franklin noted that success has no meaning without continual growth.

Why does Roger Federer still have a coach?  Surely he knows more than anyone else about winning tennis tournaments?  The fact is that all top sports men and women know that they can always improve their game and the better they are, the more targeted they need to become.

At this level multiple small improvements can have dramatic effects.  As proved by the multiple Olympic Gold winning British Cycling Team, it is the aggregation of small gains that makes the difference over time in both individual and team performance (Harrell, 2015).

The leadership expert John C Maxwell defines leadership as influence.  Therefore it is no surprise that executives want to hone key attributes such as decision making, relationship management and communication.  In the same way a top sports person refines one part of their game with a specific coach, so a senior leader can improve one key skill if they can get the feedback they need (Hansen, 2018).

The higher you go, the harder it is to find a mentor

There are differences between coaching and mentoring.  There is a lot of overlap but generally a mentor is someone more senior or experienced in your sphere of work.  A mentor is generally someone who can guide you and open up new opportunities in your line of business.  It therefore goes without saying that the higher up you go the harder it is to have a mentor of this type.

When you are forging your own path it is important to develop relationships with other people facing similar challenges.  But in the business world it can be hard to be truly open and honest about all our concerns. The confidential nature of a coaching relationship can provide the safe environment to explore any issue.  It can be very hard to show vulnerability, even to good friends, within a working environment.  In a good coaching relationship any challenge can be discussed without judgment or unsolicited advice.

It can be lonely at the top

Even at the top of the pyramid you need a good team.  Within an organization the number of people who you can reach out to support you are fewer and therefore senior leaders have to have a network that expands beyond their immediate situation.

At the top level, especially as a CEO, there may be no line manager to lean on.  It may be harder to have a mentor.  Family and friends therefore become ever more important but at the same time it is often unfair to overly burden them with work concerns.

There are many important issues that are hard to discuss with work contacts, family or friends. Take for example talent management. When you are considering the sensitive subject of hiring and firing people it requires a level of confidentiality and objectivity.  Many CEOs find that a coaching environment can provide the appropriate context.

Maintaining life work balance

Being a CEO is rarely (if ever) a 9-5 job.  Even if you can contain your office hours then the concerns and demands of leadership will go far beyond the average working week.  The lines between work and other aspects of life can become blurred. Balancing priorities of leading an organization alongside other roles we have – be that spouse, parent, friend, or whatever – can suffer in the competition.

The phrase ‘work-life balance’ makes the decision sound binary but for those with significant management responsibility this is rarely the case.  It is more akin to spinning multiple plates than just choosing between two things; work and everything else.

Coaching, for people at boardroom level, can help take this into account.  Life has to be looked at holistically and coaching can help explore how our values and priorities and played out in every area of life.  It is also a major concern of most employees which is another good reason the coaching relationship can benefit more than just the person being coached (Colbrese, 2018).

---

If you would like to find out more about coaching and have an initial free coaching consultation then please email us using the contact page. Just click on this link: Contact Form

---

References

Cambridge Dictionary (2018) Executive, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/executive (accessed Sep 2018)

Colbrese, Julie (2018) Six Reasons You Should Work for a CEO Who Has a Coach, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2018/04/19/six-reasons-you-should-work-for-a-ceo-who-has-a-coach/#3143d64c7d6a (accessed Sep 2018)

Eckfeldt, Bruce (2017) How Great CEOs Like Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt and Bill Gates All Used Coaches, https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/how-great-ceos-like-steve-jobs-eric-schmidt-and-bill-gates-got-even-better.html(accessed Sep 2018)

Hansen, M T (2018) Great at Work: How Top Performers Do Less, WorkBetter, And Achieve More, New York: Simon & Schuster

Harrell, E (2015) How 1% Performance Improvements Led to Olympic Gold, Harvard Business Review, https://hbr.org/2015/10/how-1-performance-improvements-led-to-olympic-gold(accessed Sep 2018)

Kline, N (1999) Time to Think. London: Ward Lock

Maxwell, John C (2007) The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, Nashville: Thomas Nelson

Plato, Tarrant, H; Rowe, C (2010) The Last Days of Socrates, London: Penguin Classics