What is executive coaching?
Executive coaching is a confidential, customized, holistic learning experience which enables leaders to mine their knowledge and apply their strengths creatively and constructively to resolve issues, generate ideas and achieve results.
Executive coaching involves a creative partnership in which you, the client, set the agenda. The client can be either an individual or a team. The coaching process centers around structured conversation to clarify goals, develop strategic actions, implement plans and monitor results.
The coach supports and challenges the client to articulate clear goals; uses intuition and insight to elicit honesty; and maintains focus on strategies and progress toward meeting goals.
The coach is sounding board, supporter and challenger who adds value by listening, reflecting back, reframing and providing a fresh perspective.
What executive coaching can help you achieve
- Successful transitions
- Developing leaders
- Reduced stress, improved work-life balance
- Increased emotional intelligence
- Eliminating derailing behaviors
- Increased organizational commitment and employee retention
- Increased job satisfaction
- More effective teams
How does it happen?
Executive coaching involves seven steps:
- Confirm commitment – both of the client and any sponsor(s)
- The client’s commitment to change and willing engagement are essential to a successful coaching process
- If there is a sponsor involved, s/he must be truly supportive of the process.
- Assess the current situation – this can be done in a variety of ways. Use of a 360-degree review and interviews are the most common and the most effective.
- Clarify goals and desired results -- “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” (Lewis Carroll in “Alice in Wonderland") It’s just that simple, but getting clarity may not be easy. This is where the coach’s ability to ‘hear between the lines’ contributes significantly to getting all the important information on the table and into play.
- Develop a strategic action plan – Once you know where you are going, having a map will make it so much easier to get there – as well as to monitor progress along the path.
- Monitor progress -- It is the client’s responsibility to make it happen, but the coach plays a key role in holding the client accountable for implementing the agreed action plan.
- Revise goals as needed -- In a dynamic business environment, being tuned in to subtle and overt changes in the business environment can make the difference between merely surviving and thriving. Revising goals to reflect today’s challenges is a sign of strength.
- Review results, celebrate success and ask yourself ‘what next?’
Who works with executive coaches?
- Fortune 500 companies
- Small businesses
- Companies who are concerned about their employees and their future
- Individuals who want to achieve the most and be the best they can be
- YOU
Problems cannot be solved by the level of awareness that created them.
-- Albert Einstein
