Executive coaching. Leadership coaching. However you describe it, one thing’s for sure—there’s a ton of information swirling around about it—namely, the benefits of an executive coach, and why a leader should work with one.
Being an executive coach myself, I’m biased. I’m a firm believer that coaching is a powerful tool that benefits not only the person being coached but all of the people they interact with in their day-to-day lives—their teams, family, friends, and others in their professional network. Coaching helps you see yourself more clearly (and others more clearly!), leverage your existing strengths, and learn new skills and mindset shifts that enable you to respond to challenging situations.
However, I also realize that when we talk about executive coaching, we tend to put the proverbial cart before the horse. Meaning: we don’t talk about everything that leads up to actually working with a coach. What you need to consider as you’re looking for a coach that’s right for you. Reasons you might consider working with a coach in the first place. Misconceptions about coaching that we need to correct, once and for all.
So, in this two-part blog series, I’m doing just that. In the first part, I’m focusing on the scenarios or needs that might prompt a CEO or leader to begin seeking out coaching support, and the myths that persist as coaching continues to become more common—not just at the executive level, but throughout all levels of an organization.
What are situations that might prompt leaders to seek out executive coaches?
The decision to begin working with an executive coach is personal, and of course looks different for each person. Here are just a few of the common scenarios that might cause a leader to take action:
Battling decision fatigue When your role requires you to make a lot of decisions—every one of them significant—it can quickly get to the point where it’s hard to make decisions at all (or, your decisions aren’t well-thought-out or well-researched). A coach can help you recognize thought patterns that are hindering your decision-making, get you out of day-to-day decisions and into a more strategic view, and set up better processes where you’re delegating more and second-guessing less.
Navigating organizational politics As much as we wish they didn’t, politics exist in every organization, and understanding them is something we’re not exactly taught in our college and MBA classes. This Harvard Business Review piece from a few years ago does a great job of breaking down the four organizational politics “terrains.” Working with a coach can help you understand your organization’s own political terrain, and how to navigate depending on your temperament and leadership style.
Needing to build a high-performing team CEOs have the amazing opportunity to cultivate teams of top-tier, innovative talent that work together toward shared goals and organizational objectives—but that magic doesn’t just happen. In fact, leadership teams often fail to live up to their potential. When a recent Center for Creative Leadership survey polled a set of senior executives, 65% indicated their leadership teams were clashing between their functional and enterprise accountabilities—and only 18% rated their teams as “very effective” with respect to their responsibilities. Coaches can be a sounding board for these kinds of hiring decisions, making it easier for CEOs to get a clearer picture of the type of person they need to hire for specific roles.
Preparing for rapid expansion.
When your company is in hyper-growth mode, you’re not only dealing with all of the challenges above, but you’re also paying attention to how that growth is affecting company culture—and it often starts with the personality and mannerisms of the CEO and their executive leadership team. A coach can be that mirror for you so you can realize how you’re coming across, whether intentionally or not. And, if it’s not serving you, they can help you see things from a different perspective.
Feeling like you want more out of your life and career This might seem a little vague, but “wanting more” can represent so much to a leader—increased clarity and focus, increased confidence in a particular skill, greater self-awareness, better relations, and increased resilience. It might also be something very specific—a career transition, a board appointment, or a more intentional balance between your work life and family life. Working with a coach can help you pinpoint what you want to work on, how that aligns with your values, and jointly design an action plan to get started.
Getting unstuck Leadership can be a lonely place, and part of that is the decisions: the choices you need to make aren’t the kind that most people get to solve. However, even CEOs, and C-Suite leaders get stuck, run out of ideas, or may not be sure of their next steps. A coach is able to offer the ear of someone safe and trusted to brainstorm the possibilities and figure out a way forward.
What are some of the more enduring misconceptions around executive coaching?
For some leaders, “executive coaching” can conjure up a negative connotation—from the days when coaching was used to attempt to correct a leader who was woefully underperforming in their role. Today, it’s the opposite of that—in fact, a large reason why executive coaching has grown in popularity over the last decade is because organizations started to understand how important it was to recognize the strengths of leaders and leaders-to-be and nurture their potential.
Even though a ton has changed in the coaching field, some of the same misconceptions persist. I’ve listed a few I’d especially like to dispel:
Coaches tell you what to do, and you do it.
Nope. As a coach, I’m not there to give you advice, directives, or a buttoned-up plan of action—that would make me a consultant! What I am able to do is use my own C-Suite experience to ask you powerful questions that help guide you to your answer.
I’ve worked with some incredibly smart and resourceful leaders over the years. It’s never been about telling them what to do—it’s been about helping them close the gap to where they are now, where they aspire to be, and the steps they want to take to get there. I like to think of it as if we’re on a path together, and I’m there to provide support as you uncover your own answers.
Coaches are only for people with performance issues. This myth seems to be left over from the time that viewed coaching as a final effort to “fix” someone who was failing in their role. The truth is: everyone, regardless of performance, can benefit from having a coach. I like to think of it as “medicine for the soul”—medicine that can give you clarity in other aspects of your life.
Many of the people I’ve coached have been top performers at their organizations and wanted to utilize coaching to level up their performance. And, many companies now include coaching as part of their professional development programs—not just for leaders in the C-Suite, but for everyone. It’s seen as a proactive, unique benefit and an investment in employee retention and improvement.
Anyone can be a coach.
Okay, this one hurts! All kidding aside—yes, anyone can train or learn to be a coach or use coaching skills. However, that’s the key: that there’s a training or accredited program a coach has gone through that gives them a process or framework for taking you through the coaching process in a meaningful and intentional way.
For example, I performed my Executive and Leadership training through the Co-Active Training Institute, and will soon sit for my verbal exam to officially be a certified coach. Co-Active’s certification program is widely recognized as the most rigorous professional coach training and certification program in the industry, with the most flexible and proven model in the coaching world. I invested in the year-plus-long program because it was important to me that my clients have this kind of top-tier coaching experience.
It’s not possible to measure coaching outcomes. This one isn’t true, either. It may not be possible to measure the outcomes like you measure website data or the percentage of employee attrition, but improvements like behaviors, actions, and skills are absolutely able to be measured and transformation is felt. It’s rarely felt in one session; it’s the culmination of working together for some time.
The key is to have a measure of your progress. Perhaps it’s an assessment with you and your coach at the beginning of your work, and again as you’re wrapping up your time together. It may not seem like it at first, but the changes do add up over time, and soon, there will be a noticeable difference that becomes tangible.
In the second of our two-part series, I’ll be digging into more of the “how” once you’ve decided you’d like to work with a coach—including some things to consider as you’re determining who might be the best fit for you and questions you can use to vet potential coaches on your list.
If you’d like to book a chat, head here to book a Discovery Call with me.
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