Executive Coaching

Executive Coaching is a one-on-one training and collaborative relationship between a certified or self-proclaimed coach and an executive interested in improving him or herself primarily in career or business related skills. The process typically lasts between three months and one year, depending on the type of intervention, and consists of face-to-face developmental discussions aimed at performance improvement or developing a particular competence. The coaching is meant to be practical and goal-focused and may concentrate on avoiding professional derailers or working through organizational issues or change initiatives.

The arrangement is an alternative to classroom-style training, and is individualized, focused, and tailored to a single individual. It is also different from “consulting�, which focuses more on results of a group within an organization or the organization as a whole.

At the heart of any effective coaching intervention lies a relationship of trust and honest, helpful feedback between the coach and coachee. Coaches provide executives with feedback they would normally never get from those they work with. Coaching should help people discover and embrace the truth about themselves, the good and the bad, so that they can change and grow. Too many people stay stuck and static in their personal and professional growth, repeating the same old patterns, because they have a distorted view of who they are, and in the case of work, how they are performing. Unless people have a realistic view of who they are, including their strengths and weaknesses, they can’t move to a new place.

Once the executive has been made more aware of his or her personal style and areas of needed development, it is the coach’s job to create a psychological/emotional environment where positive things can happen. It is the coach’s job to collaborate with the coachee to set a limited number of well defined, performance related goals and then help the executive achieve them. The coaching should be targeted and practical.

Leading companies around the world increasingly provide their most valuable executives with executive coaching to fast-track improvement and extend much-needed competencies. Executive coaching can assist an organization in achieving competitive success by translating its high performance vision into clear, actionable steps to be taken by its executives.