Executive Coaching: What it is and Why it’s Important

It can be a long lonely climb to the top, or you can ask for assistance. Executive coaching lets someone help you with your journey, and you still get to keep the credit for your success!

Coaching for success is becoming more and more common in the boardrooms of the world. This makes perfect sense. If you look at sports teams, there’s no world-beating side in any sport that doesn’t make use of coaching.

It’s not because their athletes aren’t talented—they are. It’s because a coach can help them see a bigger picture, that of the team, and focus their efforts on what really matters to become great. Businesses need similar assistance to stay at the top of their game.

What is executive coaching?

Executive coaches work with business leaders to enable their rapid development. They also assist with specific problems that a board member, or senior manager, wants to work through outside of the normal business framework. Unlike training, coaching focuses very specifically on the issues that an executive wants to work through. Thus it becomes a speedy way to improve skills and to achieve personal and professional objectives.

The executive coach gives the executive a dispassionate ear and opinion that enables them to set goals and work towards them. The coaching sessions use objective feedback to drive the executive’s thought processes forward through their issues.

What are the main uses of executive coaching?

There are many uses of executive coaching but the most common reasons for engaging a coach include the following:

• Onboarding or Transitioning.When a board member or senior manager is promoted, coaching can quickly help them prepare for their new role. It’s also a very useful method for helping someone who is transitioning from one area of responsibility to another at the same level.
• High Potential. Individuals who are identified as having real talent, can often be coached to accelerate their personal development within an organisation.
• Organisational Change. Coaching can support transformative business programs to ensure that leadership can keep pace with change.
• Neutral Party Support. Sometimes the executive will need to run ideas over a sounding board to be better able to articulate them in their own business.
• Personal Effectiveness Programs.If the executive themselves plays a coaching role, for example in their management position or during 360 degree review processes, coaching can help them develop their own approach.

Why is executive coaching important?

Executive coaching gives business a way of developing their senior staff in a cost-effective and timely manner. Coaching sessions enable the staff member to concentrate on the issues that are most critical to their performance, without the fluff of lengthy training courses. They allow the director or manager to remain at their post whilst developing, and thus don’t take away from their contribution to the business.

It can be said that executive coaching is one of the most important methods for improving the skills of your leaders and directors. It should be easy to demonstrate clear return on investment for this kind of coaching. And anything that has a positive impact on the bottom line is something that your business should be considering.