Executive Coaching: Where to start ?

Leaders are often faced with difficult decisions, complex challenges, and delicate situations where they cannot always share their concerns with their team or colleagues. This solitude can be heightened by the need to maintain an image of confidence and leadership, which can isolate them further. Finding the right distance that allows them to better embody their various leadership positions is, therefore, a real challenge.

Executive coaching might just be the answer your leaders are looking for. The main goal of executive coaching is to improve leadership and management performance by developing leaders’ self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and ability to influence others.

According to the Harvard Business Review, 80% of coached leaders recognize a significant improvement in their skills and professional performance.

Types of Executive Coaching

Depending on your company’s needs, it is essential to carefully consider before choosing a coach for your leaders. While you might focus on a specific issue, such as team management, delegation, or communication within the team, it is crucial to see the bigger picture and determine which type of executive coaching would best suit your leaders. Here are some types of executive coaching:

1. Performance Coaching: A performance coach focuses on improving clients’ skills and techniques to make them more effective in their work.
2. Developmental Coaching: This type of coaching aims to expand leaders’ capacity to juggle roles, navigate complexity, and overcome challenges.
3. Skills Coaching: Whether it’s public speaking, time management, conflict resolution, or any other professional skill, this type of coaching is here for you.
4. Transformational Coaching: This coaching focuses on changing the underlying beliefs and attitudes that shape behavior.
5. Team Coaching: Team coaching involves guiding a leader and their team toward better collaboration, communication, and performance.
6. Strategic Coaching: This coaching helps to develop and execute strategic plans, set long-term goals, and determine the steps to achieve them.
7. Organizational or Business Coaching: Business and organizational coaches support companies by helping them identify their organizational goals and develop a plan to achieve them.
8. Management Coaching: This involves training leaders in planning, organizing, and implementing skills while improving their resource and people management abilities.

Questions to Ask a Potential Coach

To choose the right coach, here are some useful questions to see if the person truly aligns with your company:

• What is your coaching process?
• How would you describe your coaching style?
• What are the key elements for a successful coaching engagement?
• Can you share a coaching situation that didn’t go well and how you handled it?
• What are your coaching specialty areas?
• What do I need to ensure the success of the coaching engagement?
• What is your approach to confidentiality, especially if funded by the company I work for?
• How will you collaborate with my manager and/or human resources during this process?
• How do you measure progress and impact?
• How do you ensure that what we work on during the engagement is supported and encouraged beyond the coaching engagement?

A Personalized Approach

It is important to note that each company and each leader has specific needs. Therefore, it is essential to find a coach suited to your company and another to meet individual needs.

Feel free to contact us for more information and to discover how we can help you achieve your leadership and management goals with our Executive Coaching offer.