Executive Coaching: What Is It And How Can It Benefit You And Your Business?

Executive coaching is defined as, a partnership formed between a coach and an individual or team that supports the achievement of results, based on goals set by the individual or team. An executive coach uses a wide variety of assessments, behavioral techniques, and methods to help clients achieve a mutually identified set of goals to improve their professional performance and personal satisfaction and consequently to improve the effectiveness of the client’s organization.

Executive Coaching is aimed at inspiring leaders to make behavioral changes which transform them and the people around them, thereby increasing business results and performance. The focus of coaching is usually on organizational performance or development, but it may serve a personal component as well.

Benefits of Executive Coaching:

Executive coaching equips and encourages leaders of organizations to meet challenges by helping them to develop self-awareness of their behavioral patterns; cultivate awareness of how others perceive them; capitalize on their leadership strengths and bridge gaps; acquire new leadership strategies and tactics; and in turn deliver and surpass their executive and corporate goals.

The organizational benefits of executive coaching are increased productivity, improved leadership and communication, and more effective team work. Through the coaching process the clarity that is needed to support the most effective organizational actions is achieved. Coaching accelerates the individual's and team’s progress by providing greater focus and awareness of possibilities leading to more effective choices.

Process of Executive Coaching:

The delivery process of executive coaching varies from coach to coach but it typically begins with a personal interview (either face-to-face or by teleconference call) to assess the individual’s current opportunities and challenges, define the scope of the relationship, identify priorities for action, and establish specific desired outcomes. Subsequent coaching sessions may be conducted in person or over the phone, with each session lasting a previously established length of time. Between scheduled coaching sessions, the individual may be asked to complete specific actions that support the achievement of one’s goals. The coach may provide additional resources in the form of relevant articles, tools, assessments, or models, to support the individual’s transformation and actions. The duration of the coaching relationship varies depending on the individual’s personal needs and preferences.

Coaches often apply a variety of assessments to support the coaching process. Assessments provide objective information which can enhance the individual’s self-awareness, provide a benchmark for creating coaching goals and strategies, and offer a method for evaluating progress.

A variety of concepts, models and principles drawn from the behavioral sciences, management literature, and spiritual traditions may be incorporated into the coaching process to increase the individual’s self-awareness, engender shifts in perspective, promote fresh insights, provide new frameworks for looking at opportunities and challenges, and energize and inspire the individual’s forward actions.

The individual or team chooses the focus of coaching based on their desired outcomes, while the coach guides this process and maintains the frame within which the work takes place. Coaches listen and contribute observations and questions as well as concepts and principles which can assist in generating possibilities and identifying actions.