Reflections on Executive Coaching

Executive coaching is ultimately about achieving results and an Executive Coach is a trusted advisor, colleague, companion and confidant. The coach is a professional, not a guru. The only agenda of the coach is the client’s agenda and success. This is a rare, sacred and covenant relationship. 

Executive coaching is a professional and confidential relationship between an executive and a coach. The executive coach serves as a leadership companion and, in some instances, a leadership advisor. In other words, “coaching is an efficient, high-impact process of dialogue that helps highly-performing people improve results in ways that are sustained over time” (Andrew Neitlich, The Way To Coach, 2016).

Coaching is for high performing, high potential leaders – those who are already effective in what they do and want to improve, renew or refine their game for sustained periods. Coaching is not therapy, mentoring, consulting, training or teaching.

Coaching is a developmental tool and a powerful process. It is an investment in the talent the organization wants to develop and retain. It is not for people in trouble or a disciplinary approach. Coaching focuses on having an impact and helping people get the results that they want.  Also, it focuses on the leader’s interior life of beliefs, assumptions, values and strengths that drives those desired results. 

The coach does not come with answers. The coach comes with questions and a process to help the client achieve the results they want. Coaching is about deepening the leader’s learning and forwarding the leader’s action. An effective coach sometimes makes observations, gives tough advice and feedback and when needed holds the leader accountable in ways that others may not (Neitlich, 2016, p. 18). 

Executive Coaching is not about fixing. It is about elevating, sharpening, growing, expanding, and achieving results. 

“Leaders who hire coaches are just better leaders: more open, more fun to work with, more willing to learn, more willing to stretch for outstanding achievements, more willing to take responsibility, more concerned about the development of their people, more willing to laugh at themselves, and more positive.  ”
 

Leaders who seek out executive coaches tend to:

  • Be more committed to continuous learning and improvement

  • Have ambitious aspirations

  • Hold themselves accountable

  • Be willing to be vulnerable in ways that allow them to ask for help and leapfrog other leaders

  • Be magnets for talent

  • See possibility in themselves and others, and

  • Be more flexible in how they get results, which gives them more options and expands his/her range as a leader (p. 21)

 

I had my first executive coaching experience in 2001 as a young, first time administrator, when I entered my first cabinet-level position. I entered into the 15-month “Executive to Leader” experience more eager to demonstrate what I already knew rather than with an eagerness to learn. Ultimately, I learned to appreciate what strengths I brought as a leader and, more importantly, how I was getting in my own way and undermining my effectiveness and full potential. I learned how my unconscious beliefs were shaping my habits and thought and affecting my patterns of action. 

Executive Coaching makes a difference. It transformed my trajectory as a leader and as a human being and it has transformed many of the clients with whom I have worked over the years. Executive Coaching is sacred, intimate and inspiring work. It allows me to work with the best of the best. This helps expand my capacity as an executive coach, which helps me add greater and greater value to my clients.

“Effective coaching is measurable and achieves results.”
 

Reasons for coaching might include:

  • New initiatives

  • Onboarding of self or others

  • Professional development and capacity building

Framing and engaging specific challenges/problems, such as:

  • I want to develop in a new area

  • I’ve lost my confidence

  • I’m not getting along with my board chair

  • I need to prepare my exit or I am transitioning

  • I need to change the culture

  • I need more leadership presence

  • I want more accountability from my people

  • We don’t execute well

  • I need to develop more leaders

  • I feel like I’m derailing

  • We need a strategy

  • I need to manage/prioritize my time better

  • I’m exhausted and need to reenergize

  • I’m ready to transition

  • My Board is micromanaging or is disengaged

    (Neitlich, 2016, p. 26-27)

Leaders who don’t have problems, challenges or aspirations to improve probably aren’t leading, or leading effectively. If you’re a leader with a problem and recognize it as a problem and are open to being coached then hiring a coach is a good move for you.

To benefit from coaching a leader has to be coachable. “A leader who is truly coachable is willing to learn from anyone and anything. Instead of getting defensive and taking things personally, the leader uses both achievements and setbacks as opportunities to learn. That person is constantly trying to improve and committed to personal and professional growth” (Neitlich, p. 30).

The primary job of an executive coach is to listen. The coach focuses on two key objectives. First, assisting the client to gain insights and direction. Second, helping the client discovering the best approach to solving their challenge (Neitlich, p. 34). Like law and medicine, executive coaching is a practice. Thus, coaching is client-focused.  

Some leaders question the value of coaching. They see it as soft. This is especially true in the academy. For example, the areas that coaching explores often were not part of a president’s years of training, and by extension, aren’t relevant. However, professional coaches who can demonstrate the ability to get better results and add value to clients will be successful.

“The coach is a stake in the ground for what clients can be and do. ”

The coach wants to help clients improve their capabilities, expand their capacity and range, and improve their performance over the long-term (Neitlich, 2016, p. 58). Seasoned coaches adapt to the situations and needs of their clients. While effective coaching should be guided by a framework, it is not cookie-cutter. Therefore, coaching is powerful and valuable because the coach sees things in the spaces between analyzing and planning and can speak truth to the client in ways others may not.

The client must come ready to work and the coach must create a coachable environment (Neitlich, p. 65). The coach is neutral and detached, meaning the coach holds no agenda other than the client’s agenda. Therefore, the coach stands for the client’s aspirations and potential. The coach is a stake in the ground for what clients can be and do. This is who the coach is. If the client wavers, thinks too small, or has doubt, the coach does not because the coach represents the client’s aspirations and potential. The coach represents the client’s most ambitious, noble, and inspiring goals. If needed, the coach challenges the client, reminding him or her of the goals and providing the necessary push or encouragement to keep the client moving in the right direction (Neitlich, 2016, pp. 57-58).