Executive Coaching is effective for leadership development because leaders require high levels of Self-awareness and behavioral flexibility.
Executive Coaching and leadership development comprise a series of confidential conversations that facilitate strategic self-awareness about what underlies behavior, actions, reactions, and interactions. Coaching facilitates the ‘coachee’ to gain insights into how they execute business strategies and manage change, conflict, and people.
Having a trusted, confident Executive Coach who can provide feedback and, through questions, clarify intentions, values, and objectives is invaluable to a leader.
Without coaching, many executives plateau in their development of critical interpersonal and leadership skills because they have been promoted for behaviors that are no longer effective at the leadership level.
The 1 Problem for Leadership Development
Leadership development is often hampered, surprisingly, by too much winning. People are promoted for results, and those results create a mindset.
The reality is that you are often successful because you do many things right, even though you are doing some things that work against you.
An experienced Executive Coach can help a senior manager or leader take a, sometimes uncomfortable, look in the mirror and adjust the mindsets and behaviors holding them back.
This transformation rarely happens in a classroom setting, as it requires a trusted relationship and the insight of a trained coach to spot limiting beliefs or outdated mental models that their ‘coachee’ might be holding on to.
Executive Coaching Results
Executive coaching is an empowering process that helps executives increase their effectiveness within their respective organizations by utilizing creative leadership tools and embracing a positive professional outlook. The coaching process enhances the executive’s existing leadership capabilities and helps identify and overcome barriers by effectively tapping internal cognitive and emotional resources.
Executive coaching improves the executive’s ability to empower co-workers, manage conflicts, generate positive communication, and grow personally and professionally. This is partly achieved due to a robust coaching platform that creates a ‘safe space’ for courageous out-of-the-box thinking, mutual brainstorming, and a sincere, non-judgmental atmosphere.
There are many reasons for an organization to invest in executive coaching and leadership development. These include:
- Developing Executive Presence
- Gaining a Global Mindset
- Communication and Presentation
- Influence & Organizational Politics
- Cultural Awareness
- Bringing out the best in people
- Overcoming a derailing behavior
The process examines the executive’s relationships with surrounding environments beneficial to the organization’s success, including fellow executives, co-workers, clients, investors, partners, managers, and more. It is a journey that examines deep core values as a basis for meaningful change.
The initial coaching session takes place in the presence of one of the organization’s senior officers, helping to define coaching objectives and establish adequate progress reporting precisely. The results-based platform aligns individual executive vision and organizational goals while ensuring the safety and confidentiality of the executive client.
These results explain why smart companies are making Executive Coaching a core element of leadership development, whether when grooming a CEO successor or helping managers transition to leaders.
So coaching is no longer a ‘nice to have’ leadership development activity but an investment in people that delivers a competitive advantage to the business. Therefore, executive coaching and leadership development assignments should have clear expectations about behavioral outcomes and accountability to deliver them.
