Executive Coaching

Top performers in all fields use coaching to enhance performance. Work is no different; especially now that the world of work for leaders and managers has never been so challenging. Leaders are faced with making strategic decisions about cost reduction, refocusing their businesses to deliver real value for customers amidst the current downturn in the global economy.

For senior executives, having a safe, confidential place to step back and reflect on their business issues is increasingly important and vital to providing the resilience that is required for leaders to remain focussed on customers while leading change, restructuring and cost reduction programmes.

Coaching is a series of focused and confidential one to one conversations between the coach and the client.

Coaching is highly prized by many successful executives as an individualised development experience. It differs from other executive development programmes in that each individual will bring issues to coaching which are individual to them in the context of their role and its present challenges.

The best executive coaches combine a number of professional disciplines including commercial awareness, organisational development, change management, management and leadership development, consulting, psychology, assessment/feedback processes, and counselling/psychotherapy. This is due to the breadth of issues that leaders bring to coaching conversations and coaches need to be ready with tools and frameworks which can move the client on.

Coaching Programmes

When executives first begin their coaching with me, they are not always clear about how best to use their sessions. In my experience the most common issues brought to executive coaching are:

• Strategic business issues
• Problem solving on complex issues
• Leadership development
• Behavioural change issues
• Personal organisation / Time management
• Influencing skills / Personal impact
• Organisational politics
• Building high performing top teams
• Career development
• Life / work balance

Approach to coaching

Typically the coach is invited into the organisation by HR or senior managers as part of a leadership development programme or when leaders need a confidential, external sounding board for personal or strategic, organisation wide issues that impact the organisation.

Usually between 6-8 monthly sessions is agreed at the outset based on the needs of the client. A typical coaching session will last between two and three hours. The agenda for each meeting is driven by the client and their current needs and within the context of the agreed development agenda. Action plans and progress are reviewed at each session.

The focus of the session could be on a particular current business, leadership or team issue, it could be exploring new approaches to people management, problem solving or exploring more personal development needs, such as motivations and drivers.