Executive Coaching

Wherever you stand, the most important choice

to make is what to do next.

What is it and
does it work?
Understanding the Concept

All coaching is, taking a player where he can’t take himself.

Bill McCartney

Executive coaching is not new.

Executive coaching as a profession started in the 1980s. Then, it

centered more on business improvement. Now, this profession has
developed to cover a lot of areas from helping managers choose the
right career options to managing difficult personal or professional
relationships.

But what is coaching all about?

As per The International Coach Federation (ICF):

"Coaching is an on-going partnership that helps clients

produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional
lives. Through the process of coaching, clients deepen their
learning, improve their performance, and enhance their
quality of life. Beginning with the clients' desires, coaching
uses reporting, exploring, and a consistent commitment to
move the client forward. Coaching accelerates the clients'
progress by providing greater focus and awareness of choice.
Coaching concentrates on where clients are today and what
they are willing to do to get where they want to be
tomorrow."

If this was too much to grasp, let’s simplify.

Coaching involves a professional partnership between a coach and

the client. Coaches listen to their client’s problems or concerns, and
then provide coaching through which the client determines what
steps to take to overcome his or her problems and move ahead.

Coaches do not give advice, nor do they offer therapy. They simply
act like a catalyst to help people achieve individual goals.

Through executive coaching, managers, business owners and

executives alike get help in making the right moves, which they are
not able to make on their own.

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This does not mean that no one can work out things on their own. It
rather means the opposite.

Everyone has some limitations, which directly or indirectly affect a

number of areas in his or her life or how he or she looks at different
situations in life and in business.

These limitations or weaknesses, whether mental, emotional or

psychological, create barriers and hold up personal development.

This is when an Executive Coach comes in. The process of coaching

helps people break those barriers themselves and pave the way to
achieving their goals.

A number of people correlate the work of a Coach to that of a

therapist.

It’s not the same.

While a therapist focuses on analyzing your past actions and getting

to the root of the problem, an Executive Coach concentrates on
helping you to frame the right steps in future to achieve your
individual goals.

A therapist might offer therapy and advice. A Coach does not

normally do this.

If they do, they step across the line and into consultancy. That’s not
to say that you cannot offer advice. I frequently do. All I am
interested in is helping my clients in whichever way possible!

A very good analogy of what an Executive Coach actually does is if

we compare it to that of a Personal Fitness Trainer.

Consider you are joining a gym. Your fitness trainer will first ask
you what you want to achieve. Whether you want to:

Lose weight?
Lose fat?
Build muscles?
Build endurance?
Increase stamina?

The trainer will then see where you stand now in relation to your
goal.

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For example, if you want to trim down body fat, you will be asked to
take a body fat composition test to measure the current body fat
level. You may have to take a fitness test and may be asked about
present eating habits. All this is a part of helping you get nearer to
your goal.

The fitness trainer will first establish standards for you as to how
much fat you intend to lose and over what period of time. It is
based on all this that he designs a plan of action for you to reach
your goal.

Having done this, he also supplies you with the required backing
and support in the form of constant encouragement and motivation.

There may be many people who look towards reducing weight. But
what they lack is the willpower and confidence to keep trying.

The trainer’s job is to guide them through the difficult path towards
their goal. He can help the people achieve their goals more quickly
and more effectively than if they tried by themselves.

This is what an Executive Coach does too.

What accelerated learning and neurolinguistic programming (NLP)

was to the eighties and nineties, the new kid on the block in the
new millennium is definitely Executive Coaching.

So what actually is it and what are the benefits?

The term “Executive Coaching” can be a bit misleading

On the face of it one might think that it is a process where the

Executives of a company receive some kind of individual
development through coaching sessions, and you would be right.

Moreover, the term Executive Coaching can be applied to any type

of corporate or leadership coaching.

Examples of which are:

- Top team executives

- Senior management
- Middle management
- Junior management
- Business owners

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 - Entrepreneurs

Executive coaching is a form of highly effective, customized,

individual coaching through face to face or telephone sessions. Its
main goals are to:

 Reduce staff attrition.

 Improve communications throughout the organization.
 Enhance the leadership within the company at all levels.
 Increase sales and profits.
 Take your development to the next level, and
 Assist you in formulating solutions to your challenges and
difficulties.

Executive coaching is an individualized approach to your

professional development that focuses on results and outcomes.

The Need For Executive Coaching

Today, every organization has to ride the waves of change both

from outside and from within.

As a result, the demands and challenges facing our leaders are

immense:

 They must be able to lead the way with the vision and also be
able to manage the task.
 They must anticipate changes in advance.
 They must have a higher level of self-awareness for
themselves as well as their staff.
 They need to build highly motivated, high performing teams
that deliver the results – the list goes on!

The demands placed upon today's leaders are ever increasing and
they have to possess the skill sets and competencies to deliver the
goods. Being a good all-rounder is what is essential for success, but
how many of us have the complete package?

Every leader has their own strengths and weaknesses. It is the

coach’s role to help them to play to their strengths and to work on
their weaknesses.

Here are some of the most common reasons why we are

approached to design and implement Executive Coaching Programs
within organizations:

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Their leaders may want to…

- Fine tune their interpersonal and communication skills

- Build their confidence levels
- Be an outstanding and inspirational leader
- Think more strategically
- Be able to motivate and build productive teams
- Improve their internal political savvy
- Discuss their questions and concerns about how to handle
situations that they can’t discuss with others in their
organization
- Have someone around who understands what they’re facing
and whom they can confide in
- Improve their development as a person, as a leader and take
the company on to the next level
- Raise their profile in their company and industry
- Be able to step back and look at their company or department
from a different perspective
- Get some help sorting things out
- Earn what they are worth and get the credit for the work that
they do
- Improve their business in every area
- No matter what the requirements are, it is the coaches aim to
provide a sounding board for the coachee to work through the
key issues and to discern possible solutions, selecting the one
that is right for them

How Does It Work & What Is The Role Of The Coach?

Executive coaching is most effective when the coach and the leader
can have monthly, face to face one-on-one sessions over a set
period of time.

These sessions normally last up to but no longer than 3 hours in

duration.

Through a combination of assessments, role plays, assignments,

action planning, projects, and solutions the coach assists the
Executive to make those tough decisions and to help them
overcome their challenges.

The content of the conversations develops as the coaching

proceeds; there is no set formula. On the other hand, successful

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coaches have various models to provide structure and purpose to
the conversations. Invariably they explore questions about personal
purpose or mission, strengths and gifts, the organizational context,
assumptions about leadership, keys to professional development,
and new ways of thinking and behaving.

It is essential that the client is comfortable with their coach and it is

therefore vital that there is some chemistry between the two
parties.

Rather than actually TELLING someone the answers, a Coach is the

catalyst for getting their client to find the answers themselves.

By asking challenging and thought provoking questions, a Coach

can unlock the potential in a client.

Coaching is forward looking and focused on the action the coachee

is willing to take to get what they want.

This in turn leads to greater:

 Self-awareness
 Focus
 Accountability

How Is A Typical Executive Coaching Program Designed?

Executive coaching solutions are always tailor made to meet the

client’s EXACT requirements and desired outcomes, remaining
flexible as new discoveries and issues surface throughout the
conversation.

In order to improve the performance and to accelerate the leader’s

professional development it is recommended that the coach and the
coachee go through an effective process with well-defined steps.

Phase One
—Develop Formal Commitments

During this phase the coach meets with the client/sponsor to

identify the possible performance issues, desire for sustainable
growth, vision for the future, and formulate outcomes, clarify
expectations and get commitments.
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Let’s talk a bit about how this works. The company may actually
hire the coach to work with an executive for any number of reasons.
While the company may be sponsoring the coach, the actual client
is the executive. The work that the coach does with an executive is
held in confidence with the coach, and the information shared with
the company (as sponsor) is only about whether or not the client is
doing the work as requested, meeting with the coach as scheduled,
and making progress.

This phase can be completed either face to face or on the

telephone. There may be some supporting documentation that will
need to be completed through email/fax/mail.

Phase Two
—Gather Information & Creation of Professional Development
Plan

During this phase the coach will gather information about the
client's possible performance issues or desires for personal growth,
will review any existing performance data, conduct some interviews
and ask the client to complete some assessments/questionnaires.

The coach will provide feedback and help the client to create a
professional development plan.

Phase Three
—Coach

During this phase the actual coaching process begins.

Depending on requirements this can be a mixture of face to face,

telephone and email sessions.

Phase Four

—Evaluate and Follow-up

During the final phase, if sponsored by the company, the coach

reports on the client’s progress, evaluates the coaching assignment
and helps the client to build support structures to maintain new
behaviors and relationships.

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Does Executive Coaching Work?

In the past ten years, the meteoric rise of executive coaching in

organizations must mean that it is having a positive impact upon
organizations both large and small.

Eighty-eight percent of European companies report using coaching

in some manner.

Moreover, a recent survey of 170 Human Resource professionals

determined that more than 50% had set up a coaching program in
the past 18 months (The Hay Group) and a random survey of 248
Human Resource Managers demonstrated that 55% of their
organizations use formal coaching as an employee development
method (Society of Human Resource Management, 2005).

Why is the Use of Executive Coaching Increasing?

A 2004 study attributes these nine factors as the principle forces

driving the increasing use of executive coaching:

1. Rapidly evolving business environment

2. Individual responsibility for development
3. Financial costs of poor performance
4. Popular development strategy
5. Supports other learning
6. Employees request coaching
7. Need for lifelong learning
8. Improves decision-making
9. Targeted, just-in-time development

(Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, 2004)

We know that there is a boom within the Executive Coaching

industry, but does it work? In many companies the tracking of
coaching outlay and the return on investment of coaching programs
has proven to be a monumental task.

Measuring results and returns for all learning and development

solutions is always difficult, but it is doubly so with the
customization and uniqueness of coaching itself.

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At the end of the day a lot of the feedback as to whether the
coaching has worked or not has to be gathered from the coachee
themselves and the people immediately around them as they will
notice the changes in behaviors, attitude, outlook and above all
results.

A lot of the organizations that we work for like to have a monetary

figure put to the impact of executive coaching so that the sponsor
can justify the spend to the finance department and we do work
with them to provide this. However, more and more companies are
now seeing Executive Coaching as the ―right thing to do‖ and are
channeling their energies into getting the right program for their
leaders rather than having to worry about justifying it before it even
begins!

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 Georgia Feiste

I am a personal growth and leadership coach, writer, and

workshop facilitator creating a safe space for people
wanting to make significant changes in life by discovering
the power of who they are, their purpose and passion.
I believe that everyone has the ability to be a leader,
regardless of the job/career they are performing in the
real world. Every person is uniquely here to shine their light on the path
this world of ours is traversing, and to connect with others who are doing
the same.
Leaders who are clear about who they are experience abundance by
focusing their strengths and passions in every area of their life. They are
enthusiastically pursuing their spiritual enlightenment, waking to the truth
of who they are, and having the courage to open themselves to
experiencing the resolve to make their truth manifest in this world with all
of their being. As we transition through life stages, we experience
different aspects of who we are in a variety of areas – our roles, health,
the time we spend in differing areas, clarity around finances,
relationships, creativity, personal and spiritual growth, and what we do for
fun.
My role as coach is to hold open the space for my clients so they might
experiment as they discover and get comfortable with who they are;
growing and learning as they go through the process of embracing who
they are willing to be. All the while, encouraging and supporting them as
they develop their vision, set their goals, and accomplish each sweet step
with ease and grace.
What I bring to the table:

 Strong C-level executive business background, leading teams of all

sizes and skills.
 Created an encore career in an entrepreneurial business from the
ground up. Solid in business plans, project management and
execution.
 Trained by Coach, Inc. as a professional coach. Member of the
International Coach Federation.
 Deeply involved in my own spiritual growth, evolving progressively
toward enlightened leadership. Delighted to bring that aspect of
who I am to my coaching practice.

Specialties:
Coaching for individuals seeking more fulfilment and meaning in their lives
by following the concept of a perfect life, as it flows through us.

 Leadership and Executive Coaching: Receive help to reduce staff

attrition, improve your ability to communicate, increase sales and
profits, take leadership development to the next level and assist

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 you in formulating solutions to your challenges and difficulties. We
focus on results and outcomes.
 Personal Life transition: Receive the encouragement and direction
you need to help you maximize your resources and creativity. No
topic is too large or too small to explore.
 Career transition: Whether planned or unplanned, for those
persons who are actively redefining who they are willing to be
within the context of a vocation/career.
 Retirement transition: Pre- and post-planning and transitional
strategies for retirees interested in creating an intentional, joyful
and meaningful life.

Georgia Feiste, President

Collaborative Transitions Coaching
Website: http://CollaborativeTransitions.com
e-mail: Georgia@CollaborativeTransitions.com
Telephone: (402) 304-1902

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