12 Oct 2019 How To Make The Best Of Your Executive Coach
How to make the most of your Executive Coach
This short article is informed by the latest in behavioral science and the foundational principles of Executive Coaching as defined by the International Coach Federation (ICF).
If you would like to explore whether you and your team could benefit from our Executive Coaching, please contact me at Uri@thewilltochange.com
Focus On Strengths, Not Weaknesses
Recent findings in behavioral science hold that it is significantly more effective to focus on assessing and developing our Signature Strengths than to focus on correcting our weakness.
Focusing on our strengths is more likely to results in much better performance outcomes for the employee, her/his team, and the organization as a whole.
Hence, the best practice in Executive Coaching is to work with the client on cultivating the skills and qualities that she/he are naturally pre-disposed to, and which make them unique and special – their Signature Strengths.
Enabling Skills and Qualities
At the same time, we should identify the skills and qualities that will support and enable us to excel in our Signature Strengths and work with our Executive Coach to help us develop them as best we can.
For example, take an employee who is naturally good at connecting with people, earning their trust, resonating with what they need, and then selling them the right solution. If she/he has poor communication skills, it may detract from their ability to excel at selling.
Core Premise Of Coaching
The core premise of coaching is that the client is complete and whole where she/he is at any moment in their life and that the answers to what they want to achieve and how are within them.
The job of the coach is to create awareness and clarity, facilitate exploration and discovery, consider different perspectives, brainstorm different options of what is possible, and then design, and plan the client’s journey towards what they want to achieve and/or who they want to become.
The client is much more likely to be committed to executing their own plan, than the plan of the coach.
The Value of Coaching
The value of coaching is in the Coaching Process, not in the advice the coach might feel the urge to share with the client.
In fact, most masterful coaches will never advise the client on what to do. That answer must always come from within the client.
It’s Always The Client’s Agenda
The agenda for the coaching session must always be determined by the client – never by the coach. This includes the overall coaching objective which the client wants to achieve during the coaching relationship and her/his agenda for each individual coaching conversation.
The coach should never determine what problem or issue the client has to fix, or what skills or behaviors the client has to acquire.
The Client Does The Work
Acquiring new mindsets, building new skills, or cultivating new behaviors or habits requires hard work over a long period of time – work that is the client’s to-do – not the coach.
If all the client is prepared to do is to show up for a one-hour session once a week or two, and then forget about it until the next meeting, they are not likely to get very far.
Accountability Partner
Once the client started to implement her/his plan of action, the role of the coach is to motivate, encourage, acknowledge, and celebrate the client’s progress towards their goal.
Although coaches often speak about being an Accountability Partner, we can never really hold the client accountable. Only the client can hold herself/himself accountable.
The Role of The Client’s Manager
The client’s manager has a critical role in supporting the client in implementing their plan – to observe their practice and behavior and to encourage the client to continue to pursue their goal, even in the face of challenges.
To that end, the manager, the client, and the coach should work together to define how the manager and the coach will support the client, given her/his specific goal and plan.
Summary
Executive Coaching can provide a powerful and transformative avenue for a person to grow and build new mindsets, skills, and behaviors.
For coaching to help the client achieve their desired outcomes, she/he has to be committed to investing the time and energy.
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To read other articles in the Leadership series, please visit https://thewilltochange.com//blog-and-tools/execu-blog/
I hope that this short article helped you, the reader, to improve your understanding of Executive Coaching.
If you wish to further explore the topic of Executive Coaching, please do not hesitate to contact me at Uri@thewilltochange.com
You are also, invited to visit our Blog with many Leadership articles from my experience as an Executive Coach: https://thewilltochange.com//blog-and-tools/execu-blog/
