The Importance of Executive Coaching

Written by admin on Sunday, April 26th, 2009

Choosing an executive coach

Who’s right for me?

The spectrum of executive coaches and executive consulting services is enormous. The executive coaching services on offer are seemingly endless. Different people offer different skills and it’s really important for you to be clear about what you want from an executive coach.

If you aren’t clear what you want when you start, then that’s one good way to find out if you’ll be able to work with someone: by talking with you even for a brief time, a good executive coach will be able to help you pinpoint exactly what they could do to support you.

But there are some essentials no matter who you use.

Your executive coach has to:

Be trustworthy
Be hugely experienced in dealing with a variety of people and issues
Have your best interests at heart
Be empathetic
Have really good counseling skills; be direct and clear
Get to the point and give practical suggestions

And most important:

You do have to like them
Whatever anyone says, if you or your company are paying for executive coaching support, you absolutely must get on with this person.

Some companies may have a group of executive coaches they know and use. If you don’t like any of them, find your own!

Having an executive coach could be a major relationship in your life. You may use them only once or decide that you want them supporting you in an on-going role. You may decide to have a ‘check up’ or ‘MOT’ once a year.

At Impact Factory, those of us who do executive coaching have all kinds of coaching relationships:

people we see once who have an intensive, powerful and in-depth session
people we see regularly who like to know someone is out there just for them
people with whom we have a less formal arrangement - they use us as and when things arise and they need an outside eye to help them
However and whoever you use, executive coaching could make a significant difference to how you feel and what you do.

Jo Ellen and Robin run Impact Factory who provide Executive Coaching for Individuals, Public Speaking Presentation Skills, Communications Training and Leadership Development.