This summer I saw an interesting story on coaching Olympic athletes. It’s fascinating to see how people who are already excellent at their jobs seek to improve and be more successful. It was beautiful to see and motivating. This inspired me for this article, and I decided to talk to you about executive coaching.
Executive coaching is a powerful approach to leadership development for executives. Leaders can transform their performance by working with a professional coach on their goals and challenges, by providing both support and challenge.
According to the ICF “International Coaching Federation” coaching is a partnership with clients in a creative and stimulating process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.
How can professional coaching help?
Executive coaching helps people find the resources within themselves to create lasting transformation. It allows you to significantly improve the performance of a leader and to grow. Because coaching is entirely focused on the individual’s goals, strengths and challenges, it is one of the fastest and most effective forms of leadership development. ICF mentions that the return on investment from coaching is approximately 800%!
Coaching allows, among other things, to improve leadership skills, increase performance and impact, set better goals and achieve them more quickly, communicate more effectively, mobilize teams and make them autonomous, to increase employee engagement, to be more efficient or to increase self-confidence as a leader.
Who needs an executive coach?
All leaders, such as a president, board member or team leader can benefit from the accelerated development provided by a professional coach. Coaching is tailored to individual needs and goals. One-on-one coaching is particularly useful when a leader is facing a new or difficult situation for them, their team or their organization.
The importance of finding the right coach
Finding the right coach is important. Unfortunately, nowadays, there are a lot of people who improvise themselves as a coach, without having any experience in management and business leadership and especially without recognized training and certification as a professional coach. You need to be critical in your choice by carefully evaluating the coach’s path and their certifications. A good coach will work with the leader to ensure that their needs and goals are understood. It is good practice for a leader and a coach to have a short meeting to see if “the chemistry is working” before committing to the coaching relationship.
If you want to surpass yourself and excel in your leadership role and get more from your teams, contact me.
Sincerely, Liza