According to the Executive Coaching Forum, executive coaching is an experiential and individualized leader development process that builds a leader’s capability to achieve short- and long-term organizational goals. It is conducted through one-on-one interactions, driven by data from multiple perspectives, and based on mutual trust and respect. The overriding objective is for the organization, executive, and executive coach to team up in order to maximize results.
The Executive Coaching Process
The endgame for executive coaching is unequivocal. The coach is there for one reason: to collaborate with the executive and key stakeholders (peers, customers, supervisors, reports, HR/OD) to ensure that the executive’s learning and growth advance organizational needs. For this to happen, the collaboration needs to be bound by clear ground rules, time frames, and measures of success.
In our experience, it’s best to focus first on emphasizing an executive’s strengths, next on ensuring they’re actually being used, and finally on building additional knowledge, skills, and behaviors that are needed to achieve organizational objectives. This requires a flexible process, and the possible application of a variety of coaching and learning methods such as:
- Dialogue
- Collaborative problem solving & planning
- Scenario planning
- Team assessment
- Role playing & rehearsal
- Communication skills practice
- Mirroring
- Shadowing
- Role clarification
- Assumption testing
- Priority setting
- Recorded audio & video feedback
- Learning plan development
- Experiential learning
- Management & leadership skills development
- 360° feedback
- Helpful resource materials (books, articles, CDs, online tools, films)
Types of Executive Coaching
Executive coaching doesn’t come in just one flavor. So it’s important to establish from the outset the particular kind of coaching that suits the client and organization’s pressing needs. During most coaching engagements—typically three months to a year—there isn’t time to do it all. So in the coaching agreement, we outline the engagement according to one or two of the types of coaching.