As you progress in your career and look to take the next big step, seeking coaching or guidance can be a smart move. You may have specific career aspirations, and at some point, seeking external guidance may become necessary to achieve them. However, once you’ve achieved your goals and become a leader in your organisation, what’s next? The answer is executive coaching.
Many business leaders underestimate the value of having an executive coach to help them navigate their leadership path. As a leader, one of the most crucial skills you can have is a leadership mindset. Stepping into a leadership role comes with a host of responsibilities and challenges that you may not be fully prepared for. A skilled executive coach can help you develop a leadership mindset, making it much easier to handle the challenges that come with being a leader.
In this blog, we’ll explore the difference between executive coaching and mentoring and share best practices for executive coaching.
What is Executive Coaching?
At its core, executive coaching is a collaborative process between a coach and a coachee (the coachee being a CEO, business leader, or an otherwise integral member of an organisation). During the course of the coaching engagement, the coach and coachee work together to help the coachee to define meaningful goals specific to them, and then create strategies and actions to achieve those goals.
As the coachee continues to discover more and more about themselves, these goals may change, become more challenging, and more focused. Over time, the coachee will begin to develop new habits and become more effective because of the behavioural change that they experience throughout the course of the relationship. These new habits not only build on their existing leadership skills, but will also help them to develop new skills, and create a healthy balance between their professional life and their personal life.
Leadership Coaching vs Mentoring: What’s the Difference?
The definition of executive coaching is often misconstrued. People tend to assume coaching is mentoring, training, or consulting. While these three disciplines may share some characteristics with executive coaching, they are in fact very different.
Mentoring is what most people think of when they hear the term executive coach. In most cases, mentoring happens when someone with certain experience (mentor) is instructing or sharing that experience with another (mentee). Mentoring is often focused on a particular task or outcome, i.e. building a business. Executive coaching differs from mentoring in that an executive coach helps the coachee to find their own way through questions and techniques designed to help the coachee arrive at their own insights when it comes to setting and achieving their individual goals.
3 Best Practices for Executive Coaching
For executive coaching to be effective, the coachee must have bought into the idea of working with a coach. Executive coaching is not a disciplinary action, nor should an executive coach be brought in to “fix” an individual. Both the coach and coachee must be aligned, and if the plan is to help the coachee to develop their leadership skills, then the coaching engagement should be aligned with the strategy, culture, and goals of the coachee’s organisation. In this case, the coach, the coachee, and the business must all be working together in order to achieve success.
So, when it comes to best practices for executive coaching, what are some of the guidelines?
Selecting a Coach
Firstly, if you’re considering executive coaching, it’s vital that the coach in question is suitably qualified, experienced, and has a track record of success. It’s also important that they exhibit strong ethics and professional accountability.
An executive coach should hold a coaching qualification through a reputable coaching body such as the International Coaching Federation which demonstrates their personal and professional commitment to their field. This is an important aspect when selecting an executive coach, because while executive coaching is a process, the coachee should feel that they can place their trust in the coach and that they have the necessary training and skill to help the coachee obtain desired results.
Defining Desired Outcomes
The focus of executive coaching is always focused on the individual being coached. The coachee should set the agenda and discussion topics for the coaching engagement and the coach should help the coachee to create a plan to help them achieve their desired results.
When working with business leaders, their goals are often linked to the goals of their business, so an effective coach will help the coachee to explore those links and help the coachee to define their own path to goal alignment and motivation. Their methods must align with the organisation’s ultimate vision. After all, these goals should more or less match up regardless.
Charting the Course
The challenges of a CEO will differ to the challenges of a mid-level executive. An effective executive coach will tailor their methodology to each individual, bearing in mind the complexities that each individual may be facing. A CEO for instance may be looking for coaching around how they create a certain type of company culture, or how to navigate significant changes in the overall business, while a mid level manager may be looking for coaching around improving people skills or driving performance across their team.
In all cases, executive coaching is an effective intervention because it helps individuals to expand their own thinking around the goals and solutions that they are pursuing. An effective coach will be agile in their approach and will create and hold the space necessary for the coachee to arrive at their destination in a way that makes the most sense for them, developing new thinking and effective habits along the way.
BizVroom’s executive coaching solutions are designed to develop business leaders that are authentic, compassionate, and truly results oriented. Check out our home page to find out more.