Coaching For The Top

There are many ways to get to the top. EILEEN LASKAR writes on executive coaching and how it can help you achieve results and performance improvements that last.

By Eileen Laskar

EXECUTIVE COACHING is a relatively new trend that has been growing and gaining popularity over the last two decades. Broadly speaking, it is about helping people improve their capabilities and effectiveness so they can achieve results and performance improvements that last. As such, it is a strategic resource for thrifty executives who want to achieve unprecedented performance while facing challenges in improving their skills.

There are various fields of executive coaching with the most popular and oldest being Life Coaching. Others include Career Coaching, Spiritual Coaching etc. Executive Coaching is becoming a popular back up and sometimes replacing management consulting as a tool for driving organizational development.



Role in top management circles

Executive coaching is an efficient, high - impact process that helps high - performing people in leadership roles improve their results in ways that are sustainable. It is an ongoing relationship that offers a support mechanism in terms of helping the executive generate important insights, gain clarity, have a focus and make decisions to improve performance. As a result, the executive, who hires an executive coach, achieves results usually linked to improved profits, organizational effectiveness, better leadership, career success among others.

An executive coach sometimes has to intervene more or less the same way a sports coach does and make observations, provide tools and frameworks, share experiences, motivate, move the conversation forward and sometimes give tough reality checks.

Owing to its success, executive coaching has been adopted by top performing organizations including Fortune 500 Companies as an Organizational Development (OD) and Human Resource Development strategy with outstanding results in terms of enhanced productivity, talent management and retention, quality management and overall reduction of hiring and recruitment budget.

Why an executive coach?

The current professional environment is characterized by stiff competition at the individual and personal levels. Executives are constantly pursing growth, improvement and change and this constant re-engineering in terms of content, process or context (CPC) alongside the daily competing demands can be overwhelming. The CPC forms the three key pillars for executive coaching engagements and also provides three key reasons why every executive needs a coach.

Content oriented executive coaching engagements are characterized by the coach sharing knowledge and expertise about specific areas of business for example marketing, business planning and financial management. Process oriented engagements are geared towards addressing organizational needs and transformation processes. The coach as such supports the Executive in laying out a structure and an action plan to get things done for example culture transformation, productivity improvement and organizational restructuring.

Context engagements focus on the individual and help them improve their behavior and attitudes so they can become more effective and successful. Examples of this kind of engagement include building the capacity of the Executive to be more assertive, improving relations, improving decision making, mobilizing of staff and managing teams. While every engagement has a combination of all the three, there is always one domain that is over riding and predominant in every coaching relationship.

Every executive will at one point or the other face challenges related to one or more of the CPC elements and hence the need for an executive coach to offer insights, a support mechanism, facilitate a shorter learning curve and achievement of the ultimate results.



Coaching process

The entire executive coaching process can be condensed into four main steps:-

1. Assessing the executive’s situation and their ability to be coached – this is done through in-depth inquiry, interviews with colleagues and formal assessment tools. The outcome of this phase of coaching is a well defined gap between where the Executive (client) is and where they want to be.
2. Defining the specific desired outcomes or goals – The metrics will be used to measure the progress, inclusive of time-lines. As noted earlier, the metrics will differ depending on whether the gap is content, process or context oriented.
3. Exploring alternatives and designing the most appropriate intervention, including the scope and structure of the coaching process – This includes both the content and the delivery mechanism and also setting expectations for both parties.
4. Coaching program implementation, review and follow-up – The latter is particularly important to ensure sustained coaching/performance gains.



The outcome of executive coaching are determined by the gap analysis and as such, no standard outcomes. Examples include personal branding and enhanced visibility, optimal career choices, enhanced productivity, staff retention, effective succession planning, all which are dependent on the nature and scope of the engagement.



Executive coaching versus management consulting

While management consultants are analysts and tell people what to do, executive coaches employ diverse approaches that help their clients set direction and get results while collaborating with other people. An executive coach facilitates his/her client to gain their own insights while s/he (the coach) is in the background as ‘a shadow leader.’ That way, the learning is baked into the process. An executive coach will not deliver long, elaborate presentation and reports. Instead, they will work with executives to build on their own talents and use those talents to take results and organizational capabilities to the next level, according to where they are willing and able to go.

Based on my experience as a business development consultant who switched over to the coaching model, these two models are different in their approach and outcomes. However, a management consultant can deliver the content oriented training and consulting and use coaching as a tool to ensure implementation and consistent follow-up.

Coaching is based on trust and value and anyone seeking to engage a coach should have enough trust in their capability and should carefully evaluate the value they are likely to gain from such as an engagement. At all times, ensure that the metrics and the progress towards the same are very clearly spelt out from the onset. Just like with any other new field, executives are advised to be careful in deciding whom they engage as their executive coach so they get maximum value from the process and achieve desired personal and organizational developmental outcomes. One of the easiest ways to do this is to ensure that the selected coach has the necessary and recognized credentials. Some reference from the specific credentialing organizations and bodies such International Coach Federation (ICF) amongst others would also be useful.

Since coaching is not a cheap service, feel free to discuss any concerns and matters arising along the implementation phase and even disengage should you feel uncomfortable with the process, progress, and outcomes. After all, coaching engagements do not have final exams; every single session you have with your coach should add genuine value.

Executive coaching is not…

- A therapy to ‘fix’ anybody

However, in some contexts, there is a room for influencing the Executive so s/he can embrace more empowering beliefs and values to facilitate them get the results that they want.

- Interim management

A coach does not step in to do the job for the Executive. Instead, an executive coach is a ‘shadow leader’ working behind the scenes to help the Executive succeed and improve in ways that are sustainable and long-lasting.

- A ‘crystal ball’ that magically provides answers

Instead, a coach will occasionally intervene and provide advice when appropriate. However, most of the time, the coach will engage in a dialogue with the Executive and design or customize a tool that works for their unique context.

Eileen Laskar is an Executive Coach & Founder, Centre for Business and executive Coaching (East Africa) - CBEC-EA

E-mail eileen.laskar@cbec-ea.com