Executive Coaching and Executive Life Coaching
According to a recent survey 90% of executives in UK organisations work with a coach. I suspect it is not nearly as high here in Ireland…..yet.
In the UK coaching is used to fast track potential stars. It helps the executive recognise their strengths and build on them. Acknowledge their weaknesses and discover how to mitigate them. All the while paying attention to the path and holding the focus.
Coaching Maximises Executive Potential
Coaching is also recognised as being effective in maximising executives’ potential. It aids executives in times of transition whether due to promotion, mergers, downsizing or transfer across departments at many levels in the organisation. When things outside or within the organisation change, people need to change too. They need to change the focus of their work, sometimes learning to do new things while letting go of the ‘old’. This is a learning process. It may be about taking the time to step back and evaluate to discover the evolving direction and then find ways to take action in that new direction.
Executive Derailment
At other times coaching comes into its own to prevent executive derailment. In general people are comfortable with the status quo. When something changes – as things do – levels of stress increase, people tend to become less flexible, communication channels become disrupted or breakdown and inefficiencies creep into the organisation. If all of these accumulate without being headed off at an early stage it can lead to executive derailment, increased absenteeism, impacting on other staff members leading to dissatisfaction and bottom line cost to the organisation.
Executive Coaching Focuses on Building Strengths
Therefore executive coaching focuses on building strengths and motivation, reframing the thinking around change and encouraging change. The ‘change is growth’ attitude can be useful to adopt. While at the same time supporting the executive in viewing change from alternative perspectives to make the change easier, so ultimately they are more flexible and have learned how to manage themselves more effectively in an uncertain environment.
