If you’re considering executive coaching, here are a few things that will simplify your decision-making process!
Pain and Permission
When I was certified with the Center of Executive Coaching many years ago, I learned—the hard way!—that there are two key elements that are required for successful executive coaching engagement: pain and permission.
What Does Pain Feel Like?
- Always being pressed for time, juggling priorities, and dropping balls
- Struggling to engage the team and keep everyone working together
- Being distracted from important tasks by conflicts
- Knowing that you need to improve as a leader and communicator
Signs of a Leader Giving Permission for Coaching
When a leader may be ready to give permission to be coached, they show that they:
- Are committed to continuous learning and improvement, and can admit that they’re not perfect
- Have high and exciting aspiration and envision great things happening
- Possess power in their own vulnerability and have the courage to grow in the organization
- Are open to trying different things to get different results, which creates more options and opportunities
- Take responsibility
- Are positive, and fun to work with!
Before You Begin: Key Tips for Dynamite Engagement
- Everyone is busy and you need to have clarity in your own purpose before you begin. This requires being present and prepared for your sessions with your coach. There will always be reason to cancel, so you need to know why it’s important to you before you start. Do your homework and follow through on commitments.
- If you don’t want others to know you’re getting coached, then coaching may not be for you. Coaching takes courage and is a process built for delivering extraordinary value and measurable results. A requirement for working with Operation Kickstart is to sit down with each of the raters—people who gave you feedback, your stakeholders—and let them know one or two actions that you’re working on. There is power in sharing your commitments and it’s amazing how other will support you!
- This is not consulting. Coaches ask many questions, so be ready to think. Thinking not only allows you to solve your immediate issues, but also helps you develop the capacity to improve over time. If something doesn’t feel right, you can ask your own questions and give feedback. Just don’t expect a coach to solve all your problems for you!
- Before going into coaching, know that there will be uncomfortable and emotional moments. But through these learning moments, you can accelerate your career and get out of your comfort zone.
- Find a credible coach. Have a conversation with them to see what it feels like, check out their credentials, and read their testimonials and references. For more on what good coaching feels like, besides having an unwavering level of confidentiality, check out this article.
- Have regular check-ins with your coach and your boss or other sponsor of the program. This is my favorite tip, because I’ve found that these check-in meetings allow the person getting coached to have 100% of the control over what information is and isn’t shared.
Trust this article helps! If you are still looking for a coach specializing in Emotional Intelligence, click here!
Written by Trevor Blondeel, copyright July 2021.