Executive Coaches Help Drive Bottom-Line Results
by Ray WILLIAMS

Coaching is the second fastest growing profession in the world, rivaled only by Information Technology jobs. Coaching owes its success both to the personal development movement and the huge global economic restructuring of the l980’s.

Executive coaching, also called business or corporate coaching is an outgrowth of leadership development programs. According to the Harvard Business Review, executive and business coaching is worth $1 billion annually in North America. Although coaching has been gaining widespread acceptance by organizations in the l990’s, only recently has it flourished because:

• Executive stress and failure is on the increase.
• Corporate leaders require more complex skills today.
• Executives and managers face more frequent performance assessments.
• The old command and control style of leadership is out of synch with the younger, inner-directed, and culturally diverse workforce.
• The economic realities of short-term financial success has altered most work organizations.

What exactly is executive coaching?

A coach is a trusted role model, advisor, mentor and guide that helps shape new visions and plans, taps new energy, and helps generate desired results for both individuals and organizations. A coach is not a therapist, counselor, or management consultant. Executive coaching can be defined as an experiential, individualized leadership development process that builds a leader’s capacity to achieve individual and organizational goals.

Two factors distinguish executive coaching from other kinds of coaching:

• Executive coaching always involves a partnership among the executive, the coach and the organization
• The individual goals of the executive coaching engagement must always be integrated into strategic organizational objectives

What to Look For In a Professional Executive Coach

Unfortunately there are a lot of people out there calling themselves executive coaches. Buyers beware! Executive coaches need to have knowledge and experience in:

• human and organizational dynamics
• leadership theory and practices with an action-orientation
• teaching and mentoring

In addition, executive coaches should have received formal coaching training from an International Coach Federation accredited training program.

How Can Executive Coaching Benefit Your Organization?

Executive coaching has been proven to have a positive ROI on business results, employee relationships and work engagement according to Fortune 500 companies such as IBM, Dell and Bristol Myers. Evidence from studies such as the Manchester Group demonstrate that executive coaching is a sound business investment and can be applied to a wide variety of human resource and organizational issues. While management gurus like Stephen Covey and Tom Peters provide theory about leadership, executive coaching aims to embody that learning and transform it into action.

Executive coaches can be effective in addressing the following issues:

• interpersonal relationships and emotional intelligence
• improved job performance and enhanced organizational performance
• leadership skill development
• teamwork and organizational culture development
• increased training effectiveness

Executive coaching has been clearly shown to be a critical platform for successful executive and organizational change, and can provide organizations of all sizes with a significant competitive edge.