So what exactly is executive coaching?
“So what exactly is executive coaching?”
We are asked this question a great deal so let’s try and bring executive coaching to life by answering in some detail.
Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt (now Executive Chair of Google’s parent company Alphabet) is on record as saying that “the best advice he has ever had was to get himself an executive coach”. This was at a point when, by anyone’s standards, he was already a major success.
He is in good company – many senior players recognise the importance of executive coaching as a key plank of their continuing professional development.
Coaching is a development intervention designed to help talented people, usually in senior positions, realise their full potential and to apply it productively in the workplace. It is the art of facilitating the performance, development and success of a fellow professional.
Whilst it has sometimes been misused as a ‘remedial” intervention in the past, executive coaching is in fact targeted personal development for successful people. You might say that, at its simplest, we work to help them get to “the next level”. It’s one-to-one leadership development.
Coaches should be qualified, have an ethical foundation for their practice including clear boundaries, attend regular sessions with a qualified coaching supervisor and must always put in place a clear coaching contract which includes agreed levels of confidentiality.
Our coaching focuses on improving the performance of leaders and managers by skilfully utilising your inherent expertise and knowledge so you find the most effective solutions to your challenges.
Your Chelsham coach is unconditionally on your side, has no agenda other than yours and has an unquestionably positive regard for you.
In more detail
Coaching activities may have both organisational and individual goals but the emphasis is upon performance at work.
Coaching is an investment in the coachee’s own capability and therefore has a return on investment year after year.
Coaching focuses on improving performance (usually high performers striving for an even higher level of achievement) and developing individuals’ skills. Underpinned by a blend of commercial and psychological thinking, coaching can deliver a step change in performance and achievement.
Your coach acts as a sounding board, challenges thinking, supports and stimulates creativity and idea-generation, provides tools & techniques for dealing with situations, gives encouragement and builds confidence.
Coaching is largely a non-directive intervention which does not rely on the knowledge and experience of the coach but on the capacity of individuals to learn for themselves. We do use directive interventions to drive action but not to tell the coachee what to do .
To repeat – it is not about transfer of knowledge from the coach – that is closer to mentoring which is a different concept. We act as mentors only on topics which are within our personal experience. For example we may advise on concepts of leadership, or the dynamics of career progression in the business world or on other topics within our experience – but we do not tell you what to do. You are the expert in your career and have the best answers within you. We have the tools and techniques to help you unlock them and to overcome obstacles.
We work together to remove the interference that can stand between you (usually a high-potential individual) and your short- or long-term goals. Interference might be organisational (e.g. a new arrival or promotee navigating a new corporate ‘landscape’ or new challenges) or within the coachee themselves (mindset, distraction, blind-spots, lack of feedback etc.). A regular driver for coaching can be “what has made the coachee/player successful in the past may not be sufficient in the future”.
We work to develop heightened awareness, new possibilities, “flow” and a relaxed state of high performance which can and should be maintained in the workplace.
As a result of coaching, clients tackle bigger challenges with more confidence & skill and achieve better results for their organisation and themselves. Feedback from CEO/Board-level clients as well as those ‘on their way up’ supports this statement.
Overall your coaching relationship with Chelsham will stand apart from other business relationships. As mentioned above we are unquestionably on your side, have no agenda other than your own and are working purely to help you maximise your performance.