Top Executives and CEOs Work with Executive Coaches
You are in the process of hiring a new team member. What are the things you look for? You will obviously look for the right technical skills, determination, key soft skills, and a few other specific skills that will align with the job and company. You have narrowed down the list to two options, both have similar backgrounds and are equally talented. As a manager, what skill would make your job easier? Coachability. If you have a direct report that can be coached and can pivot in ways that will be best for the organization, you not only have an exceptional talent, but you have someone that is adaptable, open to feedback, and has a growth mindset. This is a rare talent indeed. This is one of the reason that many top CEOs, such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, and countless others had or have coaches that they work with regularly. Even though they are exceptional talents with unparalleled technical/business skills, they looked to executive coaches to help them to grow in ways they would not be able to do on their own. A coach that provides a space to speak openly, a coach that helps to discover hidden perspectives, and a coach that helps to redefine priorities that lead to effective execution.
Space to Speak Openly
If it’s lonely as an employee on a team, it’s even lonelier at the top. As a leader, you shoulder the weight of completion of key initiatives, management and engagement of teams, often management of a political environment, and countless other responsibilities. This can create an isolated environment with not many options that will allow for vulnerability and a safe space to talk. Executive coaching provide a non-judgmental environment with an independent party that can allow for honest conversations, validation, acknowledgement, and feedback.
Hidden Perspectives
Do you remember the last time you had an issue and it seems like there are no good options to move forward towards a solution? When we are dealing with something difficult, we often focus on the same things, repeat the same thoughts, and have a tunnel vision on our problem. This can leave us feeling stuck. Through coaching techniques, we can either drill down deeper into the issue or scale up to look at the broader perspective. This shift in perspective can open up options on what solutions may be available and we can start to feel unstuck.
Redefine Priorities
In the day to day work, we can become so focused on taking care of the “urgent” list of action items, that we do not have the proper time to reflect on strategic priorities that we need to set for true progress. In addition, we also put our well being on the back burner when things get busy, but the irony is that when we physically feel great, we also perform much better and the other way is true as well; when we lack in sleep, proper nutrition, exercise and so on, we also suffer more at work through greater stress/anxiety, lack of alignment with our priorities, and disengagement at work. A coaching session can be the perfect environment to explore both work/career and life priorities. By taking a look at the bigger picture, we can better realign our priorities and make improvements at work and in our personal life.
Conclusion
In this post, we shared just some of the reasons that top executives and CEOs invest their time, energy, and money into coaching. There are many reasons to enter a coaching process and many of those reasons will be personal to you. One thing is clear, that in our work environment today that is changing rapidly, that is expecting all employees to keep up (the pressure being even greater on leaders), and that is creating a lot of uncertainty - coaching is a space that can offer a safe environment to have honest conversation, that can help to uncover hidden perspectives and solutions, and that can help to bring our priorities into focus.
Learn more about What Exactly is Executive Coaching
Other resources to check out: Trillion Dollar Coach
