How can coaching benefit me?
“Everyone needs a coach. We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve,” Bill Gates, Co-founder of Microsoft, in his 2013 TED Talk.
Often when we look at highly successful people, we don’t stop to consider what might have gone on behind the scenes to help them get to where they are. Or in fact, who helped them.
An athlete wouldn’t dream of training without the support and development of a sports coach. Their training is crucial to ensure they are at peak performance. The same can be said about the executives and managers in a business. How can they perform at their best, with the most impact, without a coach?
What is executive coaching?
We like the IECL definition which is that executive coaching is the process of working with executives and managers in a solution-focused, collaborative relationship to help maximise their potential. It can take form in a variety of ways, but the overall goal is to help you be the best version of yourself as a leader, manager, executive, and person.
Coaching is not about mentoring, counselling, managing, leading, or giving advice. It is aimed at unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their own performance by helping them to learn through doing rather than just telling them what to do. It’s about helping someone develop and advance in their business, role, or life.
Put simply, an executive coach can give you the tools and support you need in order to reach your potential and beyond. An executive coach can get you focussed on the things you usually push aside. This could be due to limiting beliefs, stories you tell yourself, or that ‘inner village’ chattering away in your head telling you why something isn’t possible. In effect, a coach helps you to get out of your own way!
Is coaching the same as mentoring?
No. While the terms ‘coaching’ and ‘mentoring’ are often used interchangeably, there are subtle differences.
Mentoring provides an avenue in which the mentee is given access to the mentor’s wisdom, ‘tricks of the trade’ and short-cuts to success – helping to shape their values and beliefs in a positive way. Mentors give advice and guidance.
Executive coaching, on the other hand, is less prescriptive. Coaches provide a balance of security – in that they are available to be leant on, and challenge – the coach provides a safe, non judgemental, supportive and confidential environment where they challenge the coachee to move beyond their comfort zone, think about things differently while also holding them accountable for achieving their own outcomes.
In executive coaching it’s the ability to explore ideas, issues, obstacles or opportunities with the help of a skilled coach in this environment that leads the ‘aha moment’ or what Dr Hilary Armstrong refers to as ‘exuberant learning’. Executive coaching is a partnership – think of it like a Pilot and Co-Pilot – which helps people achieve clarity of direction. It increases the choices available to them, and offers rapid development.
What are the benefits of executive coaching?
Some of the benefits you could see from executive coaching are:
Unbiased support
Often a person is so deep in the day to day happenings of business, that they can’t see the forest for the trees, and any internal support (unless an internal coach is employed in the organisation) they seek is often laden with ill-advice and a lack of knowledge.
When you engage an external executive coach, as they are not working in your business, they naturally approach the engagement with an unbiased non judgemental perspective which can be very helpful in supporting the coachee to explore alternate approaches and different ways of thinking about things.
Strategic direction
It’s pretty hard to succeed in business without a plan, and a good plan includes a strategic direction. Without one, it’s as though you’re hopping in the car for a drive and you have no idea where you’re headed!
An executive coach helps you to identify what’s getting in your way, supports you to identify your objectives and to clarify the direction you want to take. From there, they support you to map out different strategies and set clear goals. Setting goals is a crucial part to personal and business advancement, yet is often not done effectively. An executive coach can help change that.
Accountability
In addition to supporting you on your journey, an executive coach will be there to hold you accountable, ensuring you complete the tasks needed to reach your goals. Knowing that you need to report back to your coach and not wanting to disappoint them is sometimes all the push a person needs to stay on track to success.
Success
With the right coach you can identify what’s getting in your way. This may result in freeing up more of your time to work on the bigger picture items which will directly contribute to your success. By working with a coach you get to understand how you are ‘being’ in your role in the business (even as the business owner), develop further as a leader and identify what actions need to be implemented to succeed.
At Directions Unlimited, we strive to approach coaching as a dialogue, not as a dictation. Our first step is always to ensure the ‘chemistry’ exists between coach and coachee and we then partner with you and support you to identify and achieve your goals.
Direction’s Unlimited Director, David Leahy, graduated from the prestigious Institute of Executive Coaching in Sydney, and has coached executives internationally in South America, USA, Europe, Asia and Australia – helping many individuals and companies attain their goals.
If you would like an obligation free discussion, contact us today and see how our tailored coaching approach can help you excel.