How An Executive Coaching Programme Can Help Senior Leaders and High Performers
Top executives and senior business leaders all face similar problems and challenges. It doesn’t matter which business they work in, their background or experiences. Leadership is a very different position to the role that got that individual into that leadership position, and therefore skills need to be learnt and developed.
Every executive is in a different position:
- Some executives might be moving into to increasingly demanding roles.
- An executive might require a new set of skills in a different role
- An executive might need a sounding board from an external party outside of the organisation.
What do you get from an Executive Coaching Performance Programme?
Executive performance coaching is a practice that has been used and improved to address the current challenges and obstacles that senior leaders are facing.
Benefits
- Specialised
- One to one
- Allowing immediate feedback
- Flow state enhancing
How Does Leadership Coaching for Performance work?
Coaching is a relationship-building process; creating a solid and honest relationship leads to success. Therefore making sure that we are the right fit is the first goal of coaching.
COVID has shown the world that we still create peak performance in a remote world; senior leaders and high-level executives can access coaching in their prefered environment and build it into their current schedule. We are a great believer in small improvements over a long period of time, which means that we are able to have flexible meetings to enable us to achieve great results.
The second goal of coaching is to complete a full bespoke assessment to understand strengths, weaknesses, habits, current lifestyle and current work plan. Using the results, we can design a performance-enhancing programme.
In the first few sessions, the coach and client should set clear goals and outcomes for the executive coaching programme. This allows the partnership to work together to create processes and systems to achieve these outcomes.
In our in-depth coaching programmes, we work on a one to one basis; this can be a mixture of face to face and remote. The executive coaching can last for several months; it depends on the requirement and level of contact needed.
During the coaching, we work through several different performance areas. Such as self-awareness, mindset, sleep, recovery, mental performance, stress tolerance all designed to help the senior business leader meet their new challenges.
Challenges that often arise in executive coaching are intrapersonal conflicts, team relationship building, performance planning, sleep requirements, personal relationships, and much more. It’s important to stress it is not the role of the coach to tell you all the answers and solve the problem. The idea of the coaching is to guide the individual or team to answer and solve. The most incredible feeling is meeting people many years after the coaching programme has ended, and seeing them achieving their goals, and becoming the person they want to be.
To end the executive coaching programme, there is a final evaluation to see if we have achieved the outcome goals that were created at the start and to identify any ongoing support and development.
Finding An Executive Coaching Programme for Performance
As we have noted, creating a relationship is the foundation of a successful executive performance programme. To help with this, it’s essential to understand the coach’s qualifications, experience and skill set. In the first few meetings, the main goal is to create rapport and trust. Both the coach and client are responsible for this.
“The more open and honest from the start the more successful the performance coaching will be.”
How to get the most out of an Executive Coaching Programme for Performance
We must understand that coaching is a relationship, therefore both sides have responded to each other to make sure that the executive performance programme is a success. There are a few questions to ask and get clear at the start to get the most out of the coaching programme.
What does the programme look like?
There are multiple tools that a coach can use to ensure a successful coaching programme – face to face meetings, zoom calls, remote sessions, messaging, applications. The executive and coach should discuss the best way to communicate.
When will the coaching take place?
The duration and frequency of the performance coaching will be considered by the coaches and discussed with the leaders. There might be a case of high frequency at the start of the programme, and then a reduction in the number of sessions. It’s important to understand that these sessions can be fatiguing, therefore it’s important the executive is prepared for the meeting. Ideally, the timing of the meeting should not be at the end of the working day or outside of working hours.
How is the information stored?
Like with rapport and openness, coaching is a serious profession and, therefore, confidential, and personal information is never discussed outside of the meeting. If a company requires an update on the programme, the report should be shown to the client to see if information needs to retract.
Cost and payments?
It’s important to understand and make clear the commitments of costs and what happens if a meeting needs to changed or cancelled. In addition, if there are any additional costs, such as travel expenses.
How to determine if the Executive Coaching Performance Programme has been prosperous?
Have the goals been met by the end of the programme, or is the leader on a path to reaching them?
- The client now has a better understanding of how to increase performance and what affects performance.
- Improved stress resilience and stress management
- Increased productivity and energy both inside and outside the business or organisation.
Summary
Coaching is a passion and should be the purpose of the coach. Helping high-level executives and senior business leaders is a fulfilling career, and therefore engagement in the programme is key to success.
Coaching for peak performance will help senior leaders prepare physically, mentally, emotionally, and professionally to lead the business through challenging situations. Challenging situations are the ones to become very excited about, as it’s an opportunity to grow.
Thanks for reading, want to read more about high-performance coaching take a look here.
Lee
Director and Founder