What are the biggest challenges you face as an executive coach?

Trust is established based on how we listen. On first meeting a potential client, asking the question "I'd love to know your story" is a very good start. The potential client determines how much the coach has listened to their words and the coach determines how much the client has shared their story. If there's a good connection and both feel comfortable with the levels of listening and sharing, trust is being built.

As an executive coach, there are several challenges that one may face. Here are some of the biggest challenges: 1. Establishing trust: 2. Adapting to diverse client needs: 3. Navigating organizational dynamics: 4. Managing resistance or defensiveness 5. Measuring and demonstrating impact: 6. Continuous professional development 7. Ethical considerations While these challenges exist, they can also present opportunities for growth and learning as an executive coach. By addressing these challenges with professionalism, adaptability, and a client-centered approach, coaches can help executives achieve their goals and maximize their potential.

In my experience, understanding and working within the complex dynamics of the client's organization can be challenging. This includes aligning coaching goals with organizational objectives without compromising the client's personal growth and development.

Prior to every coaching call, I still to this day, take around 30 seconds to pause and breathe. I have a short visualisation - it's really just 9 words now - that I use to create my inner state that I believe best serves the conversation I'm about to have. I trust that this helps me bring impeccable presence to the conversation and in so doing invite the client to the same. "The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervener." (Otto Scharmer)

I find willingness from the coachee is essential to establish trust, therefore before coaching starts, the chemistry session is essential. During the chemistry session the coach would share the context, objective and reasons for the coaching sessions, it would also allow the coachee to ask the coach any questions. This is also the perfect opportunity for the coach to start establishing trust with the coachee, through the way the questions are answered, stating how coaching could assist the coachee and how the expectations could be met. In my experience, most coachees has one similar concern, which is the confidentiality of the sessions. It is important for the coach to reassure that the sessions are kept private and confidential.

When the executive can explain things simply, you know you have done your job as a coach. The world of an executive is filled with uncertainty, ambiguity, and complexity - that is why executives are required to do what they do - your job as a coach is to help the executive get clarity in all of this and make things simple for them.

In my experience, "finding time to think" remains the biggest challenge for Corporate leaders and managers. As an Executive Coach, I observe that "When" is a bigger puzzle to solve than "Why, What, How". Therefore, it is critical to create a routine for reflection and introspection.

Adaptability is key when you are coaching at executive levels. Having a flexible framework predefined to the executive, creates a safe environment where they know they get value regardless of what is being discussed. Chats often then, will be a mix of perspectives, answers or guidance to navigate a specific situation. The challenge for the coach here is resisting the urge to directly resolve the issue. Instead, coach the executive to get to the answer and solutions themselves, nudging them in the right direction and asking them questions to help them think.

I disagree with how the above is framed. No - the coach doesn’t have to navigate the organisation’s culture, politics and dynamics… or indeed manage complexity. The client has to do that. The coach has to be sensitive to these aspects of course, and draw from the client what these all mean for them/ for their goals, and how they will manage these complexities. But ultimately it’s the client that lives in this environment and has to manage all of that. Not the coach!

1-Active listening and questioning. 2-Feedback and feedforward 3-Goal setting. 4-Supervise Self-assessment 5-Mindfulness and self-awareness exercises.

This can happen. When it does it is very important to make the distinction between the coaching we've been doing vs. any mentorship that's about to happen. It's acceptable to blend some mentorship in if that's what has been agreed. Coaching is a collection of ideas, not a rigid container.

I appreciate the nudge to stay inside the lines of being objective, but I think it’s OK for an experienced coach to provide a few suggestions or advice along the way. Always best to call it what it is,,,mentoring or advice or whatever, but sometime your client wants to know what you would do and why. A lot of seasoned executive coaches who have strong executive experience in addition to formal executive coaching training tell me this is quite common.

If you focus on the Active Inquiry method, objectivity shouldn’t be a problem. You should focus your part of the conversations on asking questions that help the client push their thinking forward. It’s all about putting your opinions aside and just following where the client wants to go.

What I have learnt and discovered about myself in my years of coaching, I must maintain my own coaching, meaning I must have my own coach, who can support me in my awareness, coaching skills and development. What I have been using to guide and keep me on the right track, is the before and after each coaching session form that my clients will fill in, so that I do not deviate from the coaching goals which has been set between us. Another practice which I have been honouring in terms of self-regulation and self-care is Tension Release Exercise (TRE) to allow me to release any pent up fight or flight. I usually proportion each coaching sessions into different segments to ensure my coachees learn through the deep level questions I asked.

There is something here about developing coaching skills to transform your 'advice' or 'suggestions' into powerful questions; ones which prompt clients to think from different perspectives. The Six Thinking Hats and variations of this are often helpful. I will occasionally ask permission to share something that has worked for others and usually aim to share two or more options so it's not pushing an agenda. I always say this worked but everyone is different and contexts may differ so perhaps just something to think about.

For me, the biggest impact to measure is ROE - Return on Expectation. Has the coachee (and the hiring organisation, if appropriate) feel as if their expectations have been met by the coaching experience. This requires a very clear outline of expectations to be created at the onset of the coaching engagement from all the stakeholders including from the coach themselves. Expectations can vary from mindset, commercial or relationship factors to name a few. When a coach has met these expectations, the stakeholders tend to naturally feel and reconcile with a successful engagement.

Whatever your process is to measure progress, I recommend measuring it along the way. Take a few minutes every other session to ask : 1) is this working for you? 2) are we makkng enough progress? 3) anything you want to change or reprioritize?

The benefit of using an executive coaching platform is that the coachee is asked to select 3 main development domains for the coaching. At kick off, a tripartite meeting, between the executive coach, the coachee and the sponsor ensure the coaching program is aligned with the coachee the individual domains. Progress is measured by the coach and the coachee on a chart, allowing to personalize coaching sessions or nudge with tools (videos, reading, games) if necessary. The coachee is encouraged by seeing their progress which is celebrated with/by the coach. I assume that the sponsor on their end can analyse the targeted domains chosen by most coachees anonymously and draw up some conclusions on people development and the value of coaching.

In my experience, measuring the impact of executive coaching poses several unique challenges, often stemming from the complexity and variability of coaching goals, the subjective nature of personal development, and the difficulty in quantifying changes in leadership behavior. That said, here is one approach that works to combat these obstacles: Multi-source Feedback: Implementing 360-degree feedback before and after the coaching process allows for a comprehensive evaluation of the executive's improvement from the perspectives of peers, subordinates, and superiors. This method can help quantify changes in specific behaviors and leadership effectiveness.

To ensure that each coaching program is being measured and met KPIs, I would ensure that the sponsor(s) is clearly established from the start. And I would take time to establish the coaching goals and objectives with the sponsor(s) after several in-depth discussion. This is vital as the coaching goals form the compass of the entire program, and how the coaching sessions would progress. I would also ensure that the goals include both quantitative and qualitative components. Many a times, I would ask the sponsor(s) to describe when coaching goals are met, what would the scenerio looks like for the coachee, the team, department, and the organization. This is to ensure that the sponsor is toroughly clear of the goals and objectives.

There is a catch-22 if you are an entrepreneur coach. You can certify yourself into bankruptcy! I budget annually for 1 new assessment certification. Now learning groups, book, HBR articles -- these are easily accessible.

As a curious seeker of adventure, learning and opportunity, I found myself in a pattern of focusing more on the work of other coaches. Recently through my work on GSAEC, I became more committed to reviewing, reflecting and applying research in coaching to increase my knowledge. Critical thinking is becoming a lost art and I cannot think of a better way to challenge myself than to study coaching.

In addition to the obvious path of courses and accreditation programs which can support our learning as coaches, I also invest in the '1/3 rule' when it comes to personal growth and development. This dictates that 1/3 of our developmental time should be spent with those who have lower competence than us so that we can teach and reinforce our own learnings. The next 1/3 of our time should be with our peers, sharing experiences, challenges and opportunities. The final 1/3 of our development time with those who we consider are mentors or 'better / more competent' than us so that we can learn from them and help us expedite our growth.

To be a coach is to be a role model for your clients. At the heart of coaching is a modality to support individual discovery. So we coaches serve well to model ongoing learning. As we go on this quest, navigating the unknown, we do so by running one experiment at a time. What's the current experiment?

Se développer continuellement est la moindre des choses pour un coach, il se doit de le faire pour accompagner au mieux ses clients. Un coach doit être congruent. Si le coach transmets des valeurs de développement de soi, de libération du potentiel, de déblocage émotionnel à ses clients, comment pourrait-il lui-même ne pas s’appliquer ces propres lignes directrices? Ce serait un non-sens. La formation continue du coach est un principe fondamental, une règle de déontologie. La supervision du coach est également primordiale pour s’assurer qu’il sécurise son client durant sa pratique. Un suivi thérapeutique du coach est aussi un gage de son sérieux. Le coach accompagne son client par sa présence et son écoute active, non pas par ses problèmes

If the client hasn't had a coach before and the coaching has been provided by the company along with free fruit and the dental plan, it can take the client a little while to realise just how much of an opportunity they have! I always allow a couple of sessions at the start for this realisation to happen before we do any deep work...

Sourcing a credible coach. There are many people claiming to be 'coaches' that haven't done any formal training and don't have any formal qualifications. Likewise there are coaches who have completed coach training programs, who for one reason or another, can't deliver the goods.

Successful 1:1 coaching engagements are a collaboration between the coach and client. One challenge is the intention and willingness of the new client. Even the most successful coach will struggle with a client who 1) is not sure what they want out of the coaching 2) is not intentional or willing in their actions. A great executive coach will “Design an Alliance” with the client. This is their agreement as to how both of them will show up for the work and how they will hold each other accountable. It is fluid and creates the container for great work to occur.

We need to remember and honor that the coach / client relationship is 2-way. Thus, make sure in your discovery sessions you are deciding if the client is a good fit for you. The call is NOT simply for the client to decide if they want to work with you.