How do you overcome the challenges of coaching executives?

Establishing trust and rapport with executive coaching clients takes time. Over time a coach is able to demonstrate their worth to the client. But in order to have that time, the client must first take a leap of faith. That leap of faith has more to do with the client’s belief in themselves, rather than in the efficacy of coaching or the coach in question. Coaching is a two way street.

The question seems to suggest that executive would be more sensitive to receiving feedback, less inclined to share difficulties or less trusting than others. I do not think this generalisation to be fair to any executive. I help executives daily who are as sensitive, humble, and vulnerable as everyone. Often, it is thanks to these very qualities that they are where they are ! The need for confidentiality is heightened when they have a public role, and when information about them could lead to damaging inferences about their ability to discharge their duties or even market moves. But I shall not write that any human is more deserving of confidentiality, empathy or respect than any other or base my coaching practice on this.

Executives are people with less time to spend on any one goal or outcome. As such the value that an executive coach brings is in helping executives define their priorities. And while they have multiple stakeholders, the better defined their goals are the more focused their work can be. But because you can’t define outcomes with accuracy, executive coaches help by defining behavior that will produce the greatest bang for the buck. A good coach is there to increase an executive’s performance, rather than create yet another imaginary carrot.

"Executive" is not a species. It's a role. And like any other person, they deserve a coach that understands what they do, what type of challenges they face, and able to work at their level of complexity. Further than that, what statement written in this question would not be applicable to any person or client ? I think every client is unique, has multiple stakeholders, has particular goals. No client is ever generic. Executives, just like every one also need some space for vague ideas, for their own indecision and uncertainty. My endeavour is to meet people, not functions.

Coaches must adapt to the working style and schedules of the executive clients, within reason. Coaching is a two way street and coaches must maintain their own professional boundaries and standards or they will not be taken seriously by executives. Executives respect people who respect themselves. So part of coaching is to provide structure. Just like children, executives don’t always understand why they don’t get along with other people. So part of a coach’s job is to model respectful behavior.

A coach’s primary role is to support the continued grown of an executive. A coach does this by asking insightful questions so that the executive can see their current situation from a different perspective. Executives often develop tunnel vision, so a good coach can open up their perspective by asking them to look at the assumptions they are making from a fresh perspective. This isn’t challenging an executive, it’s skillfully coaching an executive.

A modern coach understands that an executive’s perspective, behavior and orientation in the present moment effects any progress they may make. While a skillful coach may not state this outright, they will use an executive’s point of view as a fulcrum in which the conversation pivots. Again the focus cannot be on the outcome because the outcome represents 1/100 of the work that goes into creating the outcome.

Executives are human, so their professional lives cannot be separated from their personal lives. While the emphasis of the relationship is professional if an executive is going through a personal tragedy it would be unskillful for a coach to not take an executive’s concerns and considerations into account. The personal lives of an executive can function as a ceiling to their potential. As such a skillful coach will have a 360 degree understanding of the executive as a living, breathing human being.

I like the introductory statement that working with executives means dealing with power dynamics. These are very active at COMEX level, and as the financial and power stakes increase, so does, oftentimes, the level of inter-personal violence. As a coach, what working in this space strongly stimutates in me is first and foremost the ability to co-construct and hold a safe-space framework. Executives are used to define and hold their own setup, rightly so... But a management setup and a coaching setup are not the same. Second it sometimes tests my ability to detect and work with verbal or psychological violence. And third, it always requires affection. Because in the end, "executive" is not what defines them. Human is.