Believe in yourself, exceed expectations, and reward the trust of others

Are you offered an executive coaching program to hone your managerial and leadership skills? Congratulations, you have a rare opportunity on your hands! Not only is your company investing in your growth, but they also plan to retain you for the long haul, reaping the benefits of your development. You can use this chance to enhance your expertise and secure your future with the organisation.

Believe it or not, a salary increase doesn't always mean your company values you as a professional. Sometimes, it's just a way to avoid tension. However, investing in your professional growth shows that your company believes in your future. When you leave, your salary stays behind, but the skills and knowledge you gain will accompany you, making you an even more valuable asset to any organisation. Following an executive coaching path requires certain behaviours to ensure your coaching journey is productive and mutually beneficial for you and your company.

Come to the sessions prepared.

1. Before each session, you can repeat your goals to yourself (perhaps in writing) and put them in the order you think most relevant to your aspirations.

2. Write down what you want to acquire: a 'knowledge'? A skill?

3. List your concerns, whether they relate to your skills, working environment, colleagues, bosses, co-workers, etc.

4. What do you want the topic of the session to be? Decide and write it down.

Typically, growth objectives are set at the beginning of the process, so the session's topic is, to some extent, already defined. But you can best focus the session's direction by choosing the most relevant topics to achieve results.

Be extremely clear about your goals.

Many coaches open the session by asking what you want to discuss and your goal for that meeting. If you have a topic close to your heart, this is an excellent opportunity to move the session in your preferred direction. The point is that you have to be as precise and comprehensive as possible in defining your objective. It is about more than clarity. You must be precise and circumscribed. A goal can be defined in terms of extent and terms of depth. Work in both directions, and you will find that the coach will also be much more effective in supporting you.

Leave your office outside.

The work you are doing or finishing, the meeting you have just finished or will have after the session, the on-site or off-site appointment you have to go to, in short, everything unrelated to your coaching session must remain strictly outside. Your laptop must not come in, and your mobile phone must remain switched off. Your attention must be totally on yourself. You are working to improve yourself, to grow and develop new skills and competencies. If you tried not to repeat this sentence like a chant, you would realise what an extraordinary undertaking you have undertaken and how it inevitably absorbs a large part of your physical and mental energy. So, no distractions. You must be 100 per cent on yourself.

Be open and ready to be surprised by new ideas.

Executive coaching is a challenge to your usual way of thinking. It is a process that challenges your mental paradigms and pushes you to explore new conceptions about yourself and the environment in which you operate. It is your path and, therefore, your challenge to yourself. New ideas and perspectives will present themselves and may be antithetical to the established ones with which you have been familiar for years. Do not be prejudiced, and do not put up childish resistance to your growth. Be positively disposed towards all the ideas that will flow into your mind and courageously enter into yourself. The coach will only be the inspirer of a method; you will be the protagonist and author of everything you manage to conceive anew.

These are just four simple tips, but I assure you that if you follow them, you will be amazed by the results. If someone invests in you, don't be so clueless as not to take advantage of it.