Do you want to be a great executive coach?
Why do executives ask you to be their coach? Each executive has individual issues which they want to tackle, but in the end all of their questions boil down to communication. In the framework of their leadership development, executives want to be better at convincing people, provide more room for discussion without losing control, strengthen relationships with team members or colleagues, improve collaboration within their team, learn to steer their team better or acquire a better position in the board. Executives have a keen eye for developments and they transform their observations into a vision and strategy. They have always been very successful. When executives ask you to be their coach, they consider themselves a limiting factor in their path to more success. Executives come to you because you are an expert in soft skills and leadership development. With your expertise in soft skills you will be an example to them.
Team coaching
Coaches are good in soft skills, especially in 1:1 relations. Executives on the other hand operate much more in a team environment. They manage several permanent and temporary teams at the same time and are a member of the board. For their own accomplishments they depend on the results their teams can deliver, while they are hardly trained in teamwork.
In the professional development for coaches too little attention is paid to team development. Emphasis is mainly on individual development. To help clients, an executive coach should also be a team expert. Executive and team coaching would be a nice combination. This way the coach will also experience the team’s dynamics and how it can be dealt with. I know this is not done in practice, but if you don’t have team coaching experience, you must at least know the patterns in teams and the best practices. Elaborate models and theories are not important. An executive needs tangible tips: ‘What do I do with a team that is not working well together?’ or ‘How do I reconcile different opinions in a team?’, ‘What do I do with a group which is trying to undermine the team?’ or ‘How do I strengthen my position in de board?’
Executives have the right to have a coach with expertise in teamwork and team skills, because this is the basis for each executive’s success.
