Why Executive Coaching Will Put You Ahead of the Pack

Copyright (c) 2010 Brad Sugars

If you are a successful executive, you may have been approached by your team or an outside consultancy about the possibility of being coached by an Executive Coach.

But why would you consider hiring a coach if you were already successful and delivering high performance results? Why would you hire a coach if you were already making lots of money and are moving towards an upward climb?

Or if you had a track record of success? Or if you had an important and prestigious title? Or if hundreds (or thousands) of people reported to you? Or if people have told you for most of your career that you are doing a great job? Or if your employees counted on you to set direction for them?

You probably don't think you need any help if you could answer "yes" to the above questions. In fact, nine out of ten executives say "No, thank you" to executive coaching, and the tenth will generally say they don't need executive coaching, but many of their direct reports do.

Despite the above, many executives have coaches, and report that their coaching experience is extremely valuable, even one of the most valuable experiences of their career.

Therefore, it is important to understand your own perspective and situation and why it would benefit you to hire a coach to improve and accelerate your own level of performance. Basically, there are two bottom line reasons why executives seek out and are willing to have a coach, and be coached to greater success:

1. The coach helps you get significant results, solve a pressing challenge, and/or take advantage of a major opportunity. 2. The coach is credible, engaging, and has the depth of knowledge and experience to become a trusted advisor.

In other words, executives hire a coach because an effective Executive Coach can help you solve the challenges you face every day, and ultimately because you want to - and are willing - to work with a coach.

Because you are already a highly-effective leader in a position with significant responsibility, being able to leverage areas of constraint or need in a short and measurable period of time is critical for coaching success.

That's why coaching has become a trusted process for leveraging performance: processes and standards are set and benchmarks and agreed upon metrics must be met, or else you and the coach see the process as a failure.


------

For more information on this article, please visit http://exec.actioncoach.com/pdfs/7_reasons.pdf OR for general information and news on Executive Coaching, visit http://exec.actioncoach.com