Executive Coaching for High Potential Leaders: Finding the Right Executive Coach

Executive Coaching for High Potential Leaders

Are you working in a company or law firm where leaders appreciate the importance of leadership development and coaching? How do leaders in your company or law firm improve their leadership skills?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask is “Does our company culture encourage leaders to fully develop their leadership capability?” Emotionally intelligent and socially intelligent leaders are intrinsically motivated to improve their leadership skills.

Finding the Right Executive Coach

Whether coaching services are used to explore deficits in competencies or to expand potential, there remains a challenge in finding and acquiring the right professionals to provide excellent coaching. As a newly emerging profession, there is a lack of standardization of practice. Practitioners come from fields as diverse as psychology, management consulting, training and human resources. Some have never had any coach training per se, but have adopted their own personal styles of coaching. Unfortunately, some have simply changed their professional titles and are doing consulting or counseling and calling it “executive coaching.”

Organizations seeking to employ executive coaches can turn to consulting firms or independent practitioners. There are advantages and disadvantages with both. Selecting coaches requires that an organization assess for skills, organizational fit and perspectives, a daunting task. Great coaches often come from very eclectic career paths. Two effective questions to ask in interviewing for coaches are:
1. What particular types of clients do you work with effectively?
2. What particular types of clients do you not work with effectively?

There are three essential competencies of the effective coach.They must be interpersonally skilled at coaching and influencing others. This requires an extreme self-awareness, excellent listening and observing skills, empathy, and ability to deliver feedback in a tough yet non-judgmental way. Secondly, they must be highly trustworthy. This becomes particularly important when navigating complex confidentiality boundaries. Thirdly, good coaches must have a sufficient understanding of business practices and organizational politics to help their clients decipher, understand, and address organizational complexities.

A provocative article in the Harvard Business Review (Berglas, 2002) laments the fact that too many executive coaches lack training in human psychology.Berglas asserts that some coaching professionals may come from the sports and motivational speaking fields with not enough competency in dealing with the complexities of personalities and behavior. In such cases, the coaching experience can actually be harmful. It could be compared to coaching someone to change seats on the Titanic. Unless the underlying problems are addressed, the ship is still sinking.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader who develops effective interpersonal relationships. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged and aligned with the vision and mission of your company or law firm.

I am currently accepting new executive coaching and career coaching clients. I work with both individuals and organizations. Call 415-546-1252 or send an inquiry e-mail to mbrusman@workingresources.com.