What A Business Leader Needs in an Executive Coach
Over the last twenty years, hiring coaches from the ranks of impressive, well-known celebrities has become popular. These “celebrity coaches” usually come from the glamorous world of professional sports or a coach with an impressive resume who charges $185K/year/client (yes, they exist).
What is needed by the typical business leader is a coach who has training and experience in multiple disciplines to offer a more rounded experience than a celebrity executive coach can offer. Because we are all complex individuals living in multiple emotional systems, a coach needs to be able to work holistically across more knowledge and skill domains than just management or business processes.
Business leaders need a coach who can competently “read the signs” of mental health issues and personality deficits. They need a coach who can connect the past with the present to create a path into the future. They need a coach who understands how all the moving parts—family dynamics, marital issues, business culture problems, leadership undercurrents, financial matters, and the client’s faith—work together to form the persona of the leader receiving coaching. Much like a baby’s mobile hanging over a crib, everything moves when one part is touched. Leaders need a coach who understands those moving parts and their relationship.
Such a coach is not dazzling, glitzy, or impressive. Often, these coaches are experienced, warm, and inviting. But they are also direct, no-nonsense, and unimpressed with shallow displays of grandiosity or success. They are competent and experienced.
In his Harvard Business Review article, The Very Real Dangers of Executive Coaching (June 2002), Steven Berglas noted that sometimes, a coach can shield and enhance the client’s dysfunction, which further erodes the client’s performance, rather than confronting and assisting the client in making substantive changes:
The issue is threefold. First, many executive coaches, especially those who draw their inspiration from sports, sell themselves as purveyors of simple answers and quick results. Second, even coaches who accept that an executive’s problems may require time to address still tend to rely solely on behavioral solutions. Finally, executive coaches unschooled in the dynamics of psychotherapy often exploit the powerful hold they develop over their clients. Sadly, misguided coaching ignores—and even creates—deep-rooted psychological problems that often only psychotherapy can fix.
Beware of coaches who offer quick or easy answers. Beware of coaches who define success as learning insights. Stay away from coaches who avoid introspection. Get someone who will push you to be better than you are today.
A true Executive Coach may make you feel uncomfortable but will not harm you. They may humble you but will not humiliate you. You may feel convicted, but you will not feel condemned. You may feel shame when confronted, but not degraded. You will experience pain, but good coaching will restore and build you up. A good coach is both a discipliner and a healer.
If you are a business leader in need of holistic coaching, then look for someone who understands psychology, business, and faith. Look for someone who can traffic in all three areas equally well. While you will be challenged, you will also experience the greatest opportunities to make fundamental changes that will cement your chances to be highly successful for the rest of your life.