What is Executive coaching?

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.

Coaching differs from consultancy and mentoring in that it doesn’t involve providing advice or direction. Instead it enables and empowers clients to make their own decisions and discover their own learnings. 

At its heart, coaching is based on the fundamental belief that people are inherently resourceful and best equipped to make the decisions that affect them - as well as being more likely to follow through a course of action if they have decided on it themselves. 

The role of the executive coach is to create the conditions for this to happen. 

Our aim when coaching people is to create an environment in which your best thinking can happen and support you in being aware of the issues you face and the choices you can make. This is done by asking questions, challenging assumptions, providing information and models and guiding you through exercises which enable different perspectives to be explored. 

And of course challenging you to commit to a course of action to realise your goals. 

Who is coaching suitable for? 

Clients of executive coaching can be at various levels of seniority and from any profession or specialism. 

Here are the qualities or mindset a coachee brings which help create the best conditions for coaching:

• Desire to grow and develop 
• Willingness to consider new ideas 
• Willingness to try out new things 
• Appetite for self-reflection and examining your values, motivations and beliefs 
• Ability to have honest conversations 
• Commitment to identify clear goals

Some other definitions of executive coaching

Many academics and thought leaders have created their own definitions of executive coaching. For example: 

"Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their own performance. It is helping them learn rather than teaching them" (Whitmore, J, 2004)

“Coaching is the facilitation of learning and development with the purpose of improving performance and enhancing effective action, goal achievement and personal satisfaction. It invariably involves growth and change, whether that is in perspective, attitude or behaviour. (Bluckert, 2006) 

“Executive coaching is a collaborative, individualised relationship between an executive and a coach, the aims of which are to bring about sustained behavioural change and to transform the quality of the executives working and personal life” (Zeus and Skiffington 2000)

Some of the key elements of how we coach using the Whole Individual Coaching method are: 

• We work in partnership with you
• You are supported in focusing on goals to help improve your life and career
• You are encouraged to learn and develop in your own way, not be told how to move forward
• You are supported in examining yourself and your situations from different perspectives to get a richer view of what is going on.
• You explore how to strengthen the links between your success, health, resilience and wellbeing

Find out about how we coach the 'whole individual' or support team development. 

Discover more about the coaching process.