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Who
needs a personal coach?
Maybe
you do--whether you know it or
not?
New job. New employer. And new headaches when staffers
resist your new approaches. How can you champion enough
change to justify your hiring -- without rocking the boat so
much that you endanger your career prospects?
Leaders
in new positions often fail
for a few common
reasons: due to unclear or outsized expectations, a failure
to build partnerships with key stakeholders, a failure to
learn the company, industry or the job itself fast enough, a
failure to determine the process for gaining commitments
from direct reports and a failure to recognize and manage
the impact of change on people.
Onboarding
coaching of the
newly recruited or promoted executive can turnaround this
high rate of failure.
FORTUNE magazine reports
that one reader said, "I went into the coaching experience
kicking and screaming, at the insistence of my then-boss.
And what an eye-opener it turned out to be. I won't even go
into the grim details of bad management habits I had
unthinkingly developed in my 14-year career up to that
point--but I will say that since I was 'cured' by 12 weeks
of pretty intense coaching, I've been promoted three
times."
What
makes a good executive coach?
High-Level
Business Experience
For the relationship to
work, Coach John
Agno believes the
executive and the
coach must be
peers. To be able to provide appropriate guidance, the coach
should have not only worked in the corporate world, but also
have held senior line positions.
Interpersonal
Competencies
The coach must be adept at handling all sorts of complex,
touchy interpersonal dynamics, at sizing up a situation
quickly and dealing with a wide range of personalities.
Good
listening skills
are critical.
Integrity
Executive coaching often involves discussing not only
sensitive personal issues, but also high-level, strategic
and confidential information. Honesty and the ability not to
betray a confidence are essential.
Political
Savvy
To be effective, executives must be able to navigate the
tricky political waters of their organization. A competent
coach needs to be up to helping him or her do that.
Flexibility
and Creativity
You
never quite know what's going
to happen when
lots of egos, ambitions and agendas collide. And that calls
for the ability to turn on a dime, to come up with new
solutions when necessary---or---to be able to discard ideas
when they seem ineffective. At the same time, the coach
should be comfortable with ambiguity, fast change and lots
of uncertainty.
Tough
Love
Ultimately, coaching
is all about achieving real, bottom-line
results. The coach
needs to be able to confront tough issues, hold people
accountable and demand tangible outcomes.
Comfort
at the Top
Unless the coach can relate to upper management--and
understands the expectations of boards and shareholders--he
or she won't be able to grasp the subtleties of each
coaching situation.
Organizational
Insight
The
goal of executive coaching
is to strengthen a person's performance as it relates to
both individual and corporate
objectives.
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