You’re considering executive coaching. What are the most common misconceptions?

Misconception Number One: “I am so senior and experienced that I don’t need coaching”. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. The more senior, the more lonely the role. The more lonely the role the less feedback, partnership, perspective, support you get. The less of all of that and you make decisions in a vacuum, become out of touch with your teams and begin to lead via perception versus perspective. No professional sports person goes without their coach. Why should you?!

One of the popular misconceptions is Executive Coaching is Only for Underperformers: This myth suggests that coaching is a last resort for struggling executives. In reality, it’s often used to develop high-potential leaders and maximize their performance.

Its commonly thought that you need to be successful or in a very senior role to experience executive coaching. I also held that idea for a good part of my coaching practice. This is because the history of coaching unlike therapy was withheld for athletes, celebrities, politician, the top in their professions. However, now coaching is available for everyone and the biggest shift Ive seen in coaching in the last couple years is a raise in the consciousness of people in the workplace. There is far more questioning around work being aligned to personal values. This means that as long as there is an openness to grow and change that coaching can be effective for a much wider group.

Another misconception about executive coaching is that it's a 'fixing' tool rather than an aide to professional growth and leadership development. It's for that unfortunate reason that coaching can meet resistance due to a misunderstanding of the reason for it being recommended, and a missed opportunity to gain from the potential benefits it can bring to all individuals.

TIP - Recognize the transformative value of coaching. Coaching's real worth is in its capacity to catalyze profound personal and professional transformations, far outweighing its initial cost. A recent experience with an executive underscores this: a personal belief was hindering his decision-making. Coaching led to a pivotal 'risky' decision, which, contrary to his fears, was met with support and clarity from his team, saving the company €50,000 on a single project. And this is just the beginning. This example highlights how significant shifts in perspective and decision-making, leads to clear ROI. It’s just one example that the benefits of coaching extend beyond personal growth to tangible, impactful organizational savings and success.

While some may perceive coaching as costly, its value far outweighs the investment. Take my client, a startup CEO juggling numerous responsibilities. Through coaching, he streamlined his decision-making process, leading to rapid growth and ultimately saving both time and money.

Si lo ves por el monto a pagar, sin duda vas a pensar qie es muy caro, pero si lo ves desde la perspectiva de todos los problemas que te va a ayudar a erradicar, y el tiempo que te va a llevar resolver esos problemas, entonces el dinero pasa a segundo plano. Y al menos mi modelo solo dura 8 sesiones quincenales. En cuatro meses van a resolver años de errores!!! Big deal!

Coaching should be fluent and adjusted to your needs. Rather than sticking to a rigid X sessions/week of Y minutes schedule, find something that works for you. Perhaps you need short calls? Texting often? Doing some async work with documents? Each person I've worked with was different. However, you do get what you put into it, so while it doesn't have to be time consuming, if you want to see faster results you probably should prioritize it.

En effet il faut voir un coaching comme un investissement, vous êtes votre principal outil de travail ! Vous êtes le moteur de vos stratégies et de vos pilotages .. Une petite révision et une mise à niveau est souvent gage de performance :)

Mentoring is about sharing experiences from the mentor to the mentee and where the mentee is asking most of the questions. The goal is to advance knowledge by gaining it from someone more experienced than you in the field. Coaching on the other hand is all about the coachee realising they have all the answers. The coach is the one asking most of the questions to unlock awareness, choice and responsibilities of the coachee. The coach and coachee co-create the goals through questions and reflections.

Mentoring teaches you how to fish.🎣 Therapy explores why you don't want to fish.🥫 Coaching challenges your self-limiting belief that you're not good at fishing and empowers you to pick up your net and fish.🐠

Essa dúvida é muito presente nas pessoas que chegam ao coaching pela primeira vez. Uma boa forma de explicar é a seguinte: Trace uma linha no dia de hoje na sua vida, desta linha olhando pra trás vai ser algo ligado a terapia. Desta linha olhando pra frente já estamos falando de coaching. Outro ponto interessante é a diferença entre o coaching e a mentoria. No processo de coaching temos ferramentas e fazemos sempre perguntas para encontrar as respostas dentro do coachee. Já na mentoria, o mentor já passou por aquele caminho e sabe instruir seu mentorado sobre a melhor forma de seguir o mesmo caminho.

Unlike therapy, coaching focuses on future-oriented goals and actionable strategies. I recall a client who, while successful in his role, lacked a clear vision for his team. Through coaching, he shifted from dwelling on past challenges to developing proactive leadership techniques.

At its' core, Coaching is not therapy, counseling, teaching, mentoring, consulting or helping. A Coach is your thinking partner. Coaching is about reflecting back and asking provocative questions designed to generate self-awareness and growth. It's goal is to challenge you while holding no agenda on how your growth manifests. Similarly executive coaching objectives must be led by the coachee and not by a third party. Goals and objectives may co-created with outside parties, however the intention for each session and coaching as a whole is designed by the coachee. When executive coaching involves teaching & instructing, it lands more in the consultancy arena. A clear delineation of these two is essential.

The foundation of coaching is built on exploring and discovering the uniqueness of each individual. It is about celebrating their strengths and identifying weaknesses and strategies for improvement. Standardized coaching programs MUST be continually augmented through exploration of the individual to reestablish their baseline and coaching goals.

A great value as a coach is the experience that is accumulated but at the same time this can lead you to the very common mistake of thinking that the coaching process can be applied in the same way for everyone, the first thing we have to do is develop an Empathize with each person involved to understand their different context, advantages and limitations before starting.

Each leader has unique strengths and areas for growth. For instance, one executive I coached thrived on innovation but struggled with delegation. Tailoring our approach to her specific needs allowed her to leverage her creativity while empowering her team to excel.

Addressing the misconception that executive coaching is one-size-fits-all, it's crucial to understand that effective coaching is deeply personalized. Leveraging tools like the Enneagram, coaches tailor their approach to align with your unique personality, goals, and challenges. This customization ensures that strategies and insights are relevant and impactful, fostering growth in a way that respects your individual journey. Coaching adapts as you evolve, making it a dynamic partnership focused on your specific development path.

Executive coaching isn't a one size fits all thing, as every leader has their own area if challenge. With executive coaching, the coach is able to identify the specific areas the leader/executive needs coaching, that could hinder performance. This could range from leadership development, work life balance, managing change effectively etc. This would then determine the approach to be used by the coach to help the leader

Effective coaching requires dedication and commitment over time. One client, eager for rapid results, initially balked at the process's gradual nature. However, as we delved deeper, he realized sustained improvement required patience and perseverance, yielding long-term success.

Sometimes I find it helpful during an initial chemistry call, prior to defining coaching, is to ask the client what they believe coaching is and to list some things that coaching is not. This is a great way to expose assumptions and misleading expectations. It is important for the client to understand, prior to the first coaching session, that the solutions will come from within themselves and that, as a journey of personal transformation, those solutions take time to form and rise to the surface.

Executive coaching is not a quick fix at all. It is a continuous learning process both for the coach and the coachee. A leader who is bad at building great teams can't become good at it at just some coaching programs...it is a continuous process

A common misconception is that the coach is driving the client or providing advice. A good coach is asking powerful questions to evoke awareness, opening up the answers that are within the client to help the client achieve the goals they have set for themselves.

Todo processo de Coaching busca uma melhora, um desenvolvimento. Assim, o coachee precisa querer mudar. Infelizmente, algumas pessoas buscam os processos de Coaching apenas para reafirmar crenças já existentes e práticas que dominam (mas não são eficientes). A abertura para olhar para dentro si, reconhecer as oportunidades de melhorar e começar a agir sobre elas é fundamental para ter um processo com bons resultados.

Coaching and Mentoring are the same and I as a client/coachee will get all the answers to my issues and solution for my problems from the coach.

Before diving into executive coaching, dispelling common myths and misconceptions that might cloud your decision-making process is essential. Executive coaching is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It is tailored to the individual's needs, goals, and challenges. What works for one leader may not work for another, highlighting the importance of personalized coaching. While executive coaching can yield significant benefits, it is not a quick fix or a magic solution. It requires commitment, effort, and time to see tangible results. By dispelling misconceptions and understanding the tailored nature of executive coaching, individuals can make informed decisions about whether it is the right path for their professional development.

Top 2 Coaching Misconceptions: 1) Misconception: coaching and counselling are basically the same thing. Reality: if you have a great coach these two things couldn’t be farther apart. Coaching has very little editorial so that you can clear the noise and cray your own successful developmental contract with yourself. 2) Misconception: I am so senior I don’t need a coach. Reality: in fact, the more senior you are the more lonely you are as a leader. You can’t confide in the teams below you; you can’t confide in the board above you; you can’t confide in a fellow CEO as you’re the only one. You have the most important leadership role in the company and no one with whom to brainstorm. You need an executive coach.

Misconception: Executive coaching is a standardized, immediate solution for organizational challenges. Executive coaching is a partnership, tailored to unlock your unique potential, not a one-size-fits-all solution. It's about strategic growth over time, rather than an instant solution, engaging not just leaders but anyone committed to personal and professional development. It transcends mere cost, offering invaluable insights and transformations, proving that its true value lies in the empowerment and evolution it brings to individuals and teams alike.

One common misconception about executive coaching is that clients expect the coach to have all the answers. But coaching isn't about providing solutions like consulting or advising. It's a collaborative process where the coach helps clients uncover their own insights and answers. Clients usually have the answers within them, and a good coach knows how to draw them out.

One big misconception about Executive Coaching is that the Coach will solve things for you. Just like you don't achieve your fitness goal by just hiring a Fitness Coach, an Executive Coach will not give you a solution but help you design an action plan , help you stay accountable and help you reach the goal.

Misconception: The ROI will be immediately discoverable. Organizations are often motivated to invest in their leaders for productivity and profits. However coaching is an investment in individual transformation. Executive coaching changes levels of self-awareness, heightening the individual's understanding of themselves and their impact in the world. This causes behavior changes that may seem small at first, but hold a cumulative effect. It's a snowball that continues to grow and grow, creating continuous impact and influence in all aspects of life. Invest in coaching for all of your leaders, and wait. Watch for cultural or organizational shifts, collaboration and markers of retention. That's when you should measure ROI.

- That you will receive advice (mentoring). Coaching supports you to reach those conclusions and decisions by yourself. - That the coach and client should have similar work experience. Not necessary. Similar experience could prevent an objective coaching experience. - That you should get a coach only when times “are hard”. Wouldn’t it be better if we were equipped beforehand for “hard times”? - The meaning of tangible steps or actions coming out of the sessions. More often than not, the needed actions relate to the client working on themselves: thinking, reflecting, pausing, breaking habits, thought patterns, observing emotional triggers, etc. or simple, mundane activities. These tend to be the hardest to take, but the most impactful!