"When to Call in an Executive Coach"

By Susan Battley, PsyD, PhD

May 2007 Issue

Excerpt

When the Society for Biomolecular Sciences was experiencing a growth spurt, Executive Director Christine Giordano, CAE, felt a need to change the way she did things to best serve the changing organization. As president and CEO of the International Sign Association, Lori Anderson, CAE, wanted intensive professional development for some of her staff as well as herself. And after Philip Zimbardo became the annually elected president of the American Psychological Association, he wondered what could help him quickly hone the new skills the role demanded.

Champion athletes and performing artists aren’t the only ones who seek coaching these days. Executive coaching has been important to business and public leaders such as eBay’s Meg Whitman, Dell Computer founder Michael Dell, and former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill. Association executives, too, are learning what Tiger Woods has observed: “No matter how good you get, you can always get better.”

I define executive coaching this way: It is a one-on-one partnership between a management-level client—you, for example—and a qualified performance-improvement expert for the express purpose of making you better faster. Also known as leadership or business coaching, it takes a practical, results-oriented approach to job performance and career advancement.

Although executive coaching has been available for more than a decade, many professionals are still uncertain about who uses such services and why. They ask questions such as, “Isn’t coaching just the latest management fad?” and “Why would a successful person work with a coach?”

The answer lies in the increased pressure today’s executives feel to continuously improve. Whether you’re a leader already or aspiring to be one, you need to be nimble, adaptable, and able to balance change with continuity. These change-management capabilities involve technical know-how, to be sure. But they also require well-developed interpersonal skills for dealing with members, board leaders, employees, and the public at large. In fact, research reported by the Consortium for Research in Emotional Intelligence in Organizations shows that as you advance to senior leadership positions, nontechnical skills such as communication, influencing, team building, and conflict resolution become more critical to your success than subject-matter or business knowledge. 

 The research literature on 360-degree feedback reviews shows that as your span of authority grows, the harder you may find it to get timely, unfiltered information about your performance.  A study by Hudson Talent Management in 2006 found that 92 percent of managers surveyed rated their performance highly, but only 67 percent of those they supervised agreed.

 Coaching’s popularity has grown in part because it can be adapted to the needs of time-pressed executives. Decision makers prefer on-demand assistance that does not involve lengthy absences from the office. [ read entire article.]