Getting the Most Out of Executive Coaching

Posted on December 09, 2022 by Jamey Gadoury, One of Thousands of Team Coaches on Noomii.

One reward of coaching is when a client leans in – hard – to their own development. The resultant growth is a joy to see.

I remember one client asking “how do other leaders use this time?” She took the answer and ran with it. And is still growing in leaps and bounds as a leader.

I’ve observed a lot of variety in coaching. I’ve had a couple clients where we deliberately scheduled 90 minute sessions, with longer intervals in between. We needed the time to “chew through” the steak of problem solving and insight. Other times, 30 minutes of checking in and moving forward is perfect.

There’s an even wider range in how we use the time, and I think everyone with a coach can benefit from seeing, “how do other leaders use this time?” Here’s some further thoughts:

What is coaching, anyway?
Executive coaching provides a mentoring relationship where the coach’s goal is to help YOU grow. It’s having someone in your corner who will think through problems with you, ask questions, and encourage you toward growth. This can be done in a variety of ways, and the coach can wear a lot of hats, so to speak.

Your coach may serve as:
- Mentor
- Sounding board
- Partner in problem-solving
- Resource for strategies that have helped others in similar situations – Asker-of-questions
- Accountability
- Neutral recipient of “venting”
- Push-back, as an honest broker
- Follow-up on your specific growth areas

What can you talk to your coach about?
Anything that falls under the very broad umbrella of leadership. This could be personal development, goals as a leader, challenges with your team, career aspirations, and so on. It can even include excursions into personal challenges – we are, after all, the same human when we walk through the doors of home or office. Here are some ways that other leaders have leveraged coaching:

Goals: Here we mean your developmental goals as a leader, rather than performance objectives that you are evaluated on. Your coach can help you generate those goals, define success, and plan how to achieve them.

Personality Assessments: Often our coaching relationships begin with debriefing a personality assessment, like the Hogan Assessments. This provides a common language to talk about you, your wiring, and potential strengths and weaknesses. It also provides a foundation for you to better understand other people and ways to interact with them. After the initialHogan coaching, here’s some ways to continue growth:
-Review Hogan terms and scales, both those that jumped out at you
and those you have questions about. This will help solidify the framework and open up additional opportunities for application.
-Discuss specific areas where there may be challenges / opportunities with colleagues who are wired differently
-Review stress responses and how to better moderate

Real-time Problem Solving: Some leaders bring specific challenges they are facing in the moment, related to self, others, the work, or processes. Your coach can ask questions and strategize with you how to find solutions.

Time Management: Finding techniques that work for you, to help you manage your time, rather than the work.

Drive Growth: If there are specific activities you’ve done with your team (like a deliberate feedback exchange), your coach can push you to follow up on those, and talk about best ways to do that.

Metrics: You and your coach can agree on specific areas of leadership that you want to track and improve in. For instance, we’ve used the following areas to track growth with some leaders, Demonstrated EQ, Communication, Radical Ownership, and Committed Thinking Time.

Focused Growth: Some leaders have a specific area that they want to work on for a period of time, like public speaking, speaking up in difficult conversations, or giving feedback to a peer or leader.

Helping Other Leaders Develop: Your coach can explore ways to inspire growth in your direct reports.

Honoring and Leveraging Your Personality: Some leaders have personality traits that they’ve received negative feedback on, such as being spontaneous, disorganized, and distractible. While there are ways to improve on downsides, upsides are often un-explored. Your coach can help you create a calendar, systems, and mindset that shore up weaknesses while honoring – and leveraging- aspects that are part of your wiring.

Self-Care: This is critical for leaders to master and is widely neglected. Your coach can help you pay attention to your own self-care and help others do the same.
The more you own your sessions and prepare for them, the more benefit they will provide for you.

© 2022, Outsider Consulting, LLC
(Re-posted by permission)