According to the International Coaching Federation (www.coachfederation.org) coaching is an ongoing partnership designed to help clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. A coach helps improve the work performance and enhance the quality of life by using a process of inquiry and personal discovery to build the client’s level of awareness and responsibility, as well as provides the client with structure, support, and effective feedback. Thus, coaching is a process of discovery, goal-setting and strategic action that leads to extraordinary results. This is achieved by helping the client establish what is important to them and by clarifying their values. With the client’s input the coach co-creates value based goals and a plan to achieve them. Through collaboration, the coach supports the client to achieve these goals.

Coaching is not psychotherapy or counseling. One of the most obvious differences is that therapy tends to focus on feelings and experiences related to past events, whereas coaching is oriented towards goal setting and encourages the client to move forward. A coach works with a functional person to get them to become exceptional. A coach works with people who are already emotionally healthy to move them to magnificent levels. Coaching does not rely on past issues for achieving growth, but rather focuses on goals towards the future. Coaching is action oriented. The focus is on where the client is right now, where they want to be next, and how to get them there.

Therefore, executive coaching is an experiential and individualized leader development process that builds a manager’s capability to achieve short- and long-term organizational goals. It is conducted through one-on-one interactions, driven by data from multiple perspectives, and based on mutual trust and respect.