Weblog
Executive Coaching
Your personal coach and confidant.
I help individuals polish communication skills, address the challenges of becoming a leader and creating a high performing team, and to balance personal and professional goals.
I’ve worked with CxOs and high-potential individual contributors to achieve career enhancing goals using a combination of assessments to identify the starting point. Options are 360 feedback through assessments or interviews with associates, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the client’s self-assessment, interviews , and FIRO-B. Together we create a developmental plan and hold a series of coaching sessions to achieve those goals.
My preferred approach to coaching is ontological; engaging the client in an exploration of the observer they are. I invite clients to consider the way they use language, carry their body, and recognize and manage their emotions to create the results they desire. I weave in the missing leadership skills, processes, and tools to accomplish their goals.
Process:
Checking for a fit: Before either the client or the coach commit, they have a conversation to determine if the coaching relationship feels right. If so, they continue.
Assessment: Instruments (Myers-Briggs, Firo-B, 360s) and interviews with selected peers, managers, and staff provide a baseline for what’s probably working and what needs attention.
Development Plan: Based on the feedback, the client’s goals, the coach’s experience, and the blessing of the powers that be, we create a set of goals that can realistically be achieved within the timeframe of the coaching contract.
Active Coaching: Coaching begins with the first meeting while discussing feedback and creating a plan. After that coach and client meet on a regular basis to create strategies, build skills, and harvest insights that lead to more effective approaches and to capitalize on strengths.
Shadowing the client to learn first hand how she conducts herself with others, video-taping, role-playing, learning communication skills, examining the client’s self-talk and view of the circumstances, exploring the power of emotions and moods, and exploring ways the body can support the client’s progress are coaching options.
Most conversations are face-to-face but interim phone coaching between sessions can be useful.
If the coaching extends over several months, an interim check with the people who provided the initial assessment helps to determine if the coachee is on the right track.
Closure: Coach and client assess progress, the coach writes a summary of the process, and they discuss next steps perhaps including the manager. One to two months later I check in with the client to learn how things are progressing and perhaps suggest ways he or she can continue to develop.