The Meaning of Executive Coaching

The original meaning of coaching derives from the old English word "coach" that describes the vehicle designed to transport royal persons from one place to another. Today's royal individuals are the talented business executives and successful leaders of various organizations.

Therefore, executive coaching could be defined as a service transporting leaders from their current position to a new place they need to be. This is a journey that requires careful preparation, patience, and commitment of the client and others who are involved in this journey assiting their leader to become more effective and beneficial for the entire organization.

Coaching and Psychotherapy

I disagree with those authors who say that all executive coaches should have clinical training in psychology. They claim that the coach should recognize and deal with the psychological problems of the client. But they fail to make the appropriate distinction between a coaching service (helping successful individuals and teams to advance in their performance and to achieve their personal and organizational goals) and psychotherapy (helping the patients to deal with, to reduce, or to resolve psychological disorders).

I am convinced that coaches and psychotherapists should focus on their own areas of expertise and to refer other clients according to their needs. Coaches should have sufficient knowledge of psychology to refer the clients with psychological issues to the specialists. Otherwise, the work of coaches and psychologists can be ineffective or even harmful to the individuals or teams.

Storytelling in Team Building

Storytelling could be a powerful tool of team building that helps team members to reflect upon their own experiences and to change their attitudes, priorities, and behaviors. Listening to the stories of other team members, they gain new insights into their personal lives. Storytelling can also increase trust and respect among the team members. It inspires the willingness to look not only at one’s own needs but to become more open to the different interests of others. The teams have to pay more attention to trust building because trust is a critical dimension of the knowledge management in teams. Therefore, an experienced coach can provide a valuable service in the development of executive teams.

Current challenges in leadership development

The ongoing development of global markets and the demands of growing competition have created new challenges for many contemporary organizations. These current changes and the increasing need for talented and experienced executives bring new concerns to human resource management. In the process of recruiting, developing, and retaining future leaders, many companies create high executive salaries, new training programs, and other possible ways of leadership development.

The jobs of CEOs became increasingly complex and demanding. It requires more experience, continuous learning and talent in this constantly changing, global, and diverse environment. According to the research about 40 percent of CEOs fail within 18 months. These rates of failure and growing responsibility of CEOs discourage many senior executives to seek the top position. Moreover, the average CEO turnover is five years.

Many companies are becoming increasingly concerned about leadership succession and development. They are looking for new executives in every possible place. The number of companies inviting external CEOs is also increasing. However, they often fail to invest sufficient efforts into inside leadership development.

Current research confirms the fact that developmental instruments like action learning, formal training, and coaching can increase the pool of internal future leaders. Many companies implement executive, management, and other forms of leader coaching in the process of leadership development. They use coaching as a tool that is designed to address the very individual needs of the clients. Most of the leaders with a coach report moderate or great benefits in their professional lives.