Are you wondering what executive coaching is and if it’s the right move for your business?
Not all executive coaches are created equal. Experience is undoubtedly an essential factor, but so is your ability to connect with them. You need someone you can work closely with and feel comfortable confiding in if you want to move that needle and get results from the relationship.
Executive coaching leads to better feedback from your team leaders, supervisors, subordinates, and peers. Without input from your team, you limit potential growth in the business, and growth is what all business leaders strive for — right?
Developing business effectiveness is an ongoing process that requires the support and built-in accountability an executive coach can provide. In the following article, we’ll share seven benefits of executive coaching and explain — in detail — why it’s a good investment for your business.
What is Executive Coaching?
Coaching is defined as a “partnership with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential,” according to the International Coach Federation (IFC).
Coaches show leaders how to understand their current competencies, see how they look in their coworkers' eyes, and identify their current goals. Once goals are in place, the coach will help the leader break down each step to attain those goals.
7 Benefits of Working with an Executive Coach
Hiring an executive coach is a valuable investment for your company. Whether you choose to hire the coach for yourself or your team, there are many benefits to expect while working with a coach, some you may not even be expecting.
Here are seven reasons why you should work with an executive coach.
Benefit 1: Deeper Emotional Intelligence
Coaches work with you step-by-step to develop self-understanding, enhanced self-management, and increased depth of empathy. Your coach gives you the tools necessary to build the basic skills associated with emotional intelligence.
Some of the benefits of increasing the EQ of yourself and your workforce are:
- Self-Awareness: the catalyst by which growth occurs
- Self-Regulation: disciple to control one's emotions
- Empathy: leads to understanding others emotions
- Boost in Cognition: view situations from other people’s perspectives
- Motivation: the driving force to get things done
- Social Skills: the fabric of all successful relationships
- Better Leadership Ability: the cornerstone of problem-solving
Benefit 2: You’ll Achieve Your Goals
Many leaders experience difficulties when trying to articulate what they want to accomplish. Coaching enables leaders to craft a big picture vision of their future.
An executive coach can help you translate this vision into smaller, actionable, and obtainable steps. They’ll also help you to identify what resources are necessary to bring your vision to life.
Benefit 3: Your Network Will Grow
When talking about network growth, we're referring to new relationships you will make due to working together with your executive coach to create a new networking strategy.
Your executive coach will ask you all of the questions no one dares to ask you. In turn, they’re helping you discover new solutions. A good executive coach will point you towards the resources to grow your network.
As you gain feedback from your coach, don’t be afraid to ask about their professional contacts in your field. They have worked with others like you, and that can help you grow your network.
Benefit 4: You’ll Improve Your Internet Presence
No matter how you feel about it, you can't ignore it. Social media impacts your customers, your competition, and everyone in between. Whether you are interested in attracting the top talent or obtaining new clients, working with an executive coach can help. Your coach will get you working on tools and platforms you likely haven’t tested yet. They’ll even push you to try those you’ve completely avoided.
Benefit 5: Improved Decision-Making Skills
One of an executive coach’s goals is to bring out the best in a leader and their team. If any of these members lack confidence in their abilities or are unaware of the potentially positive impact, the capabilities could have, leaders and their teams may be missing opportunities to make crucial decisions effectively.
A coach can work with all employees, from top to bottom, in your organization. High-potential employees, in particular, can benefit from coaching. A coach will help identify strengths and capabilities and help develop the strategies for leveraging those strengths so everyone can gain confidence leading to improved decision-making skills.
Benefit 6: Build Effective Teams and Relationships
It's human nature to gravitate towards others with similar personality traits or perspectives. Working with an executive coach can help leaders and their team broaden internal relationships with colleagues with different personalities, backgrounds, perspectives, and work methods.
In doing so, the business is widening its perspective, helping to make more inclusive decisions and become more productive. A coach can help leaders gain insight into team dynamics and repair interpersonal issues holding a team back.
Benefit 7: Establish Trust
Trust for a business is a big deal. From potential clients and customers to employees. It's the foundation you should build any business on — no matter the industry. Without trust, a company will ultimately fail.
You have to establish trust over time — communication barriers, lack of follow-through, and misunderstandings are often reasons why trust gets broken in the first place. An inability to move quickly enough to fulfill promises and commitments is another significant reason trust gets broken within a business. Executive coaches can help leaders learn how to build trust between themselves and their team.
Ready to Get Started?
Coaching is an asset that any business owner, leader, and a team member can benefit from. Many challenges, roadblocks, and obstacles organizations face are dynamic, complex, and elusive. Bringing in outside help with a new perspective can open the organization up to new ideas and possibilities that had not been thought of before.
We founded Bench Builders to help business leaders overcome the many challenges we see every day as we work with companies of various sizes. We understand the difficult situations top leaders face as they strive to grow and improve — and we know how to help coach you through them using a combination of experience, skill, and proven tactics.
We’ll talk about what you need and what we can do for you. If we think we can work together, we’ll keep talking. If not, we’ll stop talking. No sales pitches. Just honest conversations.
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