Written by: Alexandra Elinsky, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
As businesses grapple with significant changes to the workforce due to COVID-19, business leaders also find themselves struggling to coach and mentor their employees. A decentralized workforce adds an extra challenge to the talent development process from the executive level down. Businesses must get creative with ways to build cohesion throughout the organization during these times.
One way companies are doing so is through individualized executive coaching. An outside coach can develop a specific plan to address an individual's learning style, strengths, and weaknesses. The results of these sessions, both in-person and virtually, dramatically improve the entire organization. Let's take a look at how this happens.
Develop your talent
Traditional training methods may be suitable for delivering corporate policies and regulations, but tailored executive coaching is the best approach to meet your leaders' personal development needs. Executive coaching allows for actionable steps for each individual based on a series of conversations and assessments with that coach. Throughout the development process, these executives learn to evaluate their hard and soft skills. As your executives develop, they learn new methods and techniques for passing that information to their subordinates.
For information on how EmpowerHQ can support your personal development, take a look at our range of services and contact us!
Increase company productivity
The main goal for developing your leaders and executives is to improve the overall productivity of the organization. You need to hire and develop talented leaders and enable them to make decisions that will enhance systems and processes as they learn from their coaching. Through their coaching, your leaders will learn how to manage their time better, prioritize their efforts in the highest friction areas, and align their actions with areas of the business with the most significant impact.
Build trust through transparency
An overlooked effect of individual coaching for executives is that it develops trust through all levels of the organization. By communicating with an external executive coach, leaders begin to express their struggles and frustrations openly. This is not done negatively but rather in a constructive way to eliminate tensions before they permeate throughout the company. Building this trust, rapport, and open communication allows your leaders to voice their concerns and make recommendations for improvement.
Set realistic goals
Executive coaching helps ensure that individual executive goals are aligned to organizational goals. Through regular engagements with various leaders, the executive coaches develop an understanding of potential misalignments.
Executive coaches are also in the perfect position to challenge executives on their goals and ensure they are specific and tangible. Many executives can become detached from the rest of the organization if left to pursue their own goals. Still, consistent coaching can challenge their assumptions about what is possible.
One way to prevent this is by encouraging your leaders to develop SMART Goals. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound goals will be far more beneficial for the company than goals driven by personal ambition and assumptions.
Tailor to the individual
Executive coaching has apparent benefits for the entire organization. Still, it can also help to retain your top talent. As talent continues to grow, they want to continue their education and progression through various levels of the organization. An executive coach will provide invaluable guidance on how to communicate these goals for career progression. Instead of losing that talent because their career aspirations were unknown, through coaching, that top talent expressed these goals to you and established clear steps to achieve them.
Improved judgement
As executives face critical challenges daily, you must trust that they will make the right decisions. As we discussed earlier, ensuring that the executive is aligned with organizational goals is one step, but making difficult decisions requires sound judgment. A critical piece of this judgment is listening to the feedback of those around you, synthesizing that information, and asking the right questions to extract any potential unknowns. Executive coaching is a perfect tool for helping your executives improve their decision-making. An executive coach can help leaders identify their own biases or emotional responses that may cloud their judgment.
Empower Your Executives
The development of your executives pays off the most when you enable them to make decisions without needing validation. Trust that these leaders have embraced the culture you have established, learned from their executive coaching plans, and will make the right decision when they are needed the most. This trust is consistently recognized and spreads throughout the organization as confidence and cohesion build.
Find an Executive Coach
Now that you understand the impact of an executive coach on you and your business, the question remains: how to find the right one? There are three key aspects that you should seek out in an executive coach.
1. Experience – Find experienced coaches with organizational psychology, experience developing individual coaching plans, and providing targeted guidance based on various career paths.
2. Delivery Method – COVID-19 forced companies to adapt to virtual delivery methods for all training and communication. Your executive coaches should be well-versed in coaching virtually and keeping everyone engaged while doing so.
3. Values – It's essential to find executive coaches that align with your corporate values. You should expect external coaches to espouse the same values that your internal employees do.
Now that you have a better understanding of the positive impacts of executive coaching, it’s important to understand that this can extend beyond the executive level. The one-on-one focused training provides tremendous value for a company, but developing a coaching program for all levels of your organization is where companies really find the value.
If you’re looking for executive coaching options for you or your team, check out our services page to find the best fit for your needs!
Alexandra Elinsky, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Dr. Elinsky lives to support professionals of all levels from all walks of life to book a call on her calendar, use this link – https://calendly.com/teamempoweryou/60min Dr. Alexandra Elinsky has a Ph.D. in Industrial Organization Psychology from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology and is a trained Executive Coach, Corporate Trainer, and Researcher. Dr. Elinsky is the owner/founder of Empower Human Potential LLC and owns/operates another event planning business that builds confidence and leadership skills in children and teenagers. Dr. Elinsky has 10+ years of professional business and corporate experience and has built both of her businesses from the ground up with nothing short of patience.
