Executive Coaching for Everyone

As long as there have been good listeners and trusted advisors in the executive suite, there have been executive coaches. Not all executive coaches are trained, paid, or even know they’re coaches, for that matter. Indeed, when coaching is done well, it looks more like a good friend listening and asking probing questions and less like a football coach barking orders —in fact, the very opposite. So, the term coaching, while widely used, is a bit misleading. We should be called executive facilitators … but that just doesn’t have any panache. So, executive coach it remains. The coaching process begins when the client realizes that he or she wants help getting to the next level of performance. Often, the organization (the director of Human Resources, CEO, or chairperson) will not only initiate the process but also pay for it. Ultimately, however, the relationship between the client and the coach is the primary and principal relationship —one that remains confidential… though not protected by law in the same way lawyers and doctors and their clients enjoy that privilege. Yet the spirit of confidentiality is as vital to the coaching relationship as in any other profession —including law and medicine.