All you need to know about executive coaching

If you want to engage your executive team, improve performance and increase retention, you can’t offer a better option than executive coaching.

In fact, executive coaching has rocketed to the top of the expectations list when it comes to supporting and investing in your leaders as they grow – both individually and as a team.

What is Executive Coaching?

Executive coaching is a unique, partnership-based approach to bringing out the best in a leader.

Working with an executive business coach allows professionals to maximize both their professional and personal potential through a creative and empowering process that moves them closer to their goals, curiosities and purpose.

Executive coaching is largely client-driven, and the best coaches allow their clients to explore, define and implement the best paths to achieving their goals.

What Does an Executive Coach Do?

An executive coach most importantly establishes a trust-based relationship with a professional.

You’ll find that executive coaching is a meeting of equals – though executive coaches may be highly experienced, they don’t know all the answers and will empower clients to identify their own goals and chart their own course for achieving them.

A good executive coach takes their cues from the client – in fact, executive coaching is one of the most individually tailored professional development tools you can access.

An executive coach will help a client develop an individualized coaching plan.

As the client works through the plan, the coach manages the ongoing progress, holds the client accountable for commitments, and celebrates successes along the way – all while making sure the goals of the coaching plan tie back to professional and organizational goals.

Does Your Company Need an Executive Coach?

We feel confident the answer is yes. Not because your executives aren’t great at what they do – but because everyone benefits from expert coaching.

No matter your expertise or years of experience, gaining outside perspective, encouragement and accountability only makes you stronger.

Having someone listen to your ideas and encourage you to think in new ways is essential for the kind of adaptable leadership today’s business environment requires.

Advantages of Hiring an Executive Coach

You might think the benefit of hiring an executive coach is obvious: improved performance.

And you’re not wrong – that’s certainly a benefit. But it’s just the beginning.

Working with an executive coach also helps your leadership team build stronger relationships, feel more motivated and engaged, increase self-awareness and confidence and feel more loyal to your company.

Here’s how you can expect your team to benefit from executive coaching:

• Perspective – having a trusted, experienced sounding board that can help executives explore challenges, pressure-test scenarios and provide insight from outside of the organization builds confidence and helps leaders develop their own skills when it comes to questioning assumptions and broadening perspectives.
• Adaptability – we all develop habits over time. It’s true even of the strongest leaders, and we tend to repeat behaviors that have made us successful. But executive coaching can help your team see where they need to flex and develop new skills in order to reach new levels of success. And because an executive coach is an outside advisor rather than a supervisor, executives can explore new skills and approaches without fear of judgment.
• Confidence – it’s rare to find a leader who fully appreciates their own strengths. Executive coaching can bring to light an executive’s unique strengths and encourage them to employ those strengths for the good of the team and the organization.
• Inclusivity – even the best leaders are guilty of gravitating toward those who are like them. And that has a huge effect on the work environment – from the day-to-day engagement of the team to big decisions like who gets promotions and raises. Executive coaching can help leaders identify when they make limiting assumptions about those who aren’t like them, and can offer up strategies to help build stronger relationships with everyone on the team.

Executive Coaching FAQs

What makes a good Executive Coach?

The mark of a good executive coach is they know how to listen – the best executive coaches will let the client do most of the talking, while they listen actively and ask thoughtful, even provocative, questions along the way. Good coaches question rather than lecture. They don’t tell the client what to do – they walk beside the client as they weigh their options.

A good executive coach also shares their own hard-earned lessons from prior successes and failures. This means a good executive coach is vulnerable and willing to share their own business challenges – this real-world experience, combined with the coach’s outside perspective, can be invaluable to a client.

Good executive coaches also have strong interpersonal skills. They’re able to relate to a wide variety of clients, to foster an environment of trust and confidentiality, and to create a space where clients feel safe to explore challenges. By the same token, good coaches also are clear on how to set goals and relentless in holding clients accountable. And they do it all with the best interests of the client in mind. A good executive coach cares genuinely about the clients they work with.

How effective is Executive Coaching?

Executive coaching works. Studies have shown that leaders who participate in executive coaching report more engaged employees and higher revenues. They also report increased self-confidence and self-awareness, and overall better leadership. These results are why every organization – from start-ups to established, multi-national corporations, can benefit from executive coaching.

How much does an Executive Coach cost around the USA?

Executive coaching costs can vary widely, depending on many factors. Harvard Business Review has estimated the median cost of executive coaching as $500 per hour, with costs ranging anywhere from $200-3500 per hour. Executive coaches here in Houston, Texas, tend to charge rates that fall more toward the midline.

Interested in working with an executive coach? Book a free consultation

Executive coaching is one of the most valuable investments you can make in the people who lead your organization.

Their success is vital to your organization’s success – so don’t wait another minute. If you’re looking for the best executive coaches in Houston, Texas, we’d love to chat with you.

We’ve offered executive coaching services to Houston organizations for more than a decade.

Reach out to us today to book a free consultation call with one of our family business advisors. We’d love to help.