Business and organizational development experts have long recognized the positive
impact that executive coaching can have on improving human workplace performance.
Clearly, organizations and businesses vary greatly in their internal workplace dynamics,
as well as in how they respond to external forces like economic uncertainty and political
unpredictability. However, despite these variations, certain common benefits of executive
coaching for business leaders have emerged that are worth noting. Key among them are:
- Personal transformation (of leaders and others in the organization)
- Ability to develop future leaders for the business/organization
- Ability to lead change that inspires high performance and positive results
- Ability to coach and inspire employees toward positive change, and
- Ability to create organizational cultures that value learning and continuous
improvement
One of the key challenges that business owners and other organizational leaders often
face is how to transform the culture of their business/organization to maximize creativity
and high performance across the board. Skilled coaches know how to work with leaders
to help them identify the existing behaviors, traits or policies within the organization that
may be impeding the creative energy that fuels the high performance they seek.
Often, leaders are so close to a challenging situation they are facing that their perspective
is limited. In such cases, just talking to a coach who is a detached observer and a skilled
listener can yield fresh insights and a unique perspective that can spur fresh ideas in the
leader. This, in turn, can enable the leader to take concrete action toward their desired
outcome.
By asking insightful and empowering questions, coaches can stimulate informed
decision-making in leaders. They do this by suggesting new ways to process information
that helps leaders gain greater clarity of thought, and inspires strategic action planning
and goal setting. Finally, skilled coaches know to hold the leader/business owner
accountable by inspiring the leader to take the necessary actions that will lead to the
positive change they seek.