Executive coaching focuses on improving performance and developing individual skills.
It can be applied to individual leaders or within a group learning environment. With regard to one-to-one coaching of leaders, often referred to as executive or leadership coaching, it is often used by organizations when a leader has been appointed to a new role or has been identified for one in the near future.
For coaching to effect sustained behavioral and performance improvements it should:
Provide insight into current leadership style.
Clarify inner strengths and values.
Improve interpersonal relationships.
Broaden perspectives.
Identify and overcome barriers to change.
Enhance a learning mentality.
Good coaching provides an environment where issues can be discussed in total confidentiality; where people are heard but never judged. Trust is quickly developed between the coach and client, which is used as a foundation for successful exploration, ownership and positive change.
An effective coach attempts to see the world as the client sees it, which in turn acts as a mirror to enable the client to reflect on issues and behaviors more clearly.
However, as the essence of coaching is the formation of productive one-to-one relationships, the client also has a responsibility to make the relationship work by being:
Open to constructive feedback, either from the coach, or from the comments and results form the multiple feedback instruments.
Committed to the process and not just acting as a willing participant.
Prepared to reveal personal weaknesses to others.
Brave enough to consider modifying a leadership style that has previously been effective, but may not be fully appropriate to changing circumstances.
Prepared to have his or her assumptions, motives and behaviors challenged by the coach.
Source: Alan Cutler: Leadership Psychology: How the Best Leaders Inspire Their People