In recent years, executive coaching has grown from being a practice perceived with curious skepticism to a billion-dollar industry. Many of the world’s biggest companies including Google and Goldman Sachs invest in an executive coach for their upper management. But despite its rising popularity, there are still many people in leadership positions who are unfamiliar with executive coaching and its numerous benefits.
Just like elite athletes, dancers, and singers, business leaders can utilize coaching to grow and succeed in their positions. Additionally, in these turbulent times, the added support of an executive coach could be extremely valuable to you, your team, and your business.
But if you’re still uncertain about executive coaching, here are eight reasons why you should give it a try this year:
Increase Your Self-Awareness. By working with an executive coach, you’ll learn to look deeply at yourself; to ask yourself thought-provoking questions and challenge any assumptions you might have about yourself. An effective coach might use input provided by those closest to you (i.e. your team), as well as their own observations, to help you gain a more objective, well-rounded view of yourself. As you learn to see yourself more clearly, you will be able to more accurately identify your strengths, as well as areas in which there is room for growth. Accurate self-awareness is a very important quality for leaders to have, as research has shown that it correlates with organizational effectiveness and profitability.
Communicate with Confidence. Effective communication is key when it comes to bringing your team together and ensuring that everyone is working synchronously toward your company’s objectives. But nowadays, as COVID-19 has driven many offices to close and employees to work remotely from their homes, effective communication has become more difficult. An executive coach can help you to learn how to communicate confidently with your team, even in this era of virtual meetings. With the leadership skills and tools that you’ll gain throughout your coaching engagement, you’ll be able to guide and motivate your team with fortitude, even if you’re working from the comfort of your couch.
Understand and Empower Your Team. With the help of an executive coach, you will be able to reduce employee turnover and increase your team’s motivation, inspiration, and job satisfaction. Many companies lose quality employees because leaders fail to recognize their potential and support their unique abilities. With the insights you’ll gain through coaching, you will be able to perform more accurate assessments of those around you and therefore be able to identify additional ways in which you can empower them to succeed in their roles. There are numerous potential benefits to the creation of a more positive workplace environment, such as reduced turnover and absenteeism, an increase in profitability, and higher ROI.
Increase Productivity by Uncovering Unconscious Bias. The best leaders know how to build meaningful, productive relationships with many different kinds of people. However, many people who hold leadership positions are only willing or able to create these deep connections with people who resemble themselves – in race, gender, background, beliefs, or even work style. An effective executive coach will help you to identify unconscious bias in yourself and show you how to actively work against it. With your coach’s guidance, you learn how to recognize and question any limiting assumptions you might be making about the people around you. By doing this, you will be able to form valuable working relationships with a variety of people, and therefore increase productivity within your workplace.
Overcome Imposter Syndrome. One of the most common issues addressed through executive coaching is Imposter Syndrome, the belief that you are not as good or successful as other people believe you are. Leaders who struggle with Imposter Syndrome might believe that their success is only fleeting and feel overwhelmed with the fear of being “discovered” and having that success taken away from them. By working with a coach, you’ll learn that these thoughts and feelings are actually in conflict with your reality. Once you uncover what’s causing your imposter syndrome, you will begin to see an increase in your confidence, a decrease in your anxiety, and you will be able to truly enjoy your success.
Identify and Utilize Your Strengths. Executive coaching will help you to identify strengths in yourself that you might be underutilizing. Many leaders fail to recognize the value of their own knowledge and abilities, and therefore can’t properly leverage them. An executive coach’s insight could open your eyes to strengths you might not even be aware of, and with their support you can develop a plan for leveraging these abilities so that they are more advantageous to you and your business.
Investing in Yourself Leads to Growth. Investing in yourself for your own development helps you to learn and grow, which in turn leads to increased feelings of fulfillment and happiness. By investing in executive coaching, you’re showing that you’re committed to growth as a leader. Learning doesn’t stop just because you’re in a position of power. In fact, a willingness to learn will only increase the credibility of your leadership abilities. Utilizing the expertise of an executive coach is an opportunity for you to reflect on yourself and your experiences, gain valuable feedback, and flourish in your position.
Stay Accountable and Accomplish More. An executive coach is one of the most valuable assets for a leader to have. They can help you establish clear goals and intentions, and they can serve as an accountability partner – someone who makes sure you’re staying on track or tells you when you’re getting in your own way. The best coaches are invested in your success, but they aren’t afraid to be 100% honest with you. This combination of objective feedback and sincere support will ultimately help you to achieve more.
