5 Key Benefits of Executive Leadership Coaching

Senior business leaders are under ever-increasing pressure to perform in an incredibly competitive global market.

With the financial pressures of a worldwide economic crisis persisting for many, the rapid development of technology that is redefining working practices, and the challenge of attracting and retaining the best talent just a few of the issues many are wrestling with, it is no surprise many leaders are looking for support.    

Many are turning to executive coaching to help them find the answers they are looking for, but why? What can executive coaching provide these leaders, and how can it improve performance?

Executive leadership coaching is a personalised approach to helping senior leaders achieve their personal and business goals. Delivered by a registered coach, the approach targets personal discovery for more sustained success.

So here are five key benefits of executive coaching for senior leaders that we aim to ensure those who work with Gearing For Growth attain.

Critical thinking in leadership is vital to success. Leaders' ability to deal with pressure and make the right decision at the right time separates them and is what people follow.

In fact, it is often the ability just to make a decision and deal with the consequences that highlight leadership qualities.

Executive coaching harnesses this ability and supports its growth. Coaching helps develop an enhanced level of self-awareness, allowing leaders to tap into and become aware of their own biases and processes in their decision-making.

It also encourages them to adopt a broader strategic mindset, helping them always consider the longer-term impact on the business of their decisions.

A good coaching approach will encourage better risk management in a leader's decision-making process, providing better frameworks to assess risk and manage potential outcomes.

Finally, accountability is critical in decision-making. A good coach will positively challenge and encourage accountability to help leaders critically evaluate their decision-making to learn from and continuously improve.

Emotional intelligence is crucial for good leadership. The right executive coach will help you develop the interpersonal skills and empathy you need to succeed.

The advantage of an executive coach is their honest appraisal of your emotional responses. Coaches are not there to be your friend; they are there to challenge you to become the best version of yourself and to help you develop your leadership skills.

Your executive coach will also help you develop the right strategies and techniques for regulating your emotions and, where possible, removing them from the decision-making process. Staying calm and clear-headed throughout will help you get to the right decision.

Managing your own emotions is only half of good leadership. Developing a good level of empathy to understand and manage the feelings of others will help you to create stronger relationships with your team, helping them to grow and flourish.   

The right executive coach will also support the development of the right social skills to help your leadership. Good verbal and non-verbal communication skills are crucial to developing emotional intelligence. Getting your message across can help motivate your team, manage conflict, and help with internal and external negotiations.

Enhancing your team's performance is crucial to any executive coaching programme. Being a good leader is about inspiring your team to achieve the ambitious goals you have set and helping them overcome any challenges they face.

The right coaching approach will help you identify strategies to motivate your team. Coaches will ask you searching questions that will enable you to come up with an approach that's right for your business.

These strategies will allow you to build rapport and engender trust among your team, which will help them tackle the challenges they face, creating the supportive culture required in a strong team.     

Driving accountability through your executive coaching sessions will help you empower your team members to take ownership of decision-making and foster a leadership culture. Good coaching will also highlight the importance of recognising success and rewarding your team's hard work is vital. Nothing is achieved on your own. Good leaders understand that and make sure their team feel valued.

The right executive coaching will be bespoke to your needs as a leader. All activities should consider your strengths and weaknesses, providing feedback and insight into your situation and how it reflects on your business.

The objective, unbiased feedback you get from an external coach can often be difficult for others from within the business to provide, making it challenging to identify any blind spots and areas of improvement you may have.

The assessments and discussions between you and your coach will lead to a deeper understanding of you as a leader, but more importantly, to a list of actionable strategies that enable you to refine your approach to leadership continually. This will foster a mindset of continuous improvement, encourage a good habit of ongoing reflection, and help you make the proper adjustments in your leadership style.

Becoming a better leader is about helping you become a better version of yourself inside and outside work. Executive coaches recognise the importance of creating well-rounded leaders who can separate themselves from work.       

Going through a coaching process will help you set boundaries between your personal and professional life, ensuring neither is neglected. The key to this is prioritisation skills, which many leaders lack. When you run a business with a small team, everything is a priority, but coaching will help you identify the 'urgent' from the 'important' and the 'nice to do'.

Developing these strategies around prioritisation and boundary setting can help manage stress levels, which can affect everyone. There are levels of stress that people can manage, and executive coaching can help avoid it becoming overwhelming.

As with almost every aspect of executive coaching, increasing self-awareness can help you achieve the much-needed work-life balance. Leaders become far more aware of their work habits, how they impact their personal lives, and how more mindful decisions can promote balance.          

As you can see, executive coaching is critical to developing a leader.

It helps improve decision-making and builds good emotional intelligence. The clear, honest feedback you get from your coach also reduces the blind spots in your leadership approach, improving the softer skills required to inspire your team.

Finally, the right executive coach will help you find the work-life balance so many are seeking, helping you become a more rounded person.