Coaching is an unregulated industry, therefore you need to know that if somebody is calling themselves an executive coach, they deserve that title. If you don’t work with people who have rightfully earned the title of executive coach, then you’re not going to get the results you deserve as a business.
If you’re not sure how to find the right executive coach to help you or your business, then here are our top 6 tips for what makes a good executive coach.
1. Credentials
Credentials are the least you should expect from your executive coach. But this needs deeper exploration.
In our modern age, qualifications come in all shapes and sizes. The problem with the internet is that it’s become too easy and accessible for people to do short courses, get a certificate and call themselves an expert. This happens in many industries that are unregulated, and coaching is no different.
We recommend that a true executive coach has credentials of at least ILM level 5 or equivalent, which is the Institute of Leadership and Management. Ideally you want to be looking at ILM level 7 or equivalent, which is the standard that we set for our own coaches at The Leadership Coaches.
2. Personal Development
Qualifications aside, it’s also useful to explore how much development the coach has put in for themselves. Most top level executive coaches will voluntarily choose to pay for their own accredited coach supervision. That means that they are being supervised by somebody who's qualified to be an accredited executive coach supervisor.
Some coaches claim to have accredited coach supervision, but when you dig into the detail, you find that they were working with their friend. That's not supervision, but it genuinely is what some people think is enough to tick that box. So make sure you ask the right questions in relation to this.
3. References
We also highly recommend that you ask for references. We suggest that you ask for references over testimonials. You need to ask specific questions, and you need to know that you’re getting genuine feedback from a previous client.
We do this with all of our own executive coaches. We will ask them to put us in touch with two people they've coached at senior executive level. We don’t share with the coaches what we’re going to ask, because you need to know you’re getting totally unbiased responses.
Firstly, we will ask the coachee if they received pro bono coaching. Pro bono coaching should not be accepted as a reference. That doesn’t mean it’s not genuine coaching, but the downside of pro bono coaching is that if you've had it for free, you're likely to say it was great. A coachee will feel more positive about it, and you don’t get a true sense of what the results were.
If you've paid executive coaching rates, you are going to be completely honest about how effective that coaching was. We then ask other questions, such as how the coaching was set up and how long they worked together. If the response is that they only had one coaching session, we wouldn’t count it.
A true executive coach would offer transformational coaching. They would have worked with their coaches for usually six to nine months, perhaps even 12 to 18 months.
Finally we will ask questions about what results have been achieved, as this is the point of the coaching, after all.
If the coach isn’t able to put you in touch with people who can speak positively about all of this, then they shouldn’t be calling themselves an executive coach.
4. Coaching Philosophy
Coaching philosophy relates to the coach’s own values and beliefs around the practice.
Coaching maturity has got four stages to it. For complete mastery of coaching, you're at level four. Most executive coaches are around high peaking level twos or level threes. You don’t have to be a master, but you need to have developed your skill.
When you are first taught to coach, you follow models and techniques, and you use them heavily. However, over time, with supervision and practice, coaches unlearn that, and we become intuitive in knowing where we're going in the coaching conversation. The real benefit of this is efficiency and effectiveness.
A more junior level coach could spend two or three sessions dancing around because they’re not sure or confident with where things need to go. And that’s fine. But an executive coach will have more maturity and skill and be able to dive straight into the detail quickly.
This all means that the value you're able to get from executive coaching is richer than the value that you get from a coach. This is extremely important at senior leadership level, where you need faster and more sophisticated results that align business objectives with personal objectives.
All coaches have to start somewhere, and many newly qualified coaches are exceptional at their job. But executive coaching has its own place in the market, and the results should match high expectations. A newly qualified coach couldn't possibly have that intuition, wisdom and value that comes from experience, which is exactly the same in any job.
5. Diversity
Most businesses will have a wide range of diversities within them, so having a diverse pool of coaches available is helpful with this.
Coaches also need to embrace diversity. This means believing in the value of diversity, and especially tapping into the benefits of it. This enables coaches to be inclusive and appreciative of the wide ranging different leaders that they coach.
Additionally, the need to increase diverse board members is essential for most organisations. A study by McKinsey & Company found a positive correlation between gender and ethnic diversity on executive teams. We personally care about this at The Leadership Coaches and we will not tolerate a non-diverse approach to the work we do.
6. Coach Matching
This leads us to the final point: good coach matching.
Whoever you are as a coachee, it’s important that you feel comfortable with your coach. The coaching journey can be difficult and emotional, and you need to feel that you can open up to the person helping you.
At The Leadership Coaches, we take coach matching very seriously, and we not only strive for very high standards in terms of experience and qualifications, but we actively look for diversity to ensure we can support a growing world of leaders.
We feel exceptionally passionate about businesses promoting diversity in senior leadership, but it’s hard to coach people effectively without diversity across coaches themselves.
This is a vital area to explore as you look for the right executive coaches for you and your organisation.
If your needs aren’t being met or you’re struggling to find the right executive coach, we’d love to have a chat to see if our approach could be a good fit. Please feel free to book in a short meeting with us at your convenience to discuss this more.
