If you are thinking about getting executive coaching certification, you might want to review an example of an executive coaching engagement. Following is a case study that shows you the breadth of topics you might discuss when you coach a client. If you feel like this type of work would be a great next step in your career — whether as an internal or external coach, or to help you be an even better leader — please join any of our executive coaching certification programs. Join our next 3-day seminar (it’s virtual so that you don’t have to endure the hassles of travel!), or join our online learning program anytime to learn at your own pace via live and/or recorded sessions. Yes, we are accredited with the International Coaching Federation, and you can join the full ICF Level 2 training program (formerly called ACTP) to get your ICF designation. Background The client was a Director in a multi-billion dollar privately owned technology company. His unit had grown from 50 people when he started to 1,000 people when we began coaching. (Note that when we talk about executive coaching, that encompasses the full spectrum of leadership positions, from first-time managers to up-and-coming talent, senior leaders, and the C-suite. It includes clients in all types and sizes of organizations — from solo professionals to startups, rapidly growing companies, Fortune 500 companies, non-profit, government, and education.) The company sponsored the client for coaching in order to develop what they called “leadership presence” so that he could get promoted to senior leadership. Assessment “Leadership presence” is a vague term. The coaching began with some assessment work to understand what leadership presence meant to this organization and for this client. Using a 360-verbal assessment along with some highly reliable and validated assessments, we discovered the following:
- The client focused a bit too much on the success of his unit, often without considering the larger picture and what would be best for the overall company. To rise to senior leadership, he needed to think more systemically, and more like an owner.
- He got into frequent conflicts with senior leaders at other business units in the company, even though he needed these senior leaders to be advocates for him and his unit. To him, these senior leaders and their units moved too slowly and were inefficient compared to his group. This frustrated him and caused him to take a condescending, impatient tone with people in other units, including his superiors. While his perception about the pace of these units was accurate, he failed to understand that there were very good reasons why these senior leaders acted the way they did. At the same time, the client lacked some skills in negotiating and influencing, as well as some of the core emotional intelligence competencies, which sometimes created unnecessary conflicts.
- While his direct reports loved him, the relationship was based a bit more on friendship and popularity than on respect. He had challenges providing tough feedback to his direct reports, and removing poor performers when needed.
- As his business unit grew, he spent too much of his time in the weeds, getting involved in decisions and activities that he could delegate. While this use of time might have made sense when he had only 50 people in his unit, he now had an opportunity to spend his time more strategically.
- Finally, a number of people reported that sometimes the client exhibited behaviors that were inappropriate. He came from a military background, and was used to informal banter and crude language with his brothers and sisters in arms. This behavior was unacceptable in his current company, which was much more formal. While he had improved in this area, sometimes he still faced complaints made to Human Resources about inappropriate comments.
- Relationships. Each session, we focused on one relationship that mattered to the client’s success, and discussed ways to strengthen the relationship while still getting results. Each discussion led to new insights about the client’s strengths, development opportunities, and perceptions. For instance, we discovered that his direct manager barely interacted with him at all. He was essentially abdicating his role, waiting for retirement. This meant that my client didn’t have a direct advocate for him, something that was essential in this company and especially for his aspirations to get promoted to senior leadership. We spent time in our coaching developing a plan to spend more time with his direct manager, build the relationship, and gain his support. Similarly, we worked through each key relationship across the organization, focused especially on the conflicts that he had been experiencing. We role played key influence conversations, and the client had massive insights about how he could better influence his colleagues without damaging the relationship or causing bad feelings. We also developed plans for each direct report, including how to set clear expectations, give informal feedback, and develop his employees to take on more. Finally, we identified key relationships in leadership that he could cultivate in order to have more presence at the leadership level, of course with his direct manager’s blessing.
- New behaviors. The client chose a key leadership behavior — demonstrating that he was considering the entire company’s perspective, as if he were an owner — and committed to make it a habit. He asked for feedback every month from leaders and colleagues about how often they saw this behavior, and asked for advice to get even better. After just a couple of months, senior leaders were noticing improvement and a positive shift in how they perceived his leadership. Secondly, we worked together to assure that he stopped any behaviors that could be perceived as even slightly inappropriate by others.
- Time and priorities management. The client tracked his time for two weeks. We evaluated his use of time to uncover activities he was doing that he could delegate, that weren’t strategic, and that weren’t as efficient as they could be. Then we worked to create his ideal use of time every day and week. This led to big changes in how he led his unit. It caused him to work with his direct reports to develop systems and processes so that his unit became much more consistent and efficient. It also caused him to spend more time developing his direct reports so that he could groom a successor when it was time to move up.