Do you sometimes scratch your head about how some coaches and coach training programs describe coaching?
They don’t seem to understand why executives, leaders, up-and-coming talent, and their sponsors hire executive and leadership coaches. They focus excessively on academic theory, the latest New-Age fad, jargon-filled philosophies, a superficial interpretation of scientific research, or their own take on spirituality. Too often, they impose this stuff on their clients, when the client has no interest or need.
It doesn’t make sense. Let me give you an example.
This past week, a client called me to talk about the fact that his division was going to miss his quarterly financial target. He wanted to talk through how to communicate these results to his CEO and at the upcoming Board meeting.
After a half hour of dialogue, he came up with his approach, along with ideas about how to avoid these issues in future quarters and set an effective strategy. Remember – like most executives and leaders, he is a super-successful already-effective professional. He wants a sounding board, someone who can help him test ideas, challenge his thinking, and help him to consider different perspectives. He is perfectly capable of working things out when he has someone to test him, challenge him, and ask questions that move him forward.
That’s it. Adding anything else to the conversation — just because it is the latest trend among coaches — would have annoyed him.
If you want to get hired as an executive and leadership coach, you have to focus on the issues that are top of mind of your prospective clients, and you have to speak their language. Those things usually include strategy, time, money, politics, engaging employees, building good teams, and communicating with impact. You need best-practice tools and approaches to help clients with these specific leadership challenges, framed in the practical, results-driven language that they use and expect us to use, too.
It’s simple and straightforward. You can be a great coach and advisor to leaders if you have a track record of achievement, care about helping already-effective people get even better, and are willing to invest in the best training.
I guarantee you that the Center for Executive Coaching shows you how to successfully coach demanding executives, leaders, business owners, and up-and-coming talent — without fluff, academic theory, or pseudoscientific jargon that will annoy clients and probably get you fired.
You can join our in-person seminar or our distance learning program anytime. Please email me to schedule a discussion about your goals as a coach and whether our program is right for you:
andrewneitlich@centerforexecutivecoaching.com
My cell is 941-539-9623; unlike other programs, I don’t force you to talk to all sorts of admissions representatives and salespeople. We are a boutique program with unique content based on what the market requires. We can talk anytime.
Sincerely,
Andrew Neitlich
Director, Center for Executive Coaching
Author, Coach!, Guerrilla Marketing for Coaches, and Elegant Leadership
