You are the executive CEO of a successful owner operated enterprise in Pontiac, your business generates over $500K EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes), you feel like there is potential for more and you intend to take your company to the next level? If this is you schedule a call with one of our executive coaches to estimate the ROI of executive coaching for your business.
Who offers life executive coaching?
The overlooked coach potential in leadership
For team leaders who are used to tackling performance issues by directing and instructing employees what to do, a coaching approach often feels too slow and time consuming. Furthermore, in their perception coaching can make them psychologically vulnerable, because it deprives them of deploying their authority approach they are so used to and very comfortable with. So they resist the implementation of coaching and don't even try it. Common excuses are “I’m too busy now,” or they will find other excuses like “This isn’t the best use of my time,” or “these employees aren’t coachable.”. According to Daniel Goleman’s study of leadership styles, leaders ranked coaching as their least-favorite leadership style, justifying it with the excuse that they simply would not have time for the slow and tedious work of coaching people and assisting them grow from within.
The best executive business coaches revealed
The right questions indicate best leadership quality
Managers need the space and time to actually manage. Managing people is tough, really, really tough. Employees ask for the managers' trust and compassion, so managers need to be able take the time to establish trust, starting conversations off with questions like, “How are things going?” and, “How can I help?” Such open questions potentially trigger a diverse and remarkable dialogue on various subjects, including but not limited to progress, improvement engagement, culture, productivity and performance. And, probably most important, they help identify the fires before we’re at high emergency alarm status.”. Reality-focused questions to ask are for example “What are the key things we need to know?”. The leaders should hone into what their team members have as a reply. Are the leaders missing something important? Are the managers talking about operational problems but missing out on the human side of things? Or the other way round? When coaching managers get their subordinates to slow down and think this way, they often lose themselves in contemplation and then an idea comes along, and off they go, engaging with the issue on their own with new inspiration, fresh energy and a new perspective. This step is crucial, because it stops team members from overlooking pertinent moving parts and leaping to conclusions. The manager's job at this point is just to ask the right questions and then get out of the way.
The best executive coaching companies revealed
Has coaching become the sixth management function?
Everybody involved in management should know about the five management functions. French mining engineer Henri Fayol defined the role of a manager as consisting of five functions of management: planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating and controlling. Another theorist, Luther Gulick, chunked commanding and controlling into one function being directing and added staffing, reporting, and budgeting, also known as POSDCORB, which is still used nowadays in management. So, how does coaching and leading fit into all of this? Leadership is one of the most vital management functions completely overlooked by these theorists. For the realisation of a mission an effective leader has to provide clarity, guidance and purpose. Without it any mission is set for failure. This can be accomplished best by switching from commanding and directing to a non directive leadership style.
What are the top executive coaching firms?
How to develop strategic leadership skills
The manager's task is to assist his staff more broadly and more deeply. Sometimes it is sufficient to ask something as simple as “If you had a magic wand, what would you do?” to open up the conversation and put everyting on wide-angle. You’d be surprised how freeing many people find that question to be—and how quickly they then start thinking and generating fresh, productive ideas. Once they’ve opened up their perspective and discovered new options looking at things, the manager's job is to prompt them to deepen their thinking, perhaps by making them explore the upside, the downside, and the risks of each approach.
Who are the top 10 executive coaches in the world?
How to replace bad leadership qualities with good ones
More professionals sense the need to coach their teams in order to get the best performance of their team members. Like in any relationship, coaching is built on mutual respect and trust. The employee must trust the manager to guide him/her though a strategic mental process. That thinking process becomes more beneficial when information is shared openly. Studies have shown that nine out of 10 executives have the intent to assist their direct report improve performance. On the other hand role-plays simulating a coaching situation demonstrated much room for improvement. Cooperative Coaching leadership style involves listening and asking opposed to authoritative leadership style consisting of just selling and telling. But that coaching approach is contrary to the manager's instincts because deep down the managers have already made up their minds about the solution to a specific issue well before the managers even begin looking at the problem together with the employee. So often those coaching efforts get quickly reduced to just trying to get agreement on what the manager had already in mind and decided. This cannot be construed as real coaching and therefore the outcomes are no better than when authoritative leadership is deployed.
Looking for small business coaching?
Has coaching become the sixth management function?
Everybody involved in management should know about the five management functions. French mining engineer Henri Fayol defined the role of a manager as consisting of five functions of management: planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating and controlling. Another theorist, Luther Gulick, chunked commanding and controlling into one function being directing and added staffing, reporting, and budgeting, also known as POSDCORB, which is still used nowadays in management. So, how does coaching and leading fit into all of this? Leadership is one of the most vital management functions completely overlooked by these theorists. For the realisation of a mission an effective leader has to provide clarity, guidance and purpose. Without it any mission is set for failure. This can be accomplished best by switching from commanding and directing to a non directive leadership style.
Looking for a coach for executives?
How to motivate your team as a leader instead of a commanding and controling manager
Successful executives must increasingly complement their sector specific knowledge and functional methodology with a general readiness and willingness for continuous learning and they must reflect that capacity in the people they supervise. No longer can managers simply rely on telling and control. Simply rewarding team members mainly for executing flawlessly on things they already knew is not enough any more. Instead, with full headquarter support, they need to reinvent themselves as coaches whose mission it is to trigger energy, creativity, and learning from the team members.
What are the coaches with the highest executive coaching rates?
The importance of having coaching frameworks
Each manager or coach has a unique approach to coaching subordinates. It's important for the manager to develop his / her own framework to use when coaching each employee. The manager's framework should guide the conversations the manager has with a team member. But independent from whatever those frameworks might look like, When those team members come up with their own solutions, they are more committed, and the fixes are more likely to be implemented. Furthermore, this issue-solving experience helps team members develop the self-confidence to solve similar issues on their own in the future so that the manager's coaching framework has less significance in the current situation.
Who provides the best coaching in the world?
How to replace bad leadership qualities with good ones
More professionals sense the need to coach their teams in order to get the best performance of their team members. Like in any relationship, coaching is built on mutual respect and trust. The employee must trust the manager to guide him/her though a strategic mental process. That thinking process becomes more beneficial when information is shared openly. Studies have shown that nine out of 10 executives have the intent to assist their direct report improve performance. On the other hand role-plays simulating a coaching situation demonstrated much room for improvement. Cooperative Coaching leadership style involves listening and asking opposed to authoritative leadership style consisting of just selling and telling. But that coaching approach is contrary to the manager's instincts because deep down the managers have already made up their minds about the solution to a specific issue well before the managers even begin looking at the problem together with the employee. So often those coaching efforts get quickly reduced to just trying to get agreement on what the manager had already in mind and decided. This cannot be construed as real coaching and therefore the outcomes are no better than when authoritative leadership is deployed.
What are the top executive coaching firms?
The role of coaching in performance management
A research on the effectiveness of leadership coaching in organizations made by Jones, Woods, & Guillaume, 2016, has shown that leadership coaching has a positive effect on overall organizational outcomes (e.g. EBIT) and more specific outcomes such as leaders’ skill set evolution, leadership development, personal growth and emotional status. Coaching makes leaders remove mental and emotional barriers from their management style. This helps coaching managers see a clear route to success of the mission. This helps them to think more strategicly and make better and more effective decisions. As a consequence the orgranization generates better results.
How to motivate a losing team
The importance of having coaching frameworks
Each manager or coach has a unique approach to coaching subordinates. It's important for the manager to develop his / her own framework to use when coaching each employee. The manager's framework should guide the conversations the manager has with a team member. But independent from whatever those frameworks might look like, When those team members come up with their own solutions, they are more committed, and the fixes are more likely to be implemented. Furthermore, this issue-solving experience helps team members develop the self-confidence to solve similar issues on their own in the future so that the manager's coaching framework has less significance in the current situation.
Tailored coaching for entrepreneurs
What are the top leadership skills to improve?
One of the best ways to improve a manager's nondirective coaching skill is to try conversing using the GROW model, devised in the 1980s by Sir John Whitmore and others. The GROW model seems easy to conceptualize, but it’s harder to execute than some managers might imagine, because it requires training to think outside the box about what the manager's role and value as a leader are. The foundation of nondirective coaching is listening, questioning, and withholding judgment. Coaching managers contribute to draw wisdom, insight, and trigger creativity out of their subordinates they’re coaching, with the intent and objective of guiding them learn to resolve problems and cope with complicated situations on their own. It is an approach that can be highly inspiring and empowering for those being coached, but it does not feel natural to most managers, who tend to be more comfortable with just their authoritative “telling” leadership style.
Insights from an executive business coach
Why do managers need coaching skills?
Superior coaching skills can come in as a valuable resource in times of conflict. Let's assume there is a conflict between two employees. The manager with effective coaching skills of active, equal listening and emotional intelligence at his disposal can minimize anger, stress, and ineffective communication. By doing so the manager creates an allowance for space for each party where the conflict can be heard and the conditions are in place to co-create solutions which help unify the team.
Where to find good business coaches for entrepreneurs
The major benefits of coaching to an organisation
Studies have shown that non-directive leadership and coaching skills improve the coachees’ confidence, engagement, communication, and teamwork. Those skills facilitate a faster induction to the organization and - according to Hamlin et al., 2006 - and help reduce reported feelings of stress. Managers should encourage and expect their direct reports to engage and participate, not only because it will become easier for the manager to focus more on the big picture, but also because it’s a best practice and an essential skill that motivates everyone on the team to identify and troubleshoot issues as they arise.
