What’s Leadership (or Executive) Coaching?

Not familiar with executive, or leadership, coaching? Coaching can be defined as “a dialogue between a coach and a leader with the intention of finding creative ways to address challenging problems, improve team and unit performance, accelerate progress on key initiatives, and advance the leader’s career.”

We as executive coaches facilitate discovery of solution(s), then hold the client accountable as they implement a solution, reflect on that solution, adapt the solution as necessary, and continue to grow forward in their organization.

What kind of challenges can be addressed with executive coaching?

Consider the executive challenges below and see if you identify with any.

  • I’m leading a major change effort in my organization, and I’m facing real headwinds.

  • I highly value relationships and dislike confrontation, which may mean I say “yes” too often or “go along” with sub-optimal decisions.  

  • I’m (always) short on time and feel like I’m running just to stay in place.

  • I’m challenged by managing up with my board, my investors, or my CEO/ Executive Director.

  • I need to better develop my reputation and influence in my organization or industry.

  • I feel out of tune with one or more of my colleagues.

  • I need to get better at leadership communications, strategic thinking, or creative problem solving.

  • I’m a maverick, but what has brought me success in the past doesn’t seem to be working any more.  

  • I’m an innovator and believe that I need to try some new moves to continue to be successful.

These are just some of the challenges that executives like you face. If you’d like to stop facing these challenges solo and get objective help, please contact us. Our ideal client is a leader of an organization (including department heads/ SVPs/ VPs) with $5-100 M in revenues and for people who are looking to grow into a new leadership role.  

Interested? Keep reading for more.

Photo by Maksim Shutov on Unsplash

How long does coaching take?

Successful athletes don’t just meet with their coach once. Similarly, executive coaching requires a commitment of time, meeting over a period of 4-12 months at 60-90 minutes per session and with time spent in between sessions where you experiment with new moves, new behaviors, or new habits.

Coaching is not an overnight fix.  Why? Coaching often requires behavior change. And behavior change takes time: it takes time to identify the patterns, figure out the change to be made, practice the change, get feedback from allies so you know you’re on the right track, and then implement the change at scale. And that’s just for one behavior!  

What does executive coaching cost?

Executive coaching is a big investment if done well. At BIG Acts, we aim to deliver a lot of value to leaders and their organizations. And to do that, leaders need to come to coaching with a big challenge that they urgently want to address.  We seek to achieve a Return on Investment (ROI) of 5x or more for our client’s coaching investment. We can discuss package pricing once we understand your challenges.