Finding the Right Executive Coach is about Finding the Best Fit 

Choosing the right executive coach is an important decision for your executives and all areas. All leaders can benefit from executive coaching, but finding the best fit with a coach can seem like a tough decision, but we can help.  Let’s lay a little ground work.  

First, think of the role of your coach like a professional sports coach.  You are the professional player on the field and you need a coach who can help you maximize your performance, build on strengths and help you correct areas that are distracting from your leadership efforts or impacting your performance in a negative way.  

Coaches  do this by helping you envision your best leadership capabilities and desires, understanding the gap from where you are today and then establishing goals, developing action plans, acquiring new skills, and eliminating obstacles that stand in the way of your success.  

The coaching relationship is crucial to success and also meets your coaching needs.  Just like I professional sports, there are coaches who are better at specific things.  One coach may be excellent at helping leaders shift into high-level positions, while others are better at improving productivity.   

This will ensure you match with a coach who is committed to helping your executive grow and that there is a clear Individual Development Plan in place that fits their unique needs.  

At EDA, our coaches always tied the coaching development to the strategy of the company while there are other coaches who will only focus on the leader; however, since our coaches have all been leaders and ran business lines of their own, we believe that if the company is paying, the company should see the results because the improvement of their leaders, in the end, helps to advance the vision and strategy of the company by creating a compelling culture of leadership and a conducive, and even enjoyable, place for employees to work and thrive. 

These are basics but the real key is respect.  You will want to choose a coach that you respect.  They must be credible and deliver the coaching in a way that helps you, you feel is relevant and you can receive without feeling the need to push back continuously, unless that is a performance issue that you have with everyone and feel that way with all coaches.  In that case, you need someone who can help you understand the impact in a kind but direct and helpful fashion.  If you like and respect your coach, the coaching engagement may not always be fun but it won’t be something you dread.  You will want to go to your coach for help, just like the professional sports players do.  They know their coach can see things they either can’t see or can’t see from the same angle. 

The goal of coaching is to “take you from where you are, to where you want to be,” and to enable you to effectively compete and win in your leadership role. Choosing a coach who has this vision for your executives will help them to grow and develop to do just that.  

Steps to Choosing the Right Executive Coach  

When choosing an executive coach, here are a few tips: 

1. Identify a coach that fits your specific challenge areas or growth goals. This will help you narrow down a coach who specializes in those areas to best serve the needs of your executives and your business. Coaching is not one-size-fits-all, so determining what you need can help filter out what will not best benefit your executives or business.  

2. Choose one that you feel is credible.  Do your research. There are many styles and types of coaches. Look for coaches who make sense to you, have a proven track record of success, are reputable, have appropriate credentials.  

3. Trust your gut.  Ask for 3 coaches to interview and if you don’t find one in the 3, ask for 3 more to interview. This provides a great opportunity to connect with a coach and determine if you have a good rapport and if their coaching style is comfortable for you. Ask for examples of how they help leaders, pace of coaching, etc.  Keep going until you find the one that works for you 

4. Check your budget. You get what you pay for.  The best coaches are often more expensive because they’ve learned so much through the years and can help you in minutes do what less experienced coaching have to research and consult with others to learn how to help.  However, there are coaching efforts that help in every budget, so start where you are and then you can getter more experienced coaches as your budget increases.

A Great Partner Can Help    

Investing in your coaching is one of the best ways to develop, learn to create a great company culture, help your employees thrive, and achieve your organizational vision and goals.  

EDA’s C-Suite and executive coaches are deeply experienced and valued partners with CEOs and executives around the globe.  Click here to learn more about how EDA develops leaders at the top of the house. Or reach out to us directly at this via Contact Us.  

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