Five Signs You Should Hire an Executive Coach
By Marla Skibbins & Marly DiFruscio
As a manager, it’s important that you are consistently working on your ability to manage your team. The manager influences at least 70% of team engagement, and we know that only about one in 10 have exceptional talent to manage (Gallup).
One of the most effective ways to continuously work on your growth potential is to hire an executive coach. We often get the question “But why do I need a coach to do that?”. Although circumstances can differ for everyone, here are the five biggest reasons why an executive should hire an executive coach:
You are a newly promoted leader.
How do I navigate now at this level?
Many newly promoted leaders don’t have their sea legs when they take on that new role. A coach can be a support in finding those sea legs by getting clear about who you (this new leader) want to show up as, and help you create repeatable structures that will make the boat sail smoothly, strongly, and in a positive, impactful direction.
How do I own my new authority ?
Often new people leaders feel like they may have gotten the role on a “fluke”, or by mistake. Coaching can be a great support by offering clarity into the mindset that may be at play and by supporting you as a new leader to shift to a more empowering mindset. You may also struggle by continuing to operate at the altitude you used to operate at, causing you to get stuck in the weeds of the work at hand. A coach can support you by helping you elevate your thinking and POV into one with a broader scope.
How do I scale the impact I have had personally through people at this level?
New leaders can struggle with creating a blueprint of their success and then using their direct reports to scale that success to bigger outcomes. A coach can help you unpack what success has looked like and facilitate the path forward to scale.
You are a people leader that wants to inspire greatness in yourself and those you lead.
What is my brand of leadership and is it inspiring?
Working with a coach can help you create clarity about your authentic core and what makes you a powerful leader. They will help you unearth and hone in on your “happy leader DNA” and then translate both that DNA and your authentic core into your work. This becomes your brand as a leader and will trickle down into those you lead.
What is the impact I want to have on the team and the broader organization?
Coaches spend time during their sessions with you getting clear on your values and goals. In addition to honing in on your brand, they will facilitate your discovery of the impact you want to have and how to get there. Your coach will weave in the goals and values of your organization in order to guide you towards that desired impact.
Do I have a clear vision and purpose for myself and for where we are going in our team?
While executive coaching often focuses on the individual, we all have an impact that goes on to affect others. During your time with your coach, you will do vision work and future planning for yourself and the goals you want to achieve. With the help of your coach, you will be able to dig deep into a clear picture of where you are going next and how this will affect your team and organization.
Your interactions with those you lead don’t always go well (you may not even be aware of this).
You think your interactions are fine and yet you get feedback to the contrary.
Do you get feedback from your team or direct reports that you aren’t a good listener? Are you too direct, or perhaps the exact opposite, and are too avoidant? This feedback is extremely important to receive and work on. Your interactions may cause swirl within your team, costing the organization money and affecting time schedules. When working with an executive coach, they will often utilize feedback to guide the goals of your engagement. Active listening, good communication, and intent vs impact are all topics that a coach can work on with you in order to facilitate better interactions within your team.
You get frustrated by your direct reports or others in your organization.
Conflict is an integral part of working with your team and is not always supposed to be a negative concept. Working with your coach will allow you to better plan for conflict and guide you towards communicating your frustrations with your direct reports or others in a meaningful way.
You have a negative internal script about people in your organization.
A negative internal script will continue to eat away at your relationships with people and your organization. Your coach will work with you to go over the reasons behind these internal opinions and work with you to reframe your mindset and awareness about others.
You want to support your team to have a high-performance culture.
Are you masterful at creating psychological safety?
Psychological safety is at the core of engagement and is fundamental in high-performing teams. It is the key for team members to feel safe, be vulnerable, and take risks with one another. Do you know how to foster this kind of safety and vulnerability amongst your team? With your coach, you will garner a new understanding and learn new skills in order to best support your direct reports and allow them to become a high-performing team.
Do you dedicate a significant amount of time with the team developing behaviors that lead to high performance?
As a leader, it falls on you to keep developing your direct reports. In a way, you need to become a coach yourself in order to ensure your directs are continually learning and developing a way that allows the team as a whole to be high-performing. In order to coach, you need to also be coached. If you want your team to work on their own development, you must also lead by example. In addition to this, your coach can act as a guide on your own journey as a coach for your team.
Do you know how to create a feedback culture with built-in accountability?
Feedback is truly an integral part of any high-performance team. Feedback allows everyone to hear their strengths and opportunity areas and allows for constant development and growth potential amongst everyone. Does your team regularly share feedback in a way that is constructive and allows everyone to take responsibility? Working with an executive coach will guide you towards understanding, delivering, and receiving feedback not just for yourself, but also with your team.
You want for yourself or your team to be more failure resilient and innovative.
Do you know how to support yourself and your team in finding meaning in the work you do?
When your work, team, and organization hold meaning for you, you will find yourself in a better mindset for your work and personal life. It also provides safety and growth opportunities for your team as a whole. Circling back to a point above, coaching will offer you great support in visioning, finding purpose, and really nailing down this meaning for yourself and in turn, for your team.
Do you and your team know how to handle failure when it occurs?
Failure is an essential part of life and work. It showcases holes in your system that can be fixed, provides feedback on areas that can be perfected, and continually shows the growth potential that you and your team have. Working with your coach will guide you towards a mindset that allows you and your team to be more failure resistant and to see failure for what it can be - an opportunity to be better than before.
Do you and your team members have a clearly defined growth mindset to allow for continued innovation?
It is important to remember the distinction between a fixed vs a growth mindset. In order for you and your team to remain innovative, you need to work from a growth mindset. An executive coach can provide the key support you need to tap into these mindset differences and help facilitate you and your team’s journey towards growth and continued innovation.
If you find yourself looking over this list and nodding to one or more of the statements or questions, then it would serve you to speak with a few coaches and find a good fit. (Check out this article on How to Choose an Executive Coach). You can also reach out to us directly at info@levelupeq.com to learn more about Level Up EQ and our scalable coaching program.