26th Nov, 21
What is executive or business coaching and mentoring?
My guess is that anyone who has done this kind of work for long enough would agree that these situations pretty much always start the same way:
- The personal development of individuals and teams
- Teams faced with or resistant to change
- Teams facing significant new challenges such as opening up new markets
- Underperforming individuals or teams
- Key Performance Indicators such as low levels of customer satisfaction
- Business owners, executives or managers who have set themselves or had set for them the objective of achieving more. Perhaps significantly more
Essentially, individuals or teams in or about to enter pressured situations. And like the problems, the symptoms more often than not are recurring.
I heard a story this week of a manager studying for a professional qualification funded by his employer who asked his tutor if he could skip the first stage of the course? What a lovely anecdote, I wonder how the same manager would feel if a member of the team he manages asked for the same privilege or behaved in a similar manner at work – that is, look to cut corners?
Behaviour and motivation.
I have no idea what kind of organisation employs our friend. But imagine he is employed in an organisation faced with one or more of the challenges above and ask yourself if the kind of behaviour or motivation exhibited by this person on his company funded training course is the kind of behaviour and motivation that will lead a team by example?
The contradiction of course is that on one hand, he will be under huge pressure to succeed in his current role as quickly as possible, and on the other, he will be under huge pressure to uphold the vision and values of the organisation that employs him.
It is a given that successful people have the hard or functional skills they need and have ideally enjoyed demonstrable success that the people around them recognise and respect.
Soft skills and behaviour, is where executive coaching and mentoring makes its entrance.
The opportunity to help successful people move to the next level is nearly always to help them understand at a profound level the power and essential influence of the behaviours they demonstrate. From the words they use in every situation and the power of semantics, to themes such as delayed gratification and the ability to avoid behaviour such as cutting corners. These themes are the bread and butter of executive coaching and mentoring.
Back to Blog