Access your free copy
of the full article!!!
"*" indicates required fields
Executive Coaching
What is it, and why do you need it?
Executive Coaching from ASK Europe
Executive Coaching is a broad term that covers a wealth of tools and programmes available to help you grow.
Modern executive coaching looks at who you are, how you think, how you communicate, strengths and weaknesses, and gives you insight and direction in your current and future career.
When executive coaching is done well it not only benefits the coachee, it benefits their entire team and their organisation as a whole. Good executive coaching pairs psychology with business acumen, improving the coachee both personally and professionally.
Who is executive coaching for?
You may think that executive coaching is only for the uppermost echelon of your organisation – but, with 30 years in the game, we can say with authority that executive coaching is for any business professional. No matter where you are in your career, investing your time and focus into a programme of executive coaching, tailored to your individual goals and skills, enables growth and development not only in your own work, but in the way you work with and lead others. If you are already in a leadership role executive coaching will make you a better, bolder, more successful leader – and if you are working towards leadership, executive coaching will give you the best tools and skills to achieve that goal.
What is executive coaching?
At its core, executive coaching is a relationship; an executive coach is there to champion, support, educate and guide you to achieve your full potential in your career, not just today, but for years to come. Clients working with executive coaches tend to be driven, motivated and career minded, and being paired with a carefully selected executive coach gives them access to a deeper understanding of themselves; not only to identify and work towards career goals, but to build better relationships in and out of work, to explore a deeper kind of introspection, to identify and develop the high-level skills that impactful leadership requires. Executive coaching opens those doors, allowing you to change the way you think, work and lead.
Good executive coaching is a partnership; you bring your ambitions, your strengths, and explore the areas you want to focus on developing – and ASK Europe carefully select an executive coach from our talented team so that each and every coachee is paired with the expertise, experience and, at times, challenges that executive coaching brings. These challenges are where executive coaching has the biggest impact; holding a mirror to your whole self; executive coaching not only celebrates your skills, it gives you deeper insight into who you are, and what you want: your executive coach brings a fresh perspective on how you perform, and how to do better.
Do I have to be a business leader to benefit from executive coaching?
No!
Executive coaching is an incredible benefit for leaders and managers, but a great executive coach can tailor the work they do with you no matter where you are in your career, and no matter what role you hold now, or are working towards.
Executive coaching offers a personalised, bespoke development plan, and ASK Europe’s executive coaches have experience in every aspect of business, every industry, every market, and with every kind of coachee.
Is executive coaching one-to-one or for whole teams?
Both!
Our executive coaching programmes are always designed around your needs – so if you are an individual looking to develop new skills, to build a more successful career, or feeling like you’re stuck, our executive coaching is the perfect programme to help you identify, pursue and achieve your goals.
Equally, executive coaching programmes can be built for team development, helping to overcome challenges in business, to manage and progress through significant change, to navigate mergers, to challenge or improve the culture in your organisation, or simply to give your employees the skills and tools they need to perform better, communicate more effectively, and streamline the way you work.
Any executive coaching process has a positive and long-lasting impact; the process of executive coaching can be very challenging, bringing deep introspection and self-reflection, and that kind of insight into how we think and communicate can be challenging…but the impact on how both individuals and teams function, throughout and following their executive coaching programmes, can be career – and life – changing.
Why choose Executive Coaching?
We know that Executive Coaching is a powerful process, at times a challenging process, which will have a huge and lasting impact on your personal growth - not just professionally, but in every way
Executive Coaching from experts
What does executive coaching involve?
There’s no one answer to this question, because there’s no one-size-fits-all executive coaching experience – but there are consistent themes that most executive coaching programmes will involve.
Most importantly, for executive coaching to work, coachees will go through a challenging programme of introspection and self-assessment. Whether it’s one-to-one or as a team the executive coaching process will involve (of course) active coaching, but also includes teaching, facilitation, new ways of thinking, communication, honesty, psychology and an ongoing assessment of where you are, where you want to be, and what progress you are making.
All executive coaching requires feedback – from you, from your executive coach, from your peers, your leaders and those you lead. Identifying areas for improvement gives executive coaching access to your strengths and weaknesses, and to how you are viewed by others; you know what your own goals are, and the executive coaching process also helps you to understand how you are viewed by others, how your behaviour and actions impact them, and might give insight into aspects of your development that you hadn’t considered.
Developing a better awareness of this bigger picture makes your executive coaching much more impactful than other development opportunities; executive coaching generates solutions, helps you to ask the right questions, and to explore the answers, establishing accountability as you move through a process of development, monitoring and assessing that process throughout.
And executive coaching isn’t a short term process; it’s a lasting relationship, between the coachee and the executive coach, of course, but also between the coachee and anyone in their stratosphere…what do we mean by this? That executive coaching won’t just improve the way you work, and the relationships you have in the office; it will improve your communication and the way you move through your life in every way. Executive coaching has a positive impact on your confidence, your communication, your planning and choices, the actions you take, and how you embody who you are, embrace your strengths, and overcome your challenges.
Does executive coaching really work?
Absolutely!
We know, from feedback from ASK Europe clients about our own executive coaching programmes, that the long-term impact on coachees is significant; that executive coaching has brought our own clients better staff retention, improved workplace culture, business growth, sustainable relationships, happier, more confident leaders, and job satisfaction to entire workforces.
Don’t just take our word for it; the impact of executive coaching is something many organisations want to see real statistics for, before they commit to a programme; the return on investment – or ROI – is as big a factor in decision making as the actual content of any executive coaching programme; let’s explore that.
Executive Coaching is just one of many pathways to professional development – but statistics show that executive coaching is, by significant margins, the most impactful; looking at responses from a fortune 500 company, a recent study found that 77% of executive coaching coachees found improvements in at least 1 of the 9 key business metrics. Of these, the biggest improvement was in employee satisfaction, with an incredible 788% return on investment.
This evidence of the success of executive coaching isn’t a standalone: they went on to conclude that, overall, a 529% ROI was delivered. (Executive Briefing: Case Study on the ROI of Executive Coaching, Merrill C. Anderson, Ph.D., MetrixGlobal, LLC.
In other studies, Manchester, Inc. surveyed 100 executives, most from Fortune 1000 companies, and found that investment in Executive Coaching saw an average ROI of almost six times the cost of the executive coaching. (Maximizing the Impact of Executive Coaching, The Manchester Review, 2001, Volume 6, Number 1, Joy McGovern, et al.)
Further, the International Coaching Federation (ICF), concluded that 86% of the organisations they surveyed saw an ROI on their executive coaching engagements, and 96% of those who had an Executive Coach said they would repeat the process.
What will I get from executive coaching?
Your executive coaching programme will not only benefit your organisation, as seen above – it will also give each individual coachee growth and development in a lot of important areas.
Achieve goals faster. Be, and remain, accountable. Open your mind, and explore new perspectives. Make better decisions. Stay motivated. Focus on your goals. Overcome challenges. Feel appreciated (and see the difference that executive coaching has on how you show others that you appreciate them). Learn how to celebrate your accomplishments. Create action plans, and action the plans!
Executive Coaching is the most powerful process you can invest in; it’s an investment in your professional development, in your own future, and in your best self.
For more information on our Executive Coaching programmes get in touch with the ASK Europe team to discuss your individual goals and how we can support you in achieving them, or download the Executive Coaching brochure, where you can find more information on the way our programmes work, and meet just a small selection of our available executive coaches.
Download the Executive Coaching brochure to find out more about the ASK Europe team, the bespoke programmes we offer, and how we can help you to identify your individual or organisational development needs, and how we can help you to meet them.
You may also be interested in the following...
Executive Coaching
Executive coaching is a powerful way to enable leaders to achieve their potential, and overcome any barriers to success. Our varied coaching programmes can be delivered as part of a wider development programme, or as a stand-alone activity.
Here at ASK we don’t subscribe to any one coaching philosophy, psychology or methodology. Instead, we see coaching as a business-led process and our first step is diagnosis – and then we work alongside the coachee to tailor a bespoke prescription of training designed to meet your specific needs, ensuring that the individual and their organisation benefit from the most effective outcome.
Our executive coaching can be an integral part of a wider organisational situation or on a 1:1 basis for executives, for teams or for groups, including cross-divisional coaching networks to address development needs in association with 360-degree feedback, as part of a framework agreement with an organisation, allowing staff to receive coaching as they require, or as part of a programme for learning transfer following a formal intervention.
Whichever route to coaching you choose, our role is to support your individuals to identify the underlying causes of any difficulties, distress, miscommunication or under-performance, and then to help those we are coaching to move to a more rewarding, effective and impactful position, adjusting their approach and behaviour, and to better leadership methods.
We carefully match our highly qualified and experienced coaches to the specific needs of the client, and create a confidential, safe and disciplined thinking space which allows coachees to explore the key issues they face and achieve their full potential.
What our clients say...
“I was pleased to hear at the interview that the winning candidate openly referenced his Executive Coaching experience as having made the difference. Praise indeed.”
Rob Cunningham, Air Commodore, RAF
What our clients say
I was pleased to hear at the interview that the winning candidate openly referenced his Executive Coaching experience as having made the difference. Praise indeed.
Rob Cunningham, Air Commodore, RAF
ASK’s expert coaches work with you to explore your situation, review your behaviours, thoughts and ambitions, and enhance your performance. Delivered either one-to-one basis or to a team, executive coaching should be co-ordinated with line managers to ensure you receive any necessary support for your development in the workplace.
Get in touch
"*" indicates required fields