You’ve heard about it before. You probably have glanced once at a management article praising the benefits of executive coaching. Or your friend’s boss just hired an executive coach. Or someone told you that their organization is starting to do executive coaching for senior leaders. But you don’t really know what it means. What is executive coaching? And what does an executive coach actually do?
Think of the executive coach as a “thought partner.” Just like you might need an exercise partner, someone to encourage you to go to the gym and to keep you honest when you are slacking off, sometimes you may also need someone to help you think deeply about the important things in your professional life. In that sense, the executive coach enables you to carve out time to ponder questions related to your career and work-related issues, and holds you accountable for the things you said you were going to do. For example, she can help you think deeply about what the next step in your career should be, how to deal with your demanding boss, or how to manage an older subordinate. She can support you to set goals about how you are going to navigate these and other issues, identify obstacles that might prevent you from reaching your goals, and create immediate actions that will enable you to get closer to your goals. So high-quality thinking and accountability are two important benefits that a coach can bring to the table.
Moreover, an experienced coach can provide tools and resources that will help you re-frame the way you are thinking about some situations. He can ask you open-ended questions that you never thought about asking yourself. And he will give you some advice when you are feeling stuck. In other words, the coach can help you shine a spotlight on important issues and carve the time to do something about them. If you are like most people, you are constantly thinking about these issues, but you never find the time to engage in deep thinking. You start researching for your next career move, but then the phone rings, someone walks in to your office, or you get a text, and become distracted and never get back to your thinking. Without the coach, you have the intention to do something but may never follow through.
To illustrate this point, let me draw on the findings of one particular book. «Thinking, Fast and Slow» by Nobel Prize psychologist Daniel Kahneman is one of the most extraordinary books of our time. The main thesis of the book is that our brain is “made up” of two systems. System 1, or the fast system, is our automatic, intuitive and largely unconscious mode. System 1 allows you to finish the sentence “bread and …” without even thinking about it. It also allows you to get to your work every day without needing to think about the specific exit numbers and turns that you have to take. And it helps with filling out expense reports like you have been doing them for a long time. It is our auto-pilot. System 2, on the other hand, is our slow system. It is the deliberate, analytical and consciously effortful mode of reasoning about how the world works. It is the system that you use when you are trying to figure out what 234 x 816 is. It is also the system that you lean on to help you parallel-park your car in a particularly tight spot. And it is the system that you need to maneuver an especially tricky situation at work. But System 2 is lazy and doesn’t like to work hard. That is why people tend to rely on System 1 for most decisions they make. And this where the executive coach comes in: she can help you get out of your automatic System 1-thinking, and dedicate time to activate your System 2 in order to analytically consider different issues options, and situations.
In summary, a coach helps you slow down and reflect on important things, allows you to step back and look at the big picture, supports you to develop your leadership style, and holds you accountable for doing things that you have identified as crucial for your professional life. When you work with a coach, you feel less isolated and more energized and have new ways of thinking, planning and implementing steps that empower you to achieve your goals.
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Dr. Amer Kaissi is a Professional Speaker, Executive Coach and an expert on Leadership, Humility & Ambition, Assuming Positive Intent, Psychological Safety & Accountability, Growth Mindsets & Resilience.
