What is Executive Coaching?

Executive coaching is an intensive one-to-one professional relationship that is structured toward improving the performance of the individual being coached and forwarding the mission and goals of the sponsoring organization.

Executive coaching is a future-oriented partnering relationship that is focused on understanding barriers to performance and designing strategies and actions to eliminate those barriers and improve effectiveness. Successful coaching uncovers barriers to high
performance by helping the performer think about and see their situation differently—leading to more focus, clarity, creativity and alignment with their purpose.

Coaching is most effectively employed when it is used to do one or more of the following:

Coaching begins with a comprehensive assessment of an individual’s professional performance and goals, followed by the development of an action plan. The overarching goal is to produce “evidence-based” results that are observable, measurable, and consistent with the performance requirements of the person being coached. A primary focus is placed upon increased awareness, self-development and, most importantly, the alignment of individual and organizational goals. On occasion, an executive may expand the coaching relationship to involve his team.

Length of Coaching Relationship

Coaching relationships can vary in duration and complexity. Factors that may impact the length of time include:

Independent research shows that the length of the coaching partnership is typically between 6 to 12 months. The number of coaching hours within this time frame range from 6 to 24 hours (1 to 4 hours per month) on average. However, some individuals require additional hours depending on their developmental needs and/or implementation of a plan

A coach may use assessment instruments such as the DiSC? or 360’ feedback to help focus the coaching process.

Short-term coaching generally takes from three-to six months and is intended to provide immediate feedback to the individual to help him or her develop a plan to address specific needs and start implementing the plan. Longer term, in-depth coaching involves a close, long-term relationship between the coach and individual to address specific needs, and generally lasts from six to twelve months. This type of coaching will involve more-in-depth data collection and analysis with an intensive feedback session. Generally, a coach will continue to work with the client until the plan is implemented.

Types of Coaching Relationships

Three different types of coaching relationships are common: external, internal, and supervisory.

External coaching is a facilitative one-to-one, mutually designed coaching relationship between a coach hired from outside of an organization, often with a specialization, and a key employee who is accountable for highly complex decisions with wide scope of impact on their organization.

Internal coaching has all the same components but, according to the American Management Association, “Internal coaches are more frequently used for managers (46%), supervisors (47%) and all employees (43%). However, using external coaches for these levels tends to have a higher correlation with coaching success.”

Supervisory coaching occurs in the course of day-to-day interactions between managers and employees, and is often most successfully executed when the manager has been specifically trained in coaching and the organization has embraced a “coaching culture.”

Avenues to Coaching

Whether provided internally or externally, coaching of an individual comes about through several distinct routes and varies from organization to organization. Here are some of the most commonly found ways:

ITDC offers four coaching options.

If upon completion a leader requires additional coaching for any unfinished work, he/she may request and extension of services.

The process for acquiring an ITDC coach is as follows.