Executive Coaching with
Backbone and Heart
A Systems Approach to Engaging Leaders with Their Challenges

Excerpt from
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction

There are four essential ingredients of executive coaching. The first is having a results- orientation to a leader's issue. To lose sight of outcomes is to waste the time, money, and energy of the leader. The second ingredient is partnership. The coach becomes a partner in the executive's journey toward greater competence and effectiveness. The third ingredient is the ability to engage the executive in the specific leadership challenges he* faces. This helps him explore what pulls him off course and what he typically avoids. He might also see the wake he creates in others as he works through his agenda.

In the fourth ingredient, the coach links team behaviors to the bottom line goals, and points out the need for executives to set specific expectations of their teams to achieve the results. This is an essential connection, defining as much as possible what specific people processes are most relevant to these distinct business goals. It keeps leaders focused on their results orientation but now widens their view to what they most need from their teams to get there. It is important in this conversation (linking results with team behaviors) to keep the leader's responsibility central.

When I coach executives, I hold three core values or principles that guide my approach. They provide the main framework for executive coaching. These principles provide an awareness that allows for an exponential increase in coaching effectiveness:

  • Principle #1: Bringing your own signature presence to coaching is THE major tool of intervention.
    Principle #2: Using a systemic perspective keeps you focused on fundamental processes. These forces either promote or impede the interactions and results of the executives you coach.
  • Principle #3: Applying a coaching method is powerfully effective when you also use the first two principles, bringing your signature presence and using a systemic approach. Otherwise, the method will achieve only short-term results.

In Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart, we will explore each of the essential ingredients of executive coaching as well as the 3 key principles.

* Note: Throughout the book I alternate "he" and "she", using them interchangeably as pronouns for the coach, the executive and the employee.
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