1The Executive Coaching Context
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts
—Winston Churchill
What Is Executive Coaching?
In the most basic (and driest) terms, “executive coaching is a regular one‐on‐one development process designed to produce positive changes in business behavior in a limited time frame.”1 Building from there, when I am hired as an executive coach, I serve as a professional reframer, cheerleader, sounding board, and accountability partner to my client. I help you develop awareness about yourself, help you unearth your challenges, and create actionable goals related to them, and then hold you accountable for achieving those goals. And the ideal result is an improved situation where you thrive (and if you lead a team, it will thrive, too).
Coaching isn't therapy because the focus is forward looking, not backward, and is strongly focused on action and results, rather than unearthing the reasons for past and present behaviors. Coaching isn't consulting either because a coach is not telling you what to do, or even making strong recommendations about what you should do, which we expect from consultants.
The essence of coaching is that we all have the answers inside ourselves, and the role of the coach is to help us access our own answers by shifting perspectives, developing new insights and strategies, and accessing new resources.
Executive coaching is different from life coaching. Life coaching helps people attain ...
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