Executive Coaching – 10 Tips for Selecting an Executive Coach

Executive coaching is a popular business. There are estimated to be over 10,000 Executive and Business Coaches in the UK. It stands to reason that some of them will be excellent and others will be less good. I often get asked ‘what is the best way to select an Executive Coach?’

This article provides you with guidance on the way to make sure you get the coach most likely to be able to support you in achieving your coaching goals. The advice is based on research carried out with executive coaching clients, as well as information from professional coaching associations. The clients described what worked well for them and enabled them to get a coach that suited them. The article gives an account of how they were able to do this…

10 Top Tips

1. Make sure you can choose from a selection of Executive Coaches. All good Executive Coaches will offer a ‘chemistry meeting’ for free. Do not be put in a position where you have to work with someone selected for you by HR or elsewhere in the organisation.
2. When you meet the coach do you feel you can trust the person? This is critical because it will influence whether or not you will feel free to discuss your thoughts and feelings. If you feel constrained from being able to do this it will mean that you are unlikely to achieve your executive coaching objectives.
3. Do you feel the Executive Coach is interested in you and committed to your success? Or do you get the feeling that you are just one of many clients?
4. Do you feel that you and your situation are understood?
5. Has the Executive Coach got experience of your topic?
6. Ask for a description of how the executive coaching would be approached. What kind of tools and techniques would be used? Would you be comfortable with this type of approach, bearing in mind you may need to be personally challenged to achieve the success that you want from coaching.
7. In the way that the two of you interact in the chemistry session is the Executive Coach someone you would feel happy to work with? Do you warm to him/her as a person?
8. Ask about the prior Executive Coaching experience, qualifications and membership of a professional association.
9. Can a previous executive coaching client be provided for you to talk to in order to get a reference? All good coaches can and will be happy to do this.
10. Take a couple of days to make your decision; you are more likely to select the right person to work with you.

By following these tips you give yourself the opportunity to select a coach with whom you can build a strong executive coaching relationship. This provides the foundation for the work that you will do together and for your executive coaching to be successful.

Tony Goddard

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