Choosing an Executive Coach is an absolutely critical decision. Executive Coaching is a significant investment in time, energy and money, and the right Executive Coach will have a huge impact on your future.
Great coaches do much more than just ask questions. A great coach will ask lots of questions to get you thinking and working things out for yourself. Of
Here at Southern Cross Coaching & Development (SCC&D), our best coaches will be your closest
The best Executive Coaches will also be your ‘unreasonable professional best friend’, they will support you completely and without judgement. But they’ll also be honest with you, tell you what you need to hear, challenge your thinking, and push you to develop and fulfil your potential. They’ll stretch you and you'll grow professionally and personally. You’ll never be the same again!
Your coach needs to be someone you trust implicitly from the start of the process to get the best out of the time and financial investment.
Here at
We take all of our coaches through our unique Coach/Coachee Matching Matrix™ to determine their coach profile. We then take our
6 useful tips when choosing an Executive Coach for yourself or someone in your team:
1. Choose the coach you need to stretch and develop you, not just the coach you like. This can be a problem as often coaching is around discovering a blind spot, and/or developing political or emotional intelligence related to that blind spot. This makes it hard to choose what you
2. Make sure you get the right balance between someone you’ll get on with and someone who’ll stretch, challenge, and develop you. After all, it is Executive Coaching, not dating :-).
The first time I had the opportunity to be coached and to choose my own coach, I initially dismissed an Executive Director... I respected and liked her, but frankly thought she’d be a nightmare to be coached by! Thankfully I gave it more thought, considering what I actually needed, and I ended up deciding to challenge myself (which was the whole point of the coaching
3. For Organisational Coaching, we recommend you get a clear picture of what you want to achieve from the coaching and what the measures of success will look
How can you choose the coach you need, the coach to help you get
At SCC&D we have a proven 12-step process around our organisational Executive Coaching programs. Part of that is to interview the
Only then do we match the coach to the
4. Be brutally honest...are you, or the person you’re considering offering
Great coaching can do a lot of amazing things, it can develop people in a myriad of ways. But coaching is not always what someone needs. As much as we’d like to think it is, it’s not always a panacea. We always say “we’re coaches, not miracle workers!” That said, we have achieved the ‘impossible’ on some occasions. However, miracles do take a little longer ;-).
We have check points for all of our 6+ hours Executive Coaching programs. One check point comes after the 3rd hour of coaching when we discuss and assess with the coach if their
If the coach suggests that a person is not coachable (not necessarily because they’re resistant – they may need counselling instead, or more structured skills development training for example), we’ll stop the program and openly discuss our reasons for that decision with all parties. It’s a great risk mitigation strategy for the organisation who will only pay for the process up until that point. It’s also a good accountability tool.
5. If the organisation chooses the coach, be confident that feedback and reporting parameters are crystal clear.
Neuroscience proves our brains are hard-wired to be wary, it is a survival instinct. We’re hard-wired to run away from potential threat (an 'away' state), and walk cautiously towards reward ('toward' state).
We’ve found that people who have a coach chosen by the organisation usually take longer to open up and build trust. When they do eventually open up, they may never be fully open. Hence they don’t always get the very best out of the coaching.
6. Be wary of having the same coach to coach several team members in the same team.
While knowledge of the team and dynamics may be useful, having the same coach can subconsciously (or consciously) put people’s brains into a degree of threat/away state as there may be an underlying, unspoken concern about confidentiality and trust.
In many
About our Executive Coaching
SCC&D is a recognised industry leader in Executive Coaching. A measure of the calibre of our Coaching expertise is our CEO, Simon Smith, who was awarded Coach of the Year in 2013 by the International Coach Federation Australia. All of our coaches are highly qualified and deeply experienced across many different coaching methodologies.
Our best practice 12-step process around our Executive Coaching receives consistent positive client
“I’ve never come across this process before – it’s excellent, it gets results and makes such a difference”
(Deputy Secretary and Key Stakeholder driving the coaching)
Another point of difference that puts us at the forefront of the Coaching industry is our completely unique, innovative Coach/Coachee Matching Matrix™ (patent pending) which we’ve developed exclusively in-house to match coaches and
We’re proud to say we’ve never got a coach match wrong since we started in 2006.
Our process matches coaches and
When appropriate, we integrate a range of Emotional Intelligence and Leadership 360° tools, or other employee capability development, strengths or personality styles assessments into the coaching. Our coaches are accredited in a huge range of psychometric and 360-degree assessment tools, including the entire suite of
Our coaches are seasoned professionals with experience in coaching at all different levels of the organisation, from new managers to experienced middle managers and C-suite executives and SES level leaders.
Depending on the required objectives that are to be met, the outcomes and objectives can include an array of professional and personal development skills, capabilities and performance improvement across every aspect of leadership. Performance improvement can range from stepping up into a new role, career development or developing good performers to excellent performers. There is very little that our veteran coaches have not dealt with.
Our clients and coaching expertise
For more information on
The Team at Southern Cross Coaching & Development
Making the world a better place through better leadership™
