What is executive coaching? Coaches help executives increase their productivity, quality, work relationships and work satisfaction by increasing their emotional intelligence. They also help
executive define authenticity and values. Skills, training, education and experience will get you in game, but higher up you go, more your emotional intelligence makes difference.An executive coach is part advisor, part sounding board, part cheerleader, part manager, part strategist. And, evidently, part guardian angel. “A coach may be guardian angel you need to rev up your career,” says MONEY Magaine.
Harvard University research shows that 85% of top performers’ and managers’ success is due to 20 people skills that can be learned and mastered. We can increase our emotional intelligence over time, unlike our basic IQ, and it matters more to happiness and success. It is crucial for executives and leaders.
According to Warren Bennis, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Business Administraion, USC, “Emotional intelligence, more than any other asset, more than IQ or technical expertise, is most important overall success factor.”
One executive coach says that he “helps executives and teams reach peak performance in both their professional and personal lives.” Some of areas that might be addressed are leadership, communication skills, team building, stress management, conflict resolution, overcoming blocks to success, emotional intelligence, and work-life balance.
A MAJOR GROWTH INDUSTRY
According to “The Economist,” (Dec. 2002), executive coaching is growing by about 40% a year.
It’s a major growth industry says Harvard Business School Journal, July 2002. “At least 10,000 coaches work for businesses today, up from 2,000 in 1996. And that figure is expected to exceed 50,000 in next five years. Executive coaching is also highly profitable; employers are now willing to pay fees ranging from $1,500 to $15,000 a day.”
Start-Ups Magazine names coaching as number two growth industry after IT (Information Technology), and says it’s number one home-based profession.
Why boom? John Kotter, Professor of Leadership, Harvard Business School, says it’s pace. “As we move from 30 miles an hour to 70 to 120 to 180…as we go from driving straight down road to making right turns and left turns to abandoning cars and getting on motorcycles…the whole game changes, and a lot of people are trying to keep up, learn how not to fall off.”
