Let’s start with three questions:
- Where do you want to be in your professional career one year from today?
- What is the greatest obstacle holding you back?
- What would the impact be on your life if you overcame that obstacle and attained your vision?
A coach assists you in answering those three questions. This equates to helping you play better, just as an athletic coach does for his or her players.
Let’s use the athletic coach analogy: Where do the coaches for an athlete such as Serena Williams in tennis or Michael Phelps in swimming start? Together with the athlete they build the vision of where they want to be in the future.
“I want to win gold at the World Championships.” “I want to win at Wimbledon.”
“Okay, let’s back up. That is a year away. How are you performing today? Let’s build a plan to get there.”
Your executive/leadership coach will help you create your vision, assess your current state, and build the path to attain that vision. They help you perform better every day through experimentation with new behaviors, skills, routines, education, and most importantly objective feedback. Two differences from an athletic coach, the relationship is co-equal not hierarchical and fully confidential.
Objective feedback may be the greatest gift of a coach. In the athletic arena the feedback is continuously received, while playing, practicing, and after events. In the business arena objective assessments, video, self-assessments, and assessments by others are all part of the equation and vital to your success, but can be hard to come by without a coach.
Why the focus on feedback? If you are going to make the desired progress, you need to know how you are performing from multiple perspectives.
Consider this: Who in your professional life are you completely open and honest with? Who is wholly focused on just you achieving your goals, overcoming the obstacles holding you back, so you can make the impact you want to make?
Your coach will be that person because that is what a professional coach does. Your coach helps you play better and reach your destination.
Curious to know more, sign-up for your complimentary coaching session here.
