Every great athlete has a great coach behind them. Tom Brady had Bill Belichick. Michael Jordan had Phil Jackson. And in the movie world, who can forget Mr. Miyagi and his iconic “wax on, wax off” training in The Karate Kid?
The same is true for a whole lot of top-notch business leaders. Oprah Winfrey has worked with a personal coach for most of her legendary career.1 Apple co-founder Steve Jobs worked with leadership coach Bill Campbell.2 Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt worked with Campbell, too, and even co-authored a book about him.3
Even if you’re not running a Fortune 100 company or successful enough to give away hundreds of free cars to a live studio audience, working with a coach can be a major benefit for you and your business. But with so many types of coaching available, you might be confused about which one you need and how leadership coaching fits into the mix.
So let’s get an overview of what coaching is and what makes a great coach. (Hint: It has nothing to do with wearing a Patriots sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off.) Then we’ll look at leadership coaching and how it can benefit you and your business.
What Is Coaching?
The term coaching comes from the idea of a stagecoach, one of the earliest forms of public transportation. Beginning in the 1600s, stagecoaches were the fastest way to get from point A to point B.4
By the 1800s, the word coaching expanded beyond transportation and referred to helping people advance personally and professionally. A teacher, for example, might coach a student to pass an exam or reach a learning goal.5
Today, coaching is defined as a partnership that helps you move from where you are to where you want to be in a particular area of your life—personal or professional. Coaching helps you figure out what habits and ways of thinking you can change to overcome challenges and reach your full potential.
What Is a Coach?
Think of a coach as a thought partner trained to help you get clear on the changes you want to make and obstacles you need to overcome to grow. In areas from business and leadership to sports and entertainment, a good coach helps you unlock new perspectives, creativity and problem-solving skills, guiding you as you discover ideas from within that make you stronger, healthier and more productive.
What Makes a Great Coach?
No matter what area you want to grow in, you need a coach with a proven track record who’ll actually help you take new ground. So what should you look for in a coach? You want someone who’s a pro at applying these skills:
- Objectivity with no agenda other than making you more effective
- Connection to build deep trust
- Curiosity to ask empowering, open-ended questions
- Active listening to understand your perspective
- Emotional and intellectual awareness of your needs
- Ability to challenge you to stretch and grow
And what does a great coach not do?
- Try to solve your problems for you
- Offer advice or act as a mentor
- Set the agenda and overpower you in the process
- Pass judgment
- Operate like a consultant or business expert that tells you what to do
- Fail to hold you accountable
- Analyze behaviors (that’s a therapist’s job)
- Place limits on your growth
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What Is Leadership Coaching?
Now that you’ve got a coaching overview, let’s dive into leadership coaching—what it is, how it works alongside executive coaching, and the right coaching fit for you.
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Leadership coaching is a one-on-one partnership between a coach and client designed to help you make the most of your strengths and overcome your challenges and limitations to lead in a way that’s aligned with what’s most important to you. A leadership coach helps you improve how you communicate, make decisions, solve problems, and lead a team. The goal? To help you grow as a leader so you can reach your potential and empower the success of those around you.
You might hear leadership coaching and executive coaching used interchangeably. Why? Because both help you tackle personal and professional roadblocks so you can take on more responsibility and make a bigger impact.
EntreLeadership Executive Coaching is leadership coaching at the highest level. Our Executive Coaches help business owners and top leaders sharpen skills like:
- Time management
- Delegation
- Communication
- Critical thinking
- Conflict management
- Strategic planning
- Visionary leadership
- Strategic decision-making
With leadership coaching, you not only drive your business’s growth but also become a better leader, partner, parent and friend. Talk about a confidence booster!
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Get the support, connection and accountability you need to accelerate your leadership growth and accomplish your goals. Learn more about our Elite Executive Coaching or Advisory Groups to find out which is best for you.
What About Business Coaching?
We don’t want to muddy the coaching waters, but the truth is, they might already be muddied when it comes to business coaching. So let’s quickly clear up what it is and what you might need instead.
Business coaching is when a coach works with you to improve how you manage and run your business. Their goal is to help you navigate daily challenges, solve specific problems, and grow your business. But here’s the catch—you can’t run your business well without first working on personal growth. That’s why leadership or executive coaching is often the first step to becoming a stronger business leader. If you want someone to tell you how to run your business, you might actually need a business consultant.
What’s a Business Consultant?
A business consultant offers advice and solutions based on their experience. They typically diagnose problems, provide a plan, and tell you what steps to take to fix specific business challenges. While coaching helps you grow and improve from within, consulting focuses on delivering expert guidance to solve a particular problem.
The catch with business consulting is that the advice is based on the consultant’s experience, not yours. Sometimes the action plans end up collecting dust on the shelf instead of getting implemented. With leadership coaching, since you create an action plan with your coach, you’re more bought in and actually accomplish the results you hope to achieve.
Benefits of Leadership Coaching
All clear on business coaching and consulting? Awesome! Let’s shift back to leadership coaching and the three key benefits it brings: finding answers from within, gaining accountability, and reaching your full potential.
Finding Answers From Within
When you’re leading a business, you don’t need a coach to tell you how to run it—that’s your job because nobody knows you and your business like you do. But what you do need is an expert in the coaching process who will walk alongside you with a curious, you-centered mindset, someone who asks you powerful questions that tap into what you want to work on and then empowers your action plan.
Anyone who presents you with a 10-point report on what you need to change and how to change it isn’t a coach, they’re more like the business consultant we talked about earlier—or a boss. Your leadership coach won’t give you lists and answers. They’ll help you identify the areas where you need to grow and collaborate with you to help you achieve results you’re proud of.
Gaining Accountability
One of the best—and hardest—things about running a business is that all the responsibility falls on you. You get to make decisions, follow your vision, and solve problems. But it also means no one is there to hold you accountable, and that’s a big risk. Why? Because we’re better when we have someone to keep us focused, help us follow through, and push us to get things done.
That’s where a leadership coach comes in. They’re a reliable partner who’s always in your corner, challenging and supporting you so you stay on track with your goals. As legendary women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt said, “Accountability is essential to personal growth . . . How can you improve if you’re never wrong?”
Reaching Your Full Potential
Sure, it would be nice to have it all together, but the hard truth is, none of us do. No matter how talented you are, there's always room to grow—weak spots to work on and strengths to take to the next level. A good leadership coach helps you become aware of areas where you can grow and remove the roadblocks getting in the way of reaching your full potential.
Why Work With an EntreLeadership Coach?
Now for the million-dollar question: Where are you stuck as a leader and what are you doing about it?
Over the past 35 years, business executive Dave Ramsey grew Ramsey Solutions from a card table in his living room into a $250 million national brand. Along the way, he says he also grew from being a bad boss into a leader worth following—and a devoted husband, father and friend.
After surviving countless growing pains, Dave firmly believes that when it comes to business leadership, you’re both the problem and the solution to personal growth and your company’s success.
That’s where the EntreLeadership Executive Coaching program comes in. It connects you to top-tier coaches who help you uncover what’s really holding you back so you can thrive in business and life.
So why work with an EntreLeadership executive coach? Here are just a few reasons:
- You’ll partner with the best in the industry to reveal hidden roadblocks.
- As you grow personally and build confidence, you’ll become a stronger leader.
- You’ll gain clarity on what stage of business you’re in and what to focus on to drive your business forward.
- You’ll create a customized action plan with your coach.
- You’ll have an accountability partner dedicated to helping you achieve results.
- You’ll even learn how to take the guesswork out of business growth using the EntreLeadership System.
What are you waiting for?
What’s Next: Become the Leader You’re Meant to Be
Get the support and accountability you need to accelerate your growth and accomplish your goals.
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