High performance executive coaching clients, those that want to go from great to greater, often believe when they begin working with an executive coach that they are going to be fixed or that there will be heavy lifting involved. This myth sometimes keeps them, and may be keeping you, from finding an executive coach.
Most executive coaches do not want you to do heavy lifting. They want to lighten your load. They seek to cultivate and maximize your strengths, and reduce the work you can and probably should be delegating to others. The tasks you struggle with the most can eat up a disproportionate amount of your time. There is usually a better way (or better person) to do it, and executive coaches can help you find it (or that person).
Recently, a former client of mine said that she no longer judges people as she used to about their deficits. She learned to accept her own shortcomings, and that’s helped her be more accepting of others. Her focus now is on strengths. She has enhanced her organization’s performance by better utilizing her strengths and her coworkers’.
It’s not always possible to put the right people on the bus, as Jim Collins advocates. Sometimes the owners, board, boss, economics, or other restraints prevent you from handpicking your team. In my former client’s case, the owners would not let her make a few sacred cows redundant. Rather than focus on improving their deficits, she now focuses on developing their strengths. She’s found that this has taken them and the organization further and faster.
