History of Coaching can be traced back to the time of Socrates, over 2400 years ago. Socrates used dialogue and questioning to elicit greater insights and understanding through questioning and reflective reasoning. From 1990’s onwards organizations started using Coaching as a common management practice.
Now, let’s look at what is coaching and executive coaching means,
ICF (International coach federation) defines coaching as,
A partnership with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.
Coaching is a client centric, client driven process, which is quite different and unique from other services such as counselling, mentoring, consulting and training.
And now for Executive coaching, which works mostly with senior managers or leaders within an organization ( i.e Team leads / Directors / vice president’s or CXO’S/ CFO’S/ CHRO’S /CIO’S ) etc.
These sessions could be either face to face or over the internet / virtual meetings. Depending on the availability of the time and depth of the business challenges, executive coaching sessions conducted either one on one or in groups.
Let’s look at the some of the Executive coaching definitions from the coaching fraternity
Executive coaching is a professional relationship between a trained coach and a client (who may be an individual or a group) with the goal to enhance the client’s leadership or management performance and development. Through a process of inquiry, dialogue, and other tools, the coach serves as a thought partner to help the client examine and develop his or her decision-making, experiment with new ways of thinking and being, and commit to action steps that help achieve the client’s goals.
(Source: Jeffrey E. Auerbach, Ph.D., MCC)
“Executive Coaching is a company-sponsored perk for top high potential employees. It is a customized and holistic development process that provides deep behavioral insights intended to accelerate an executive’s business results and effectiveness as a leader. This coaching is based on a collaborative relationship among the executive, his/her boss, his/her human resources manager, and an executive coach.”
(Source: Karol Wasylyshyn)