Executive coaching gives you an opportunity to look at how you can increase your effectiveness, sharpen up your leadership and improve your influencing abilities.

“Succession planning is one of the biggest issues facing business leaders today and coaching can have a major impact on the ability to develop other people”, says Carole Gaskell of the Full Potential Group. “Other key areas where it can make a big difference include getting your vision across in a compelling way that enthuses people, and improving your networking skills.”

Rather than working permanently with a coach, many executives prefer instead to tap into their expertise at certain points in their career – for example if they’ve just been promoted or start a new job. Or if they have been in the same job for a while but want to make a bigger impact, they may feel they need some outside support to trigger them to think about how they can broaden their role. It is not unusual for executives to work with a coach for two or three months, then work with another one on something else perhaps two or three years’ later.

It is important to select a coach you can get on with, but it also has to be someone who will challenge you and drive you to the next level of performance. Be sure to check their qualifications and experience as well – there are a lot of coaches out there, but they vary widely in their abilities, experience and qualifications.

Most coaching will start with identifying your strengths and weaknesses, perhaps by something as simple as an online psychometric test or a 3600 feedback exercise – sometimes involving suppliers and customers as well as employees. There can be an element of focus on weaker areas that need to be developed”, says Carole, “but executive coaching is usually more successful when it is focused on strengthening the strengths that have the biggest impact on the business”.