Executive Coaching at The Practice

People seek executive coaching for all sorts of reasons. Some are referred by HR to discuss behaviours that seem to come from nowhere; others see me because they find their boss stressful to handle; for still more, managing staff or having to compete with their peers for scarce resources has tipped them into overwhelm. However, commonly in executive coaching, issues are relational.

Many people are surprised when I ask if their work problems could be replicated in early family dynamics – but so often they can be.

Charles, the son of a ‘shouty Dad,’ prevaricates dreadfully in his professional life. He worries about what will happen if he gets things wrong and regularly asks independent consultants to check his work before submitting it. 

Melissa was raised in a home where her mother pandered to her father’s needs and she often felt ‘in the way’. She works long hours, is over-qualified for her role and worries that she has never gotten ahead. She has never once asked for a promotion, pay rise or extra staff. 

James lost his parents early in life and came to me when he realized that trying to find an authority figure to replace them had led him to tolerate a series of narcissistic managers, and to put up with a career where the rewards of his hard work were often hijacked by more senior members of his team.

As these examples indicate, there is work to be done at the start of executive coaching to draw connections between our adult actions and our childhood experiences, recognizing that it may previously have been too painful to face their true origins. These learned patterns of behaviour can be very ingrained: we may cling to them because there was a time, as children, when they helped us and kept us safe, or because there’s comfort in the familiar and we are too scared to try another path. Once we understand the roots of these problematic coping mechanisms, we can start to develop different approaches for the future.

Executive coaching isn’t just about digging into personal history though; it’s also important to understand the business environment in which an individual is operating. This can mean grasping the specifics of any local circumstances (especially organizational change), investigating the complexities and working practices of an industry as a whole, and placing everything within the context of national and international policies (specifically those relating to HR). Examples of specific business scenarios that could form part of an executive coaching picture might include moving from a functional to a matrix structure (and the consequent risk of redundancy) or the cultural challenges that a British business may face if bought by an American company (and the challenge of embedding a new set of values).

The role of the executive coach is to take the personal and explore it within the context of the professional world, in order to help an individual understand what they need to remain in equilibrium and how they can set about achieving this.

For Mike, a key part of managing his stress at work was sharing intimacy with his wife at home. Sadly, that fell by the wayside when Mike began a course of prescribed medication. His reduced libido sent him into a spiral of fear that his wife may leave him, as his Mum had left his Dad. Once he had help to join these dots, Mike was able address his anxiety over his relationship. He gained a fresh perspective on the impact his executive life was having on him, and successfully applied for flexible working arrangements. In Mike’s case, he needed support to explore his past, understand the impact medication was having on him day-to-day and identify changes that would help him to maintain a sense of balance in the future.

Judith, on the other hand, did leave her job. Bright and hardworking, she had married her university sweetheart with both going on to highly paid but hugely demanding careers in the City. Once they started a family, Judith stepped back to work part-time, with the idea that her husband could be available to his employers at short notice while she picked up domestic arrangements. However, Judith continued to hold a lot of responsibility, and her company made few concessions to her changed circumstances. Over time, the pressure of supporting her husband while carrying the main load of family life and managing her own fast-paced role, took its toll. Judith was tired and demotivated, and realized she needed to stop and take stock, so she handed in her notice. In Judith’s case, she needed help to identify her priorities and to look at the challenges working in her chosen industry presented. Ultimately, Judith returned to the professional world, but she did so with a clearer sense of her own values, and within a sector where work-life balance was understood more broadly and where women were often found within senior leadership positions.