EXECUTIVE COACHING www.ceotodaymagazine.com 42 Which are the core issues which may be worked at in a coaching process in order to support the professional and personal development of executives? From the perspective of many years as a sparring partner for executives and top executives the following subjects matter most: • Understanding your inner concern Only too often we are led to believe that careers unfold coincidentally. The achievement of a prominent position is attributed rather to luck than seen as a natural consequence of the underlying intrinsic motivation and earlier decisions. Many executives know their mission i.e., what they really want to do, and this ideally matches the mission of the company. Behind such a mission you will always find an inner concern i.e., something that ultimately drives us and creates real passion. Deeper contemplation reveals that this inner concern usually emerges already during childhood. Quite often it runs like a common thread through life from there on. For example, this might be an affinity for weather phenomena curious to others, for biographies of inventors, for aesthetics, for profit-maximising etc. The inner concern is often described with words like “I always felt good when I…” or “it has always fascinated me how…”. Subconsciously, the inner concern surfaces in the course of our professional career and because we are used to its being present, we do not recognise it as something special. Executives who are aware of their inner concern can more easily perfect their skills, arrive at flows, fill others with motivation and enthusiasm. In the decisive moment, they are able to convince by using the right words. They know the key to success! A coach can provide support in revealing the inner concern and help to transform the inner concern in accordance with the relevant career level. Tell us a little bit about the correlation between life and business coaching for executives? The distinction between business coaching and life coaching is initially a mere description of which area of life prompted consulting a coach. But in the end, it is always about the same individual and his/her personality, abilities, patterns and characteristics and their consequences in life. A coaching focus that only aims at the ”what”, for example,”to learn more constructive conflict handling strategies“, may of course result in short-term successes and have a supportive effect. A coaching focus that also includes the “who”, i.e., provides the coachee with the opportunity to learn more about, or understand, him-/ herself more thoroughly, will have a much more sustainable effect. For example: To understand at which point in life a certain conflict avoidance strategy evolved and why this strategy helped back then to tackle certain difficult situations in life is important for the change process. If I can see clearly that something that brought success in the past will not help me to succeed today, it is more likely that I will shape my life and career more closely in accordance with my personality. And it reduces the risk of failing in the course of my career. Why are they both important for executives? Especially when coaching executives it is important to reflect on both business and life aspects in order to support clients to stay productive and to avoid the loss of joy and meaningfulness in their jobs. Quite often, careers can be sustained in the long-term only if there is an underlying successful life.
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