Many executives use Financial Planners to secure their financial futures. They understand that these finance specialists are valuable for establishing and maintaining a clear plan for achieving financial success. They assist executives with reflecting on their financial vision, considering their realities, identifying barriers for success and creating plans and strategies to achieve mid to long term financial goals.
Executive career coaches work much the same way, but instead of focusing on financial goals they focus on career goals. And given the amount of hours a week/month/year that executives spend working in their careers it makes good sense – psychologically and financially – to invest time in shaping the successful career that you want!
Here are our top 3 tips for preparing for your executive career coaching sessions
1/. Think about your career goal. What is it you want to achieve?
Ask yourself these questions
- What is making you unhappy, insecure, unchallenged?
- What would you like to see change?
- What does executive career coaching success look like to you?
- Why are you considering working with an executive career coach?
Understanding your desire for executive career coaching and what you’d like to achieve from it is incredibly helpful information to pass on to your career coach.
2/. Provide information before your session
Come to your meeting having already sent your career coach your LinkedIn profile, your resume, your performance reviews, your 360s feedback and any other information that you feel is pertinent for them to know about what you do and how you currently perform.
Having this information to review ahead of time gives your coach a head start in their sessions with you. And their head start is your head start.
3/. Be prepared to be challenged and to step back to listen and reflect
As an executive you’re probably used to people doing what you say, trusting your opinion, believing your word and not questioning your intentions, actions and knowledge. However the process of executive career coaching involves challenging you, pushing back, asking you the pertinent questions and giving you the feedback no one else will. Executives can often be blinded by their own thoughts and opinions, and may not see the barriers to their future career success. As experienced HR professionals we have seen many individuals who have hit career ceilings because they couldn’t see, didn’t know and weren’t prepared to hear about the behaviours, styles and actions that were preventing them from moving forward in their careers.
During executive career coaching sessions, we will explore these with you. Initially it can be difficult, but ultimately it’s liberating – because once you know what’s been holding you back you can take action to improve, change or manage those skills and behaviours.
Executive career coaching can remove ceilings and create limitless skies for people. As an executive you are empowered to set up your executive career coaching relationship to get the most out of your sessions with your coach. We encourage you to do so.
Find out more about our executive career coaching services.
Let’s Talk Career has over 30 executive coaches and career coaches throughout Australia. Call us on 1800 284 255 or email us to learn more.
We would be delighted for you to reproduce our articles, as long as they remain intact and contain the author’s details as follows: Kris Reynolds is Managing Partner at Let’s Talk Career (www.letstalkcareer.com) in Australia. Kris can be contacted on 1800 284 255 or kris@letstalkcareer.com.
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