At First Strategies, we believe that each executive we coach is creative, resourceful and fully capable of creating their own success – a co-active coaching model. Our purpose is to integrate and align the personal leadership development of the individual with the needs of the organization. Coaching provides a structured way for organizations to deepen relationships with their most valued employees while increasing overall leadership effectiveness.
Leadership development starts with self development. The best way to build leadership skills is to work with individual leaders guiding them to facilitate their own personal self improvement journey. In support of our executive coaching services, we offer a full line of assessment tools including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) for executive coaching and team building; the Strong Interest Inventory for career counseling and other selected assessment tools. For individual and organizational leadership development, we offer the Leadership Effectiveness Assessment 360° (LEA) feedback tool and the Leadership Feedback System, (LFS).
Coaching Phases….
I. Design the Alliance :
We conduct a one-on-one conversation between the coach and the executive to:- Establish a trusting relationship
- Review career life history
- Identify values and personal goals
- Identify accomplishments
- Define coaching goals and outcomes
- Establish coaching process logistics
II. Create a Platform for Learning:
We build Personal Awareness through:
- Assessment of personal preferences with MBTI
- Assessment of leadership effectiveness through 360˚ Feedback
- Use of vision and perspective
- Conduct gap analysis
- Identification of developmental agenda
III. Learn While Leading:
We conduct Coaching Conversations around the Executive's Issues- Ongoing reinforcement of insights
- Try new roles, behaviors and tasks
- Increase behavior options
- Initiate action plans to support desired behaviors
- Hone leadership & communications capabilities
- A day in the life of…
IV. Getting It In Your Bones:
We reinforce New Roles and Self-Coaching Behaviors- Assessment of goal achievement
- Feedback on action plan implementation
- Improve management communications
- Create structures to reinforce learned behaviors
- Expand creative problem-solving
- Enhance customer services
- Improve time management
Examples of Executive Coaching Outcomes…..
- Leadership Coaching – A senior director who had taken on additional departments became overwhelmed and appeared no longer able to manage effectively. Through coaching, she was able to recognize her problem-solving, communications and delegation styles needed to be adjusted to meet her new level of management responsibilities.
- Management Skills Coaching – Working under a new Vice President, an up-and-coming director had a series of failed projects. Working with a coach, he quickly identified the new set of competencies he needed to work on. In addition to honing his tactical project skills, he added more strategic thinking and staff management skills.
- Assimilation Coaching – A young executive was brought in from the outside to assume a COO position. The executive coach helped this person understand the organizational dynamics and how best to accomplish a business agenda while successfully taking command of a new team.
- Leadership Development – to align leadership skills, a new senior executive team identified 8 leadership competencies considered essential to achieving the strategic plan. We implemented a 360˚ feedback review for the entire management team of 35 people. Working with executive coaches in workshops and one-on-one sessions, each executive developed a personal action plan to strengthen performance in key areas.