I was staggered to find that one of the biggest problems facing CEO’s even in this world of information and technology is that of Loneliness! And yet, here’s the thing, nearly 66% of CEO’s do not receive coaching or leadership advice from outside consultants or coaches.
Those individuals who did have a coach said that they enjoyed the process of coaching and leadership advice, helping them become more aware of their blindspots and where they could improve their leadership fingerprint.
I consider myself lucky really, as my business partner Mark Foster is a 5 time Olympian and had a career as a professional athlete for over 22 years, in that time he set 8 world records as a swim sprint specialist. There is a certain mindset that goes with successful athletes, they are always looking for improvements and we all know that most, if not all of them have relied on their coaches to help them perform to their full potential. We are both able to bounce issues around and come up with a better solution, mainly because we can stay focused on our outcome.
As a business leader it can get lonely at times, I have often found myself so confused about which bit of advice I should take from the various so called guru’s on how to market our business that you could easily go around the bend and back again and still not make a decision!
So what am I attempting to say here? Well, I know from personal experience that coaching works, I have had such a deep level of awareness from my own coaching sessions, and I also know from the feedback I’ve received over the years from clients that coaching was a game changer for those who fully engaged in the process.
In the corporate world where the pace of business is stuck on a treadmill of busyness and senior leaders working long hours it’s no wonder that maintaining any balance between work, family and self has almost disappeared.
I do really get this, I chased a career at the cost of dragging my family all over the place, with our young kids going from school to school and moving house a number of times in the process. I went from being very competitive and fit as an Ironman triathlete to being sluggish and over weight, with very little energy for anything else other than a glass of wine and bed when my day had finished.
There are lots of Coaching businesses out there and we’d suggest that you just need to take action and lean into the process of finding a coach that you feel you can trust, it may well be that you have a number of sessions before you find the right coach, and that’s OK.
Click here to find out more about our Executive Coaching & Development Programmes http://www.thelongandtheshortofit.biz
Here’s a link to a survey from Stanford University written by David F. Larcker looking at CEO’s and coaching which you might find useful. http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/2013-executive-coaching-survey
