I meet Governance Professionals daily as part of my work and I know what a confident, knowledgeable and together bunch of people you are.  You regularly hold your own in the boardroom; meet the daily challenges of the role without batting an eyelid; lead a successful team; garner respect and ooze authority and follow a well-planned career plan.  Many of you wouldn’t dream of thinking that you ‘needed’ a coach.  After all coaching is for more junior people who haven’t got this stuff right?  Or for people who are failing?

Wrong – if that was the case why do so many Executives have coaches?  Coaching is for high performers, at any stage of their career, to help them become even more of a high performer.

Think about the analogy of running a marathon.  Most people can enter a marathon, download a training plan, follow it and finish a marathon.  But if you employed a running coach maybe you would do it much faster and more efficiently. You would probably protect yourself from injury, eat the right food and develop habits that you would benefit from long after the marathon was complete?  Not only could a running coach help to get the best out of yourself, they could also provide support and motivation when things were getting tough.

Employing a coach during your career, even when you have reached the top is the same and can have a transformative effect.

• Coaching can help you understand your values and your motivations and check that you are getting the most out of your work life (and balancing your home life). If something just doesn’t quite feel right a coach will help you to work out why and make adjustments.  You spend thousands of hours at work in a lifetime so wouldn’t it be better if you enjoyed it?
• Coaching can help you to reach your full potential by understanding your strengths and how you can use them to achieve outstanding performance. Maybe you have some blind spots that might be holding you back.  A coach will help you to really understand yourself and to use this knowledge to achieve what you want to.
• Coaching can help if you want to make a change or have a dream you want to reach, but you have always been too busy to make it happen. Or maybe it feels too daunting to start.  Coaching will support you to be clear about what you want to achieve and to develop and follow a plan to achieve it.  Your coach will hold you to account for the actions you decide to take so you will achieve what you really want and far earlier than you ever imagined.
• Coaching can help you to take time out simply to think about what you are doing and how you are doing it. Sometimes we all need to take a step back to review and reset.

Coaches help you increase your self-awareness, your confidence, your courage, your communication – whatever you need to reach your full potential.

When I was a company secretary I used a coach three times to help me step up to a new role, manage significant change and start a new career and each time achieved far more than I ever imagined I would.

Many of my coaching clients have said that at first they did not know what to expect from Coaching, or how it would translate into positive outcomes at work. After we have worked together they understand and are very positive about the benefits, but it can be difficult to explain to someone who has never had the experience.   I am therefore pleased that my accrediting body, the International Coaching Federation have produced this 2 minute video which I hope will help. It provides an introduction to professional coaching, and explains the benefits of partnering with a coach to achieve goals:- https://vimeo.com/136645385

Contact me if you want to learn more about how I can help you to thrive and excel in your career: lesley@lesleyward.co.uk