Office Affairs - Top Coach

"Executive coaches won’t make you do 50 push-ups, but they will make all credit union staff, including the CEO, more effective workers.

An executive coach is a person from outside the organization you can completely trust, who asks the right questions, listens intently to the answers and then, instead of giving advice, asks some more questions. The point of an executive coach is to develop a leader’s emotional and social intelligence, all those right brain attributes that business has recognized as imperative for success. By helping the client understand his or her own behaviour, and the way he or she is perceived by others, the client becomes a more effective leader and, ultimately, the company’s goals become easier to attain. Or so the theory goes.

Gillis typically begins the coaching process with a 360-degree assessment of the person, interviewing people who work with, for, or above his client. Personality tests are also crucial in ferreting out whether the client’s personality, objectives and style of communicating jive with the rest of the organization. Coaching is not, says Gillis, about performance issues but about achieving personal and organizationa"l goals in a risk-free environment. And confidentiality, says Smit, is at the root of the relationship. "

by Laureen griffin

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