I’ve written nine books about how leaders can become better versions of themselves professionally and personally. The Executive Coach’s Handbook is my first book aimed at those looking to launch careers as executive coaches. It shares secrets and advice born from experience on how to market yourself and genuinely help your clients. I’m excited about The Executive Coach’s Handbook because it’s a book about helping others.

The great Brazilian novelist and lyricist Paulo Coelho once wrote, “Fortunate are those who take the first steps.” The first steps are always the most difficult as they require leaps of faith and departure from one’s comfort zone.

My new book The Executive Coach’s Handbook is a different kind of work. I’ve written nine books about various aspects of executive coaching and intelligent leadership, but my 10^th one stands out as I’ve written it for a specific target group: those looking to launch careers as executive coaches.

The first steps are always the most difficult. 

I’m excited about this book because it gives away secrets to leadership coaching success. At the same time, The Executive Coach’s Handbook has allowed me to give back to the coaching community.

I hope that through this book, I can make a true difference in the lives of those looking to embark on this arduous yet rewarding journey.

Leadership Coaching and the Entrepreneurial Mindset

If you’re not an entrepreneur, you have an uphill battle awaiting you as a leadership coach. I can tell you from experience that you cannot avoid the entrepreneurial aspects of this undertaking.

The concept of entrepreneurship carries different meanings for different people. In the context of building a business coaching career, here’s what I think is its gist:

• The ability and willingness to market your services aggressively
• A keen eye for opportunities and the willingness to go after them once identified
• The courage to wake up without a paycheck

The Biggest Hurdle Would-Be Leadership Coaches Must Overcome

Being a successful leadership coach is like being a successful entrepreneur. It requires a specific personality makeup that allows you to be tough, resilient, and able to deal with rejection as part of everyday business.

In addition to an entrepreneurial mindset, this personality requires a good dose of maturity.

Mature people see shortcomings and failures as lessons that help them improve and succeed. Every rejection you meet as a leadership coach carries a lesson for the future. If you can look past the seemingly overwhelming aspects of rejection, you may spot its silver lining.

Measuring Coaching Impact 

As part of your marketing efforts, you must find a way to differentiate your services in a rapidly saturating market.

Measuring the impact of your coaching efforts makes your work more transparent and, consequently, more attractive to your clients.

My LeaderWatch tool helps you prove to your clients that your coaching moves the needle. It’s a simple and effective tool that clients receive well, perceive as credible, and find helpful.

LeaderWatch’s power resides in its ability to show that, through your leadership coaching, you commit to building something and don’t just execute a program.

The Inner Core Makes the Difference

The concept of the inner and outer cores and their interdependence is a fundamental tenet of my leadership coaching. It resonates well with coaching professionals and leaders worldwide.

It makes sense that our inner cores (which comprise our self-concepts, characters, value systems, thinking patterns, and emotions), should drive the leadership behaviors we exhibit. A good leadership coach drives leaders in, shifting focus to their inner cores, then drives them out, achieving measurable improvements in their leadership behaviors.

A leadership coach is not a psychologist. Coaches should never cross a line in this respect. One of the secrets I have shared in The Executive Coach’s Handbook is how to find this line.

The Executive Coach’s Handbook Is About Helping

Coaching is about helping clients identify their leadership gaps and develop their leadership instincts. My book focuses on defining the role of the coach as that of an entity responsible for creating a comfortable space where clients can connect the dots.

Leadership coaching is a process of co-discovery, not a doctor-patient relationship. The only way you can make a lasting and sustainable positive impact as an executive coach is by embarking on a journey of exploration on equal footing with your clients.

In my previous nine leadership coaching books, I sought to help people become better leaders to benefit their teams, employees, and personal fulfillments.

In Success Yourself, I focused on helping readers unleash their leadership potential. In my HR Briefs series, I tackled the issues of succession planning, performance management, and powerful executive coaching. In Cultural Transformations, I drew up a roadmap for leaders to transform their organizations and leadership.

The Executive Coach’s Handbook helps leadership coaching professionals figure out ways in which they can genuinely help their clients while exerting a significant positive impact on their leadership.

The Executive Coach’s Handbook (285 pages) is now available on Amazon

 

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