How Do I Know I Need an Executive Coach in 2025?
Having an executive coach is an asset. Finding the best executive coach for you, is an unparalleled asset. Having a coach that isn't a good fit doesn't work. Finding the absolute best executive coach for you is tricky. Despite the boom in coaching in the last 10 years and in particular the last 5, the seasoned executive coach is a rare commodity.
How to Identify the Best Executive Coach for Me
To identify the best executive coach for you, you want to see that they've done the work. Now I don't mean the work as in the exact job that you have done, or that they’ve even been in your industry.
They do NOT need to be an expert in your area.
Many people are surprised by that, but the requirement for having expertise in your role or industry would fall more under the category of mentorship. Mentors should have that experience and expertise, but an executive coach needs to:
Be an expert in change, organizational change but in particular behavioral change, and
Have worked as hard on themselves as they are asking you to work on yourself.
That's the expertise that’s recommended. So, let's just say you found the rare commodity, that asset, the best executive coach for you; when do you need them? It's definitely not all of the time.
Navigating External Changes with an Executive Coach
Having an executive all the time, or much beyond one year, isn’t recommended. The whole purpose of coaching is to move you to the next level and to do so in a way that means you can sustain the changes without the coach. The 2 most common times in a Leader’s career are when executive coaching is most valuable:
When you know you want to get promoted within the next 12 months, and
Within 90 days after your promotion
In both of those cases, having an expert, external perspective is absolutely fabulous. These aren’t the only times to have an executive, though. It can be an equally valuable asset to have executive coaching when:
The company has changed direction such as being in need of realignment, turnaround, or has merged or acquired. or
A new initiative, function, or region is being launched, for example, as in so many companies right now, AI, data science, or overall digital strategy has been elevated to a dedicated function.
In each of these situations, the leader is presented with change that’s introduced outside of themselves and is mirrored by the need for an internal recalibration. Nothing is good, bad, right, or wrong here, it’s purely a recalibration. A new approach, increased confidence, or sharper focus are needed.
Navigating Internal Change with an Executive Coach
Due to external changes presented by the company, or a change in your season, we are called to examine our professional life with the goal of changing the lens we look through and therefore our focus.
Whether you’re ramping up for the next decade, are considering the final chapter, or now know you want to go as far as you can in your career, having a skilled sherpa can be life-changing.
The Hardest Time to Have an Executive Coach
If you’re facing the need for a personal turnaround and reset of your leadership style and focus, then this is the ideal time for an executive coach, so long as they are the right fit you. Yes, I’ve said this several times because I can’t underscore that enough.
When something truly isn’t working in your leadership, then this is when having the right executive coach for you is an absolute godsend. Perhaps your style or focus has been so off-center that your direct manager, the SLT, or the board, are asking for either your reboot, or that you get the boot. This requires surgical precision, an ally who is deeply seasoned, and an elegant sherpa who doesn’t shy away from the political landscape.
This situation is now not only about developing a new level of confidence, heightening your skills, adjusting your style, and sharpening your focus; now it’s about resuscitating your reputation, your career and in turn keeping your life path on track.
Whether new leadership were hired and you haven’t synced with them yet, you dropped the ball on a significant part of the project, or there’s a performance improvement plan in place (to your surprise), seeing a new path forward can be difficult if you have no idea of what ‘new’ means because you’ve never done this before. Now your sherpa should be carrying a really big lantern to light the way.
Do I Need an Executive Coach Now?
If you said, ‘yes’ to any of the situations above, then yes, get a top-notch executive coach. And you know what I’m going to add, ‘the right one for you’.
Sometimes, the change isn’t clear. We feel it coming and want a skilled, seasoned resource to help sharpen our focus and to navigate the change.
Whether you face specific change clearly in evidence or you sense it coming, executive coaching is still the gold standard of professional development, especially if you get the right coach for you.
Join my Influence Formula newsletter and don’t miss out on advancing your career.
Written by Sharon Leckie, not by AI — experience and expertise before robots.
