10 Things Every Entrepreneur And Executive Should Expect From Their Master Leadership Coach

I have long believed in the power of having a coach to develop myself as a leader and entrepreneur so much so that I now serve entrepreneurs, business owners, and executives as their coach. I will always have coaches in my life so that I can get better at coaching others.

How the Role of Coaching has Shifted

In the business world, coaching was long thought to be something to correct underperformance. However, today, leaders consider hiring coaches to be an essential part of their growth, much like professional athletes do. Coaching in business is now used to support top producers and to generate immediate results, especially in times of change, challenges, and in pursuit of new opportunities.

The coaching industry has grown rapidly in the last ten years. The demand for coaches is creating a supply of fresh, inexperienced coaches who have minimal training but fancy websites and ads. Finding a master coach takes effort. You have to pull back the curtain and seek the truth. The investment of time and energy will pay exponential dividends.

Just like a professional athlete, having the right master coach in your corner could mean the difference in millions of dollars, saving your marriage or other important relationships, or building a legacy that you’re proud of and much, much more.

A former business client had struggled with consultants and inexperienced coaches spending tens of thousands of dollars on office hardware and software systems only to stay stuck in the same place. He then hired me and we quickly discovered his problem had nothing to do with his systems but had everything to do with how he was thinking about his people.

We worked to build an awareness in his thinking that changed his perspective of his employees. As a result, his employees became more engaged. In less than six months his issues were creatively solved and his company’s revenue increased tenfold.

What Makes a Coach a Master Coach?

Master leadership coaches first work on themselves unceasingly. As an example, I am constantly open to new ideas and philosophies. I participate in specialized training for coaches several times per year. I study coaching voraciously and take coaching seriously. I totally care about the person across from me. That’s what it’s all about anyway…helping people.

I am not shy about claiming to be a Master Coach because I seek to get better so I can help you become who you want to become more quickly and with less effort. I continue to invest the time, energy and money to be trained. I have been a leader all of my life, serving first as an officer in the US Army, and then, as an executive in several corporations for a number of years.

I have entrepreneurial experience founding and running three separate enterprises. The non-profit world has even seen me organizing a regional career transition platform called JMS where we served over 4,500 job seekers during the years after 2008.

None of these alone is sufficient for my claim of mastery. However, when you combine my investments and my experiences with the visible results of the employees and clients I have worked tirelessly to coach over 30 years, you can see that I have helped countless people achieve what they deeply desired in their businesses and lives.

When I consider the coaches I chose to guide me, I find that they all have three things in common:

1. They care deeply about people, especially me.
2. They each have incredibly high personal standards and ambitions.
3. They have a high level of self-knowledge.

These are the top three things you should look for in a coach. However, there are more. Below I share a list of ten things you should expect from a Master Coach. This will make your search easier.

10 Things to Expect from Your Master Leadership Coach

Here are ten things that you should expect from a master leadership development and personal growth coach who can help you navigate from your point A to your point B. In the process of navigating that change, you will achieve your desired goals, reach your objectives, and have the greater outcome for your business and for your life.

A master coach will bring you into a system of structure and support

A master coach is highly organized. This demonstrates the coach’s commitment to your success. The better you become, the better results you will expect from future coaching sessions. This is why there is a planned coaching schedule. Coaching is like working out. The more you stick to the coaching program, the stronger you will become.

A master coach provides an environment of accountability

You don’t want a coach who promises to hold you accountable for what you say you want. That type of coaching won’t help you grow.

A master coach will bring you into a system of structure and support where you will build the desire and discipline to want to be accountable to yourself and you will learn about accountability and the high cost of excuses.

A master coach is someone you can trust and be vulnerable with

Entrepreneurs, business owners, and executives usually have good teams of qualified people around them yet it is highly unlikely that these people can provide the insight, care, and candor of a Master Coach with whom the real issues can be unpacked. You want a coach who is not tied to your organization, friends, family, or anybody else.

This gives your coach the ability to be unbiased and totally objective. You also want to make sure your coach will keep your discussions private. In order to be open and vulnerable, you need to feel safe and your coach needs to be trustworthy.

A master coach will challenge your habitual thinking

A coach can answer questions and provide insights; however, a master coach’s primary job is not to answer questions. Your coach’s duty is to bring you into a new space where you can learn to upgrade your level of thinking and learn to ask empowering questions of yourself and others.

It is only through asking highly-calibrated questions and up-leveled thinking that you can discover new ways to attack old problems.

An example is a client who is an aspiring departmental leader at a large national corporation. When we first began our work together, there were great pressures all around. We determined that this person’s core challenge was the limiting thoughts they placed upon themselves.

Working thru and past this thought pattern required some fearful moments. The figurative hand-holding got them across to the other side of the challenge, breaking an old pattern, and showing them better alternatives.

A master coach will not agree with your conditions or circumstances

Conditions and circumstances are inevitable. We all have them personally and in our businesses. A Master Coach will help you learn to not let those conditions and circumstances have you. Coaching works well when you are clear as to your struggle or you know where you want to go. You just don’t know how to get there.

A Master Coach brings different perspectives and alternatives to your awareness so you can make the required decisions that will change your business and life.

A master coach is not your cheerleader

A Master Coach will be encouraging and inspiring to you and will promote celebrating your wins along the way and that is where it stops. Your coach will keep you moving in the direction of what you say you want and will deliver the requisite energetic supplement (figurative kick in the butt) when needed.

A master coach will equip you with the mental and emotional tools to grow

Many business owners and executives plateau in their influence and interpersonal skills. Equipping works by developing the strengths you already have, not trying to overcome your weaknesses. One of the biggest challenges I work with clients on is helping them see their undeveloped strengths.

These are not weaknesses yet are often confused as such and therefore they remain undeveloped. By equipping you, the master coach teaches, trains, and resources you to move beyond your plateau, raise the lid on your leadership, and continue to build up your strengths, including the undeveloped ones.

A master coach will provide intentional growth

In my experience, clients typically do not want to wade through all the info (much of which is conflicting) to figure out what is the best way to achieve the result they want. You don’t want to figure it out nor become the expert. You just want the result. A master coach will provide the intentional growth through study and help you get there.

I rely upon a blend of several different coaching modalities. You will start with a Presence-Based phase where we explore the immediate demands on your time and attention; the ‘big rocks”. By exploring ways to solve those big rocks, we establish our rapport and I get to watch you operate in your natural state.

Next, we establish stakeholders who will have a vested interest in your coaching outcomes. By incorporating their feedback throughout the process, we can measure the progress. In addition, I use a wide array of coaching tools and methods taught to me by great thought leaders with the proven success of their own.

A master coach will help evaluate experiences

Experience is not the best teacher. Evaluated experience is the best teacher. Most people long remember the feeling around an experience but quickly forget the learning that could have been gained from the experience. Your level of success seldom exceeds your level of personal development and growth. This growth is only done through the learning from evaluated experiences.

A master coach will hold your hand

I’ve found that clients actually want hand-holding and guidance to their Promised Land, step-by-step. When you go for what you want, fear will naturally come up, so the hand-holding is super important. You do not want to feel like you are in it alone. My clients tell me that when they do it alone they do not get what they want.

Making the Decision to Hire a Master Coach

The decision to engage a master leadership development and personal growth coach can be a real game changer for people to move from success to more success or even from success to significance. Successful people make decisions quickly and seldom change them.

Unsuccessful people are slow to make decisions and change them often. They also look for paths to success that are easy, convenient, and free. Free and cheap information is not enough. No book, internet site, app, or any amount of free Googleable information will ever replace a skilled master like me. The most valuable thing I have to offer you when you are ready to achieve your results is the experience of mastering a proven system of support that has helped thousands of people, just like you, reach the success and significance they deeply desire.

To get started, just send me an email at doug@headwayexec.com or if you are still not sure, spend some more time viewing my website; articles and pages right here. Or visit my book site “The Uncommon Commodity” CLICK HERE 

You are also invited to schedule an introductory call by checking my calendar for a 15-minute interview timeslot. Get an appointment HERE