Executive Coaches: How Can I Find the Right One? 

If you’re trying to find an executive coach for yourself or if you’re a business owner and need to find one for your top employees, you can literally take your pick. The growth of the industry has seen an explosion in the types and varieties of executive coaches available to prospective clients.
Of course, the choice of the right coach for you or for your top employees is an important one so knowing how to find the best one will make an enormous amount of difference to the  coaching experience. Simply choosing a big ‘name’ coach or one with a great looking website is often not the right choice for you or for your organization.

Understanding Your Needs

One of the first questions you need to ask yourself before engaging a coach is, “What are the expected outcomes I expect to gain from the coaching experience?” Have you already identified specific areas that will benefit from a coach’s expertise? If the coaching need is for your top personnel, do you have a certain group of people in mind? Or are you an executive who needs specific development coaching to advance your career?
Once you have a clearer idea of the sort of executive coaching you need, start collecting information from the numerous coaching websites. Many coaches offer different types of coaching¾from individual development to team building to peer-supported learning, or a mixture of all types. And some coaches offer seminars and lectures, while others offer intensive residential courses designed to coach a small group of different people.

Accreditation and What It Means

Another good idea is to gauge the quality of a coach’s experience and expertise by learning a little about some of the accreditation bodies who govern the industry. And since many of these bodies have online resources available, you can easily search for information about a prospective coach’s accreditation. Perhaps you need to engage a coach with specific skills sets such as finance or sales. The different types of accreditations offer guides to both the coach’s level of quality and area of expertise. It’s a good idea to familiarize you with what they are and what each coach offers.
Take a look at trade and industry-specific publications as well as management publications such as the Harvard Business Review to find the best coach for you or for your executives. Check out the classified section for prospective coaches, and pay particular attention to the industry-specific ones to get a good idea of the level of specific expertise each coach offers. Once you have seen what is offered by each prospective coach, it’s time to create a short list based on your original expectations.
Do Your Reseach, Then Do More!

Once you have done your research and narrowed your list of coaches, try to attend any seminars and request sales literature if available to gain invaluable insights to the types of skills and suitability of each coach for your organization or career. Ask questions to find out if their particular style of coaching will work for you. Remember that coaches trade on their record of success; good ones are in demand time and time again.