To get the most out of your CEO Coach, a great deal of responsibility falls on your shoulders. You won’t get what you want out of the relationship if you don’t invest in it.
Here are three vital elements to make your CEO Coaching a success.
Be Coachable
When I was a CEO, I had a coach for 17 years. Throughout those 17 years, I learned how to be coachable. My wife said that if my coach told me to lie down in the middle of the street, I would do it. I would do it because I discovered I could learn a great deal by doing what my coach told me to do.
When I started working with my coach, I had several choices; I could ignore her, be a little coachable, or be highly coachable. I chose the latter, and it made all the difference. The more coachable I was, the more I learned, and the more I improved.
I was in that coaching relationship to continually improve who I was as a CEO. I was there to optimize my performance. I was there to get better and better. And I did.
Much of What My CEO Coach Shared With Me I Didn’t Want to Do or Didn’t Want to Hear
For example, she told me that when things went well with the company, I needed to acknowledge that I made that happen. On the flip side, if things weren’t working well, she told me it was my fault!
I had a hard time hearing that. I didn’t want to believe that things were my fault. But I came to understand that the CEO role is unique. I was responsible for everything, and that meant I had to listen to the advice of my coach and change who I was as a person to achieve peak performance.
Change can be difficult, but being coachable means you are committed to change, improvement, and getting better all the time.
I became extremely coachable, and that’s what made all the difference.
Be 100% Honest
In many meetings with my CEOs, they tell me things they have never told anyone else — ever. I am honored when that happens. I also realize that we are going to move the needle in a big way.
When you trust your coach and open up and tell the full, unvarnished truth, you have opened the door to major improvements. If you don’t share what is really going on in your mind, we won’t make the big changes that can make all the difference.
My job is to help you get what you want out of your role, out of the company, and out of your life. The only way I can drill down on the most important issues is for you to share them with me. The only way for you to make significant and lasting changes is for you to open up about what is really going on so we can deal with it.
Many of my CEO clients are frustrated with the role they are stuck in as the CEO. They used to have more fun when they got to focus on what they were best at. Now, as CEO, they have to do a lot of things that they aren’t good at and don’t enjoy. Because they share this with me, we can make the changes necessary to bring back the joy they had earlier.
Share what is really going on, and you’ll watch your performance improvements accelerate.
Keep Learning
As a CEO, you are on a learning journey. Think of learning as part of the job. You may be excellent today, and tomorrow will be facing issues you’ve never seen before. I can guarantee that a learning mode will help you address these issues better and faster. You may know a lot and discover that you have an infinite amount more to learn. Aristotle said that he knew he was intelligent because he knew he knew nothing. Be like Aristotle.
You may conquer many learning curves only to discover there are new ones around every corner. The fun part of being a CEO is that you can’t help learning and getting better if you put your mind to it.
I am here to support you in your learning journey. Much of my work is identifying the areas that are most important to learn about. And much of my work is teaching you. Together we can accelerate your learning in the areas that matter most.
I have made most of the mistakes there are to make. I will teach you how to avoid them. You want to avoid the expensive business mistakes I have made and many others have made. Stand on our shoulders and skip those mistakes.
I continually learn best practices from the CEOs I coach, and I share them with all my other CEOs. While I never reveal who my CEO clients are, I love sharing the best of the best learnings. The more you have a desire to learn, the more I will teach you. The more you learn, the faster you will achieve success. In fact, I will teach you how to teach others so you can maximize your leverage as a CEO.
Contact CEO Coach Glenn Gow and Get Started Today!
My name is Glenn Gow, CEO Coach. I love coaching CEOs and want to help make you an even better CEO. Let’s decide if we are a fit for each other. Schedule a time to talk with me at calendly.com/glenngow. I look forward to speaking with you soon.
