The 12 Common Exec Coaching Themes That Come Through Exec Coaching & The Recommended Actions

I have coached C-Suite execs for over a decade, and there are always a number of common themes. There are 12 that come up every year with a recommended action associated with each:

1. Performance Anxiety - execs struggle to ensure their team perform based on previous bad results or disconnect from their goals. Often performance anxiety comes from department leads who do not know how to motivate their team members when poor performance creeps in.
   Recommended Action: Address performance anxiety early and often, run retros and agree on areas that need addressing and improvement

2. Bad Goals - most execs struggle with poor goals set and their team is too disconnected and feels it doesn’t connect with their teams. OKRs are often the issue with executives who do not know the best cadence for updates (for themselves or the exec team) or when to ask for the next steps or follow-up items to improve performance. 
   Recommended Action: Many do not revisit and edit these goals and this causes a number of second and third-order effects. Review goals regularly and ensure they ladder into company-wide goals

3. Not The Expert Anymore - an active decision for most executives is to step away from learning everything in their discipline, many struggle with this move and want to ensure they keep on top of important shifts. Most exes understand once they make the proactive decision to move to management and trust in their management team(s) they can step back and step up when required.
   Recommended Action: If you want to continue to learn, great this is imperative for a long and successful career, however, understand you will be spending as much time managing up and around you as you will with your team members and understanding every day-to-day deliverables. Manage your time and know when to lean into experience or expertise.

4. Managing Their Peers - “I do not play the game”, “I’m not a game player”, “I am losing trust with my peers” and “we do not get on” are common phrases I am told, this is down to many department heads and C-Suite choosing not to build rapport and developing a sense of how the leadership culture works. The game plays even when you opt-out, so you either have to understand and navigate or play, often understanding status and PQ/political intelligence* is critical for your success, your department's success and ultimately how you navigate and ensure your business moves forward towards goals even when you do not want to be part of the games.
   Recommended Action: Actively help to build relationships with your peers and actively decide when to apply PQ and lean into improving working relations and when to apply the darker arts of the unwritten rules of the corporate game.

5. Poor Priorities - many C-suite leaders talk about how their priorities and their team's priorities are different and rarely align. Most execs will not address the prioritisation once set or rewrite when revisiting goals to make them more relevant and help to improve performance. Often results in poor results.    
   Recommended Action: Work with your team leads to review priorities and ensure they align, especially cross-functionally, without this you will be building a wall between you, your teams and their colleagues while under-performing.

6. Bad Communications - department leaders struggle when their communication drops or the way the company communication declines over time or when key internal team members leave, many teams turn to gossip and individuals who appear gatekeeping information to keep them updated. Often heads of departments do not know how to translate their bosses' language to their teams and causes long-term damage and distrust.
   Recommended Action: If you are a C-suite or V-suite executive proactively learning how to communicate something you do not believe in and know the team will struggle with is a unique skill the top 5% of executives have. Seek out training or coaching for communication

7. Reliance On “Over Communicating” - tools like Slack and Teams have removed the art of effective communication and deliberate communication. Chat apps are where many businesses have landed as their default comms tool and it damages deep work, often de-prioritising getting work done (managing notification vs work has become a full-time job for many) and encouraging chatter rather than work.
   Recommended Action: Build a shared principle (where you and your team agree on what are good and bad behaviours) around better communication vs over-communicating, prioritise channels and when to pick on email or move towards a document or CMS system of choice.

8. Micro Management - some C-Suite leaders do not understand where micro-management starts and where it ends. Many rely on proactive feedback from their team members rather than asking how their team members prefer management styles.
   Recommended Action: The best managers and leaders understand what motivates individuals and how to communicate and manage them specifically - improve your 1-2-1’s by understanding this and asking for centralising on what micro-management is for each team member and how they want to be managed.

9. Feeling Out Of Touch - this is natural the further up you go but the elite executives understand how to stay up with the team, where their struggles are and what they can unblock.
   Recommended Action: When you feel disconnected improve communication flow and create effective frameworks and templates in 1-2-1 and team meetings. The best employees will embrace you asking for help and wanting to fill you in on the important changes.

10. Struggle With Delivering Bad News - many managers stumble with bad news, they struggle to articulate bad news which often means bad news is a surprise and layoffs are felt much more personally.
    Recommended Action: Many struggle with understanding and communicating bad news, as they were never given training on communications or management, proactively ask for training and seek out free lessons online.

11. Surprises - when in coaching sessions no one loves surprises, many actively looked shocked and react badly, as would their teams.
    Recommended Action: Reduce bad surprises by improving communications, creating more effective dashboards and offering and more effective  

12. Training & Development—Almost all executives struggled with recommending the right training and ensuring their team members attended the courses or conferences. Some also struggled with developing personal development plans.
    Recommended Action: Look to help the team share their knowledge and learnings on their return and work through how they have put it into practise.    

Are you experiencing any of these? I am sure you are, make sure you proactively make steps to apply these or seeking out more help to progress your career and your team's performance.

Want 1-2-1 coaching with me, complete the form below and we can arrange a matching call on how to improve your performance.

*PQ Explained = Political Intelligence - PQ is about understanding which skills you have to use when you need large-scale change, when you need to apply pressure, when to navigate difficult colleagues and combative behaviours of fellow managers and executives. It is understanding the unspoken rules of the game and knowing when to step up, step in or step out of certain activities or behaviours.