Coaching the CEO: Leadership and Fulfillment

The July issue of Washington SmartCEO featured an insightful article by Jeanine Gajewski entitled, "The Coach Approach: Case Studies on the Effectiveness of Executive Coaching". Each CEO offered their vantage point on the choice to utilize executive coaching, the return on investment(ROI) and advice to others contemplating such a choice. Clear benefits experienced included leadership development, business improvement, gaining an external perspective and work-life balance. Following are two(2) sample excerpts quoted directly from the article.

Advice from the CEO of Inova Health System, Knox Singleton, stated, "My advice would be to think of oneself as a professional athlete or performer. Each performer who gets maximum performance has a coach. Objective assessment of how you are playing, and coaching on how to perform better, are essential to reaching your full potential."

ROI input from the CEO of U.S. Credit and Collections, Rod Smith, stated, "In some ways, my coach has a capacity to give me room to grieve, which is not necessarily executive coaching, but call it what you will. At one point, I was still hesitating on implementing my plan of leaving my business and through talking with my coach, I got really clear that after taking care of the business, actually making it more profitable and a healthier business, that I wanted to leave. I felt this freedom and this joy, and my coach, in many ways, helped facilitate that process."

The full document can be secured through http://www.smartceo.com/ .