Executive Coaching Services that Work

“Thanks for your incredible patience and passion working with our leadership team. Your executive coaching services have been one of the most effective I’ve ever known.”

Debbie Von Raesfeld | HR Business Partner Director | AMD

“LSA Global helped us perpetuate coaching as a discipline across the organization by integrating our core values, goal setting, and performance metrics under an interactive executive coaching program. We appreciate LSA’s commitment to cutting-edge practices.”

Rosalyn Chan | VP HR | Redwood Trust, Inc.

“We engaged LSA to design and deliver a 6-month custom executive coaching services program for key senior leaders to better leverage our investments in management development and to push critical strategic initiatives forward. Even with the high expectations of our senior people, the executive coaching completely exceeded our expectations.”

Ivan Fukumoto | Senior HR Manager | Xoma Ltd.

“LSA’s executive coaching covered all aspects of leadership, it was not simply a touchy-feely endeavor. In fact, the focus on clear business outcomes and real life circumstances challenged me to develop my thinking and actions related to leading the business.”
Janet Pagano | Managing Director | Ovid Winery

Unlike most abstract business processes, effective executive coaching services engage with leaders in personal, practical, and customized ways to get measurable results. LSA Global takes on coaching assignments selectively, where the fit is right.

What Effective Executive Coaching Services Look Like
Three basic tenets underpin our approach to executive coaching.

People Lead
First, people lead organizations and drive business results.
People Can Change
Second, people can change. Every leader can improve their performance and the performance of others. While no one can excel at everything, we do believe that anyone can improve in almost any field.
Coaches Help
Finally, people have more success changing when they have a good coach. In business as in sports, people can accelerate their development when they receive encouragement, guidance, new ideas and concrete best practices from an experienced advisor.

The Definition of Executive Coaching
These long-held beliefs lead to our definition of executive coaching: a skilled professional using a disciplined process to provide observations, recommendations, and tools to a business leader in order to improve that leader’s skills, capabilities, and performance.

Executive coaching, when done well, is like holding up a mirror to the client. The coach reflects back to the client how they are carrying out their responsibilities. The coach helps the client to see how they act — and how those actions impact their performance and their relationships with others. The coach highlights observable behaviors, habits, and patterns.

Framing
Framing is important. A coach needs to be skilled at putting issues into terms that make them understandable and addressable. Coaches must look for teachable moments, and they must provide the feedback with the right balance of directness and empathy.

An effective coach also gives the coachee an opportunity to receive feedback to see how they are perceived by peers, subordinates, and supervisors to help identify strengths and gaps.

Willingness
Above all, the coachee must be willing to look in the mirror and accept what they see at face value, with eyes wide open. The person being coached must want to be coached — and must commit to making changes based on the coaching. This openness to receive coaching is the litmus test for any engagement an executive coach undertakes.

Desired Outcomes
Successful executive coaching engagements create leaders who:

Increase short- and long term performance
Build and lead high performing teams
Have the ability to self-diagnose and self-improve

3 Types of Executive Coaching Engagements

We typically think about three primary types of executive coaching engagements unique to each client situation.

Coaching for Performance
All executives, even the most successful and seasoned, either run into rough patches or want to raise performance. Regardless of who seeks out the coaching support, the coach’s job is clear — help the individual identify the performance barriers, set measurable goals, and develop strategies to address them.

Typical Client Profile
An executive who is delivering sub-optimal results or who must create performance lift for themselves and their team.

Critical First Step
Agree with the coachee and their supervisor on the area(s) for improvement and specific desired outcomes..
Coaching for Promotion
A promotion is typically a reward for a job well done. Excellence in the current position often attests to a leader’s readiness to take on a new role with expanded responsibilities and bigger challenges. What may get overlooked in these career transitions, however, is the fact that new jobs often require leaders to develop new skills and behaviors — and to abandon old skills and behaviors that are counter-productive.

Typical Client Profile
An executive who will soon take on, or has recently accepted, a new role in the organization

Critical First Step
Inventory current skills and leadership behaviors and compare with those that will drive performance in the new role
Coaching for Perspective
Executive leadership can be isolating. It is, in fact, “lonely at the top.” As executives reach the upper echelons of organizations, they tend to find it more and more difficult to obtain direct, unfiltered feedback from inside their organizations.

Power truly does refract—and the mirrors held up by insiders usually present distorted images, like the mirrors in a circus funhouse. Faced with this situation, great leaders actively seek out additional advisors to provide unvarnished perspectives and a clearer sense of reality.

Typical Client Profile
A senior-level executive (often a CEO or other C-suite leader) who wants an additional perspective on the internal and external realities they are facing.

Critical First Step
Determine how insulated the client is from market and organizational realities

Four Characteristics of Success
While the goals, roles, and process associated with the three types of executive coaching are fairly distinct, they do not preclude “hybrid” approaches. Each client has unique needs and aspirations, so each executive coaching engagement must be adapted to the specific situation. No matter the particulars of the approach, we have found that all successful executive coaching engagements have a few common characteristics:

Clarity
A clear set of objectives
Process
A disciplined process that pushes the client to do the hard work that leads to meaningful changes
Fit
A coach who understands the client’s situation, observes carefully, asks tough questions and gives direct recommendations
Willingness
A client who is open to being coached and committed to making change

When these elements are present, it has been our experience that leaders can change and develop.

If you would like to learn how our executive coaching services and consulting expertise has helped leaders and individuals across multiple industries succeed, please contact us.

Related Information

We have had a very beneficial partnership with LSA. Their recent Leadership Development Program helped us to identify, develop, and retain top leaders. It was instrumental in helping take our company and our key people to the next level. I would recommend them to anyone looking to truly develop and retain top talent.

Steve Janowsky
Vice President of Operations

Thank you for a great leadership development session today. The facilitator was brilliant. The team got a lot out of it (as did I). I believe it will help us create an even higher performance environment by ensuring we have a common understanding of how to create higher performance and work toward clear and common strategic goals.

Simon Jefferson
Managing Director

LSA’s executive coach based his approach on understanding our business circumstances and strategy, as well as our leadership aspirations. The customized coaching covered all aspects of leadership; it was not simply a touchy-feely endeavor. In fact, the focus on clear business outcomes and real life circumstances challenged me to develop my thinking and actions related to leading the business.”

Janet Pagano
Managing Director

We contacted LSA to help us design and deliver customized management development programs. LSA worked with us to meet our exact needs. We started at the top with our executive team. It was such a great success that we rolled it out company-wide. We look forward to a long-term partnership with LSA Global and their team of experts.

Barry L. Byrd, SPHR
Human Resources Manager

The customized leadership styles and coaching program was the best training that I have ever attended. The facilitators were phenomenal. They have a wealth of experience and knowledge coupled with compassionate and caring styles. I’d highly recommend this leadership training program to any manager, director, or executive looking for a life changing leadership program.

Shoaleh Ghaffari
Director, HR

We selected LSA Global over 5 other companies to help our key executives improve their overall communication and executive presentation capabilities. LSA exceeded our expectations. I highly recommend LSA to any executive team looking to better organize and more effectively deliver key executive-level messages when the stakes are high.

Todd Power
Office of the CEO

The action-learning leadership project has been very beneficial to me, our leadership team, and the entire organization. The balance of development and results has been excellent. We have made huge progress, and I was also able to identify 2-3 high potentials while having the extra benefit of people stepping up to carry key strategic projects forward. The experience was better than anticipated. I could not be more pleased.

Heather Feltman
President & CEO

LSA’s approach has certainly brought value to Knight Ridder Digital. They were laser focused on our goal and determined to meet all of our Leadership development program needs. Their flexibility and commitment were keys in making our program successful.

Dipik Rai
Director of Marketing

LSA consistently delivers for me and my team. Recently they demonstrated the criticality for executives to look beyond current ethics topics and focus on applying fundamental values in everything they do to demonstrate true leadership. They successfully delivered in two hours what most leadership development facilitators would spend an entire day trying to communicate.

Nick Voyvodich, SPHR
HR Manager

LSA always helps us provide the right sales, management, and leadership programs at the right time to meet the unique needs of both individuals and departments. I especially appreciate their ability to deeply understand our business and our culture so that they can recommend the appropriate solutions.

Sarah Parks
Senior Project Manager

We partnered with LSA Global to help us invest in our people. LSA custom designed an impactful management curriculum to help upskill our key managers and leaders. We consider LSA to be our trusted learning and development partner and a valued extension of our team.

Lisa Bruun
SVP Human Resources

After a difficult search to find a partner that could address a very specific leadership development need, we chose LSA Global. They were responsive to our needs and created a solution that we continue to see results from. It is nice to know we have access to their expertise with a simple phone call.

Valerie Blackburn
Director of Business Operations

We value our relationship with LSA Global. They focus on understanding our business situation and helping us succeed. LSA continues to deliver top quality consulting and leadership solutions that are highly customized for our business and culture. I would highly recommend LSA Global as a top quality resource to anyone looking to greatly improve the skills of their leadership, management, and project teams.

Bonnie S. Olson
Vice President of Human Resources

Great job in designing the Mergers and Acquisition strategy session for our global leadership team. The session was excellent. I gained additional insight on the importance of the role of HR regarding strategy, culture, and people in Mergers and Acquisitions.

Gloria Veon
Senior Vice President, Human Resources

Over the years, both at 3Com and now at Redback, I’ve found LSA Global to be a valuable partner. The recent management programs that they delivered for Redback’s executive and management teams was the right solution, of the highest of quality, and customized to fit our unique business and culture. I would highly recommend LSA to any company looking for top quality solutions.

Gina Fulton
Vice President of Human Resources