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 – Staffing, Training, & Development | 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. The sessions were a great way to focus my thinking, gain insight and reinvigorate my leadership and impact.”
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 we believe the fit is right.

What Effective Executive Coaching Services Looks 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 three 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. While our coaching engagements often deal with personal development, they are always structured to have a direct impact on business performance.

We believe that 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, too: the coach needs to be skilled at putting issues into terms that make them understandable and addressable for the client. And coaching should be done in the right place, at the right time, and with the right style. 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 client an opportunity to receive feedback from others in the organization. This is the primary aim of any 360-degree feedback tool — enabling people to see how they are perceived by peers, subordinates, and supervisors. Those additional perspectives enable coach and client to identify specific strengths and gaps.

Willingness
Finally, for executive coaching to be effective, it’s not enough to hold up a mirror: 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

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 the performance bar. 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.The work then is centered on trying new leadership behaviors while developing better processes and tools to drive results.
Typical Client Profile: An executive who is delivering sub-optimal results or who must create performance lift for themselves and their team.
Coaching Objective: Improve performance.
Critical First Step: Agree with the client and client’s 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 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.The star sales executive promoted to business operator must learn to develop and work through others. The Regional VP promoted to COO must learn to be more politically savvy when moving from the regional office, where they are the highest-ranking executive, to corporate headquarters, where they are part of an executive team that they do not control.Sometimes leaders are able to anticipate these needs among their up-and-comers and provide targeted coaching in advance of a promotion.
Typical Client Profile: An executive who will soon take on, or has recently accepted, a new role in the organization.
Coaching Objective: Prepare the client for the new role, with a focus on skills/behaviors to emphasize, skills/behaviors to leave behind and new skills/behaviors to acquire.
Critical First Step: Inventory the client’s 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.
Coaching Objective: Provide a sounding board for the client when they want to check new ideas and/or share an alternative set of viewpoints on what’s occurring inside and outside the organization.
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 for over 2 years. The recent Leadership Development Program that they designed and customized with us to help us identify, develop, and retain top leaders in the organization was a huge success. It was instrumental in helping take our company and our key people to the next level. I would recommend their training and consulting services to anyone looking to develop and retain top talent.

Steve Janowsky
Vice President of Operations

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

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

As a high growth digital marketing agency with cutting edge talent, we hired LSA Global to help clarify our strategy and work with our executive leadership team to help implement strategic changes in a way that made sense for our unique culture. The work was so successful that we also hired them to coach our key leaders. LSA has been instrumental in helping us transition to a new leadership team and triple revenue. In this age of useless consultants, I highly recommend their practical and business-oriented approach to strategy, culture and talent.

David Bentley
General Manager

We signed up with LSA early on – as their 22nd Member! Since then, our organization’s learning needs have increased and decreased and increased again with the changing times. The beauty of the LSA business model is its flexibility. When we need to supplement our own internal skills or resources, we use LSA knowing that we can depend on outstanding quality advice and solutions every time.

Margie Bunting
HR Manager

LSA helped us design and deliver a blended learning solution for our leaders to help drive our growth plans in a way that aligned with our specific culture and values. LSA understood our business, had deep expertise in the content areas, tailored the programs to fit our specific needs, and delivered great results. They constantly strive to deliver business impact and align their solutions with our business initiates, culture, and performance management systems. I highly recommend them to anyone looking to take their leaders to the next level.”

Beth A. Taylor
Vice President of Human Resources

We reviewed the top Leadership Development offerings and selected LSA’s 12-month Leadership Program based upon the value and systemic approach. The feedback on the program, approach, and results was phenomenal. While other programs may be better known, they were more theoretical and did not compare in terms of practicality, quality, and results.

Stacey Porter
Senior Manager Learning and Development

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 Staff is very appreciative and has become very comfortable with both the program and the process. 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

Redwood Trust looked to LSA Global as a consulting partner to help us explore innovative and scholarly approaches to promote employee engagement and sustain the unique culture we’ve built over the last decade. LSA helped us perpetuate coaching as a discipline across the organization by integrating our core values, goal setting and performance management under an interactive coaching program. We appreciate LSA’s commitment to cutting-edge practices to help keep us a step ahead during this time of rapid change.

Rosalyn Chan
Vice President, Human Resources

I contacted LSA to help us with leadership development. LSA worked with me to identify a solution that would match our needs as well as our personality. The solution was such a huge success. It received rave reviews. I would highly recommend LSA to other companies.

Karen King, SPHR
Manager, Human Resources

I continue to be impressed by the level of leadership development, management expertise, and quality of advice and facilitation that LSA has to offer. What a smart and client-centric group of great people who really know how to help leaders attract, engage, develop and retain top talent.

Tracy Esposito
Director, HR Business Partner

LSA is an excellent training outsource partner! They listen to our needs, are responsive and work at a pace that keeps up with ours. We have found LSA to bring strategic and innovative solutions to meet our business problems by partnering effectively with our staff. I consider them to be an external extension of our team.

Wendy Chinn
Sr. Director, Global Sales Enablement

Having tripled in size and recently merged, LSA helped our executive team to increase our level of strategic alignment, to solidify our new direction, and to push our agency forward. As we look to rapidly scale, the clear, actionable, and critical few strategic moves combined with how we differentiate ourselves to our top accounts and target clients has really set us on a great path to success. This is exactly what we needed to get to the next level.

Matt Britton
CEO

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