Executive coaching is widely misunderstood. That misunderstanding wastes time, money, and momentum, especially for senior leaders operating under pressure and scrutiny.
In one minute
Contents
Many people use the word coaching to describe everything from wellbeing support to advice, training, mentoring, and performance management. In senior roles, that confusion creates an easy trap: you pay for something that sounds right but does not match what you actually need.
If you are evaluating coaching, the fastest way to protect your time is to get crisp on boundaries. The sections below do exactly that.
Therapy is primarily designed to treat psychological distress, trauma, and mental health conditions. Executive coaching is primarily designed to improve leadership effectiveness, decision quality, and performance within a professional context.
How to tell the difference
If deep distress is driving the issue, a capable coach will notice, name the boundary, and recommend appropriate support.
Wellbeing matters, but executive coaching is not primarily about wellness habits. Coaching can improve wellbeing indirectly by improving workload clarity, decision confidence, boundary setting, and stakeholder communication. If the work stays at the level of tips and routines without addressing the leadership system you operate in, it rarely holds.
Leaders often approach coaching as if something is wrong with them. More often, the issue is friction between role demands, identity, stakeholder expectations, and the story you repeat under pressure. Coaching is not about becoming someone else. It is about becoming more effective as yourself, with fewer blind spots and fewer self defeating loops.
Consultants diagnose and prescribe. Coaches facilitate and challenge. A consultant may tell you what to do. A coach helps you decide what to do, then holds you accountable for doing it.
Practical distinction
A coach may share frameworks, but the centre of gravity remains your thinking and your ownership.
Mentors transfer experience. Coaches develop capacity. Mentoring can be invaluable, particularly in a new function, market, or level of seniority. It is simply a different tool.
If you hire a coach but want a mentor, you may feel frustrated by questions. If you hire a mentor but still need coaching, you may get reassurance or war stories rather than behavioural change.
Training teaches a defined curriculum. Coaching adapts to your context. Training is efficient for building baseline skills. Coaching is effective when the challenge is complex, political, ambiguous, or emotionally loaded, and when the barrier is not knowledge but judgement and behaviour.
Motivation is temporary. Behaviour change is durable. Effective coaching relies on honest reflection, precise commitments, practical experiments, and accountability. If coaching feels like a performance, you are buying energy, not change.
Performance management is evaluative. Coaching is developmental. Coaching is not a surveillance mechanism for employers and should not be treated as one.
If an organisation is funding coaching, boundaries matter. A professional engagement remains confidential while still allowing appropriate progress reporting at a high level, without exposing personal content.
Some breakthroughs happen fast. Sustained progress takes repetition. If you want one session to permanently resolve chronic indecision, conflict avoidance, stakeholder mistrust, or burnout dynamics, you are likely to be disappointed. Coaching works best as a structured process with clear goals, a baseline, a small number of high-leverage behaviours, and regular review.
Open-ended coaching can become dependent. A strong engagement has defined outcomes, a clear horizon, measures of progress, and a plan to end well. If a coach cannot describe what success looks like or what would make you no longer need them, be cautious.
The highest cost is rarely the fee. It is what happens while you are in the wrong type of support.
Executive coaching is a structured, confidential partnership that improves leadership effectiveness by strengthening the quality of your thinking, decisions, behaviour, and execution in complex, high-stakes environments.
A useful test: if you want advice, hire a consultant. If you want stronger judgement and consistent follow-through under pressure, coaching is the right tool.
Use this checklist to protect yourself from vague engagements and poor fit.
If you are operating in a senior role where decisions carry consequences, clarity is not optional. The practical question is whether you build it deliberately or pay for it later through drift, tension, and missed windows.
If you want a structured, calm, and rigorous coaching engagement, book a short discovery call to determine whether it's a good fit.