Business coaching and executive coaching may seem the same, but they are very different in reality. Business coaching focuses on helping you learn how to run your business more efficiently, while executive coaching helps you become an effective leader within your organization. Here’s what to look out for when choosing a business coach or executive coach and when working with one.
Types of Executive Coach
Business Coach
Business coaching and executive coaching aren’t synonymous. Rather, they’re subsets of what’s collectively known as leadership coaching. The skills needed to be a good business coach are not necessarily the same as those needed to be an effective executive coach. While both business coaches and executive coaches work with employees at all levels within an organization, their approaches differ depending on their clients’ needs, titles, and responsibilities.
Executive Coach
Executives are trying to become more adept at handling interpersonal relationships, or learning how best to network, might benefit from business coaching. Business coaches also help executives make better decisions by encouraging them to consider multiple perspectives—say that of their customers or even competitors—while focusing less on what makes sense for a company in isolation from its surroundings.
The Difference Between Business Coaching and Executive Coaching
Not everyone who offers to coach is equal—and not all coaches know how to assist you with your specific business issues. To ensure you get what you need, it’s important to understand exactly what business coaching and executive coaching are. Business coaching will help a small business owner address a few key areas: time management, organization, team dynamics, and leadership skills.
A business coach typically has a broad range of experience in many fields but can still give unbiased advice based on their expertise regarding your needs as an entrepreneur or small-business owner.
When to Choose One Over the Other
At its most basic level, coaching is about having a trusted advisor who can help you make better decisions in your business life and personal life. Executive coaches are typically more affordable than business coaches, and many times they’re your peers or direct reports (although some executive coaches are outside of your organization).
If you want to talk to someone every day or multiple times a week, executive coaching may be right for you; however, if it’s just not possible to get that much time with an external coach or if you want to talk through different situations with someone who doesn’t have such an intimate role on your team, then business coaching could be right for you instead.
How Do You Determine Whether You Need One or Both?
Business coaching is used when you want to improve or increase your skillset in an area of business. It’s also used to create accountability for individual team members by assigning them a coach. The coach acts as a sounding board and works with them to identify problems and help develop solutions that lead to growth and prosperity for their company.
Typically, business coaches are affiliated with professional organizations or trade groups in order to remain current on industry trends and best practices while they help individuals refine their businesses processes.
This can include everything from marketing plans to organizational structure, depending on what’s needed for companies to succeed.
What Type of Training Does an Executive Coach Offer?
Unlike business coaches, executive coaches generally only work with senior executives and do not offer in-depth functional expertise or training in a specific area of business management. In many ways, you can think of executive coaching as consulting on steroids, where you are likely to work with one coach for several months rather than hourly over a shorter term.
That said, some caveats apply more broadly than just to executive coaching: any consultant worth his or her salt is going to help you develop your thinking and prepare for upcoming situations so that your decisions have informed impact; an effective coach will provide thought leadership and intellectual stimulation alongside practical support in implementing change; and truly great consultants understand that balance is key—if someone isn’t feeling supported, they won’t buy into it.
