Customer Reviews

Coached to Lead: How to Achieve Extraordinary Results with an Executive Coach (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Extraordinary results. Who among us, as consultants or coaches, doesn't want our clients to achieve extraordinary results? I sure do. That's my first reason to have purchased this book. The second has to do with finding myself fielding quite reasonable and curious questions about coaching from those who are seeking extraordinary results. Coached to Lead is a book that offers practical tips to coaches, clients and potential clients. Take a look at these questions to see if they sound familiar to you.

" How can a coach help me obtain business results?
" What exactly can a coach do for me?
" If I did hire a coach, how would I go about finding the right one for me?
" What really goes on in a coaching relationship anyway?
" How much does it cost, how long will it last, and will the results last?
If you too want to see extraordinary results and have ever wondered how best to answer such questions, you'll appreciate the solid ground Dr. Susan Battley provides to her audience. Drawing from her rich experience with leaders over the past twenty years, across a vast array of businesses in as many sectors, she provides the first consumer's guide to executive coaching.

Battley framed Coached to Lead on two guiding beliefs: 1) Executive coaching has staying power as a value-added service and, 2) Not only is executive coaching not going away, she predicts that the demand for quality coaching will increase in the coming years due to the 'plug and play' needs of managers today.. She anticipates that the latter will become more obvious as those industries traditionally less engaged in leadership development face the need to adapt quickly in the arena of interpersonal skills in order to perform in an increasingly competitive and global marketplace.

This engaging eleven-chapter, evidence-based guide takes the reader through a series of questions within each chapter designed to educate and provide a structure from which to reap the benefits of executive coaching, all the while avoiding costly mistakes. The reader can select various sections as urgency dictates or read the entire text, complete with usable forms, to guide the process and stay on task.

In the first chapter, Battley sets about dispelling the Ten Myths About Executive Coaching. For example, in Myth #1, "The Myth of the Individual" or 'Successful people don't need coaches,' she reminds us that peak performers in sports, the arts, and business all use coaches to enhance their already sterling performance. She cites a 2001 study by the Manchester Consulting that those receiving coaching exhibited an ROI of 5.7 times the initial investment or more than $100,000. Her Myth Buster: Professionals have coaches; amateurs do not.

Having dispelled the ten myths and leveled the ground in Chapter 1, in Chapter 2 she guides the saavy reader through a process of determining if Executive Coaching is Right for You by asking ten questions focused on one's awareness and commitment level to learning and producing business results.

Chapter 3, How to Pick Your Perfect Coach, outlines six steps to selection that focus on self-awareness in terms of goals and outcomes from coaching. The result? A personal profile for finding a compatible, or 'perfect,' coach for the reader. She highlights the characteristics of a great coach which includes experienced-based knowledge, education, ethics, and character and competency in coaching. Once chosen, chapter 4 centers on the rules of engagement for coaching, including sample agreements, and highlights the distinctions of private-pay vs. employer-funded coaching initiatives.

In chapter 5, Battley highlights the bedrock of this text, her Five Step Coaching Model, a broad brush approach with its focus on goals, assessment, an actionable plan and review, yet easy to customize. She further explicates each step of the model in Chapters 6-9. It is a written Powerhouse Action Plan, distinct from a standard coaching plan. It confronts obstacles and barriers providing the supercharged energy of this model to shift behavior and enhance performance. With Powerhouse Action Plan in hand, the coach becomes a catalyst to the client for personal growth in what she calls the ''knowing-doing' cycle of reflection and action and back again. This process creates momentum as goals are completed and reviewed in detail for level of satisfaction, learning, business results and return on investment as one is 'Coached to Lead.'

Chapters 10-11 provide a troubleshooting guide to addressing 'sticky' coaching situations and dealing with the concerns of third party sponsors of coaching initiatives.

Who among us wants extraordinary results for our clients? If you answered, 'I do,' this is a must read for you and all executive or leadership coaches, and for potential clients who want to face their own learning and performance head on. This practical, forthright read not only levels the ground, but elevates the ground of executive coaching to peak performance.

This is an excellent, comprehensive guide to executive coaching. Susan Battley walks the reader through the book in a sequence that is logical and practical -- and yet with a warm, human touch.

The writing is crisp and flows well. The stories, forms and checklists are unique and extremely helpful. If you're thinking about working with an executive coach, this book will be of tremendous value to you.

Susan Battley has written a terrific coaching book. I have read and studied almost every coaching book over the past 15 years and without question this is the best of the best! She has taken complexity and made it simple, yet very meaningful. The book is rich with very realistic and practical guidance.

This is an excellent resource for Senior Leaders and Executive Coaches, but also for developing leaders and coaches. Susan's experience and coaching insight is clearly evident. She knows coaching, and she knows how to coach leaders for real results.

I strongly recommend her book as an essential for your leadership and coaching library.
Your purchase will be a wise investment!

Virg Setzer
Executive Coach
Organizational Consultant
Adjunct Management Instructor

I want to let you know that I think you have published one of the best books written on educating the executive as to what to expect when hiring an executive coach. Your book is packed full of practical and very grounded information to help inform the executive on what to expect from a seasoned coach as well as a template for the experienced coach on how to stay on track and deliver extraordinary service.

If you ever considered hiring an executive coach, but wondered what to expect from the experience, wonder no more. Author Susan Battley has written a tightly focused book that will answer all your questions about this helpful executive perk. Her advice will enable you to determine whether you would benefit from coaching, how it might help you improve, what coaches do, how to select one and how much they charge. Battley writes clearly and provides useful examples from her own experience. However, the book would have gotten off to a faster start if she had begun by discussing what coaches do, rather than offering an overly detailed discussion of how to determine whether you can use coaching. We recommend this book to executives who want to learn how to take advantage of professional advice to develop their leadership capabilities quickly.

This book is unique compared to most other books on coaching in that Dr. Battley has written it for the coachee rather than the coach. I am a leadership coach and have been coached by others. Because it is an excellent reference for the coachee, it also becomes a valuable source for the coach.

I was impressed particularly with the straightforward Five Step Coaching Model. There is no "psycho-babble", or "new age" process here, just a sensible approach to getting the most out of your coaching experience. Persons contemplating a coaching relationship would do well to compare their coach's proposed approach to the basic components of the Five Step model.

The book also contains excellent reference material including sample coaching agreements, coach evaluations and excellent anecdotal examples.

This is the book I wished I had when my company assigned me an executive coach three years ago. Don't get me wrong, that was a good experience, but it could have been a GREAT experience if I'd known more about what to expect.
I recommend this book to first-timers to coaching, and to anyone who is footing the bill for some else's coaching at work. It's an easy read and not full of HR-speak.

If you want a book that captures everything you need to know about business coaching, this is the book for you. It's practical in a lively way. The case studies really bring the material to life. The last chapters on troubleshooting and sensitive situations discuss aspects of coaching that I hadn't thought about before.

I've been a management consultant for thirty-plus years. There are hundreds of coaching books out there- many good ones too. But this is the book I will give to my clients. It takes the field of coaching - and the benefits of working with a coach - to the next level.