Find an executive coach

Executive coaching is expensive and personal, and the coach you pick will hear things nobody else in your company does. It's worth taking the search seriously. Here's how to find the right one.

Start with what you want to be different. A bigger role, a team that's not delivering, a board that's lost confidence, a habit of doing everything yourself. The clearer you are, the easier it is to spot a coach who has worked on exactly that.

Ask what level they usually work at. Coaching a first-time manager and coaching a chief executive are different jobs. Look for a coach whose usual clients look like you, and who has either held a senior role or coached plenty of people who have.

Ask how they gather feedback. Many executive coaches interview your colleagues or run a 360 review at the start. That outside view is often where the real work begins. Ask whether they do it and how they keep it confidential.

Be clear about who's paying and who's the client. If your company is paying, ask how the coach handles reporting back. A good coach will agree upfront what your employer sees (usually just the goals) and what stays between you.

Have a short intro call before you commit. Describe the challenge in front of you and listen for how they think. You want someone who will push back on you, not just agree.

Take these into your intro call. You're listening for relevant experience, a clear process, and someone you'd trust with the unvarnished version of your situation.

• What level of leader do you mostly work with?
• What's your own leadership background?
• Do you gather feedback from my team or peers? How?
• How long does a typical engagement run?
• If my company is paying, what do they get to see?
• How do you handle it when a client disagrees with you?

The last one matters. A coach who has never been challenged by a client probably isn't challenging them enough.

A first message can be brief. Say your role, what's changing, and ask how they work. Borrow one of these:

Hi [name], I've just stepped into a [role] leading a team of [number], and the job is bigger than anything I've done before. I'm looking for a coach to work with over the next six months or so. Do you work with leaders at this stage, and how does an engagement usually run?

Hi [name], I lead [team or company] and I've had feedback that I need to delegate more and stop being the bottleneck. I'd like to work on that properly. Could you tell me how you'd approach it?

Send it to two or three coaches and compare the replies. The fit matters more than the credentials.

An executive coach helps you lead more effectively: how you decide, communicate, delegate, and handle pressure. They're not a management consultant who fixes your strategy, and not a mentor who has your job and tells you how they did it. Some coaches also mentor, but ask, because the two are different.

One honest note: coaching only works if you're willing to hear things you'd rather not. The leaders who get the most from it are the ones who go in ready to be told the truth.

You're browsing CoachCompare's executive coach directory. Coaches create their own profiles and choose their own specialties, and everyone on this page lists executive coaching as one of theirs. Profiles are written by the coaches themselves. The list shows the newest profiles first unless you change the sort, and coaches don't pay for placement in these results.