Your Trusted Confidant: How Business Owners Excel Through Executive Coaching

© 2023 Richard Chandler, MA, LPC, Business Partners Counselor

The Executive Coaching Competitive Advantage

Business coaching helping a business partner with his collegues in St. Louis Park, MN

Have you ever wondered how executive coaching could help boost your strategic leadership success? As an Executive Coach, I have years of experience working with leaders of manufacturing, distribution, and professional service businesses throughout Minnesota and the United States. I use Strategic Coaching to make a profound difference in my clients’ professional and personal lives.

My executive coaching strategy helps my clients more clearly read situations and people and make more strategic decisions focusing on profit, growth, and long-term success. Applying a system to your leadership approach may lead to clearer thinking that advances your company’s vision.

Developing a Strategic Plan with an Executive Coach May Be Your Key to Success

Do you want to maximize your leadership impact? Working with an Executive Coach may be the most effective way to turn your leadership vision into a reality. It includes developing a strategy to turn your goals into focused plans - including built-in flexibility- for success.

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Good leaders communicate their vision to employees, vendors, financers, and other stakeholders. But great leaders also inspire their employees to execute strategic plans enthusiastically. Cultivating such employee loyalty is not an easy task. Working with a trusted, psychologically-oriented coach to guide and refine your relationship leadership approach and your strategic leadership focus may be the missing link to your professional success.

Strategic, Psychologically-Informed & Relationship-Focused Coaching to Enhance Your Leadership

My experience as a trained psychotherapist allows me to apply psychological principles to enhance your personal and work relationships with complete confidentiality. From a psychological perspective, we can identify how to strengthen your relationships, communication, and strategic leadership thinking process leading to superior decisions.

With my strategic, psychologically informed, and relationship-focused approach, I provide a unique executive coaching experience to my clients throughout Minnesota and nationally. My clients have told me that they have benefited by using me as their sounding board, enabling them to make better strategic and leadership decisions.

One such client is Joseph Meyer, CEO of Pristine Environmental, Full Circle Water. Several years ago, he said:

“I have been working with Richard on a monthly basis since May of 2015 on improving my effectiveness as a business owner and partner. Through insightful dialog, Richard has helped me improve my outlook and approach to challenging problems. I credit my work with him for dramatically improving my relationships with key partners and for improving my leadership skills. I believe the value of my time and investment with Richard has been paid back tenfold in improved attitude and performance in my life.”

What Is Executive Coaching?

Business owner using her business coaching skills at work in St. Paul, MN

An executive coaching relationship is personal, confidential, and focused on the business owner or CEO as a person. Her business strategy and current leadership abilities benefit from relying on a knowledgeable ear, insightful questions, and professional coaching guidance. The primary purpose of hiring an Executive Coach is to help the CEO or business owner become a more effective leader.

In addition to promoting your professional growth, executive coaching typically improves your personal life as well. Working with a coach, who is psychologically-informed, could help your relationships, including those with employees, your executive team, business partners, bankers, vendors, clients, and family members. Developing stronger relationships often increases workplace and home life balance.

You Benefit From Executive Coaching If:

  • You want to grow as a strategic business leader and personally
  • You want to increase your competence and confidence
  • You want to work with someone who is trusted and confidential 
  • You are willing to receive unbiased feedback
  • You long to spend more time on creative and strategic planning

Additional Benefits for Business Owners:

  • You may increase profits and grow your company
  • You intend to make better business decisions
  • You prefer to confide in a knowledgeable source who understands the complexity of your organizational challenges
  • You now plan to focus on the big picture business strategy rather than the day-to-day operations
  • You endeavor to delegate more tasks and improve your work-life balance

Call, text or email me, Richard Chandler, MA, LPC, at 320-223-9481 (no charge for short phone calls, text, or email exchanges) if any of these benefits interest you. Executive coaching may help you build a brighter future.

Construction business partners discussing their plans in Minneapolis, MN

Signs It’s Time to Work With an Executive Coach

An Executive Coach’s role is not to directly tell you what to do but rather to guide you towards more practical and creative ways to assess things and tread more successful action paths. Such coaching can help you gain new perspectives. 

When I work with clients, they often have some aspects of the answers for moving forward. But to fully reveal those answers and trust in their validity, they benefit from a trusted and knowledgeable guide, asking new questions that help lead them towards even better solutions. 

Business partners using their busniess coaching skills for a project in Elk River, MN

I have been an Executive Coach for numerous business owners and CEOs. Often, the only thing standing between those clients and a breakthrough is a well-placed question. Those who seek out professional coaching are not deficient or broken. They are leaders who want to upgrade their personal and professional lives. Business owners who use an Executive Coach can take their leadership skills from pretty good to exceptional.

An Executive Coach Might Work With You To:

  1. Understand what you want
  2. Reduce your feelings of self-doubt
  3. Identify ways you are limiting your success
  4. Overcome your mental limitations
  5. Gain new perspectives on problem areas
  6. Improve your personal and professional relationships
  7. Process negative feelings of frustration, failure, or disappointment
  8. Explore a career change

Why Executive Coaching Is Good for Most Every Leader

In my experience as an Executive Coach, all leaders face challenges at some point in their professional careers. Most often, clients can work through challenges with the aid of a trusted and knowledgeable sounding board. Executive coaching may help you work more effectively with your business partner. Some of the most common struggles I see among leaders are in areas such as communication, prioritizing responsibilities, and developing strategic plans to grow their business. 

Before you decide to work with an Executive Coach, here are a few things to keep in mind.

Accepting these points will help you gain the most from your coaching.

  • Accept that you have room for professional growth
  • Bring a beginner's mind, more open to new perspectives
  • Recognize that finding good strategies takes time and patience
  • Accept that you will likely alter some of your behaviors to have better outcomes
  • Be willing to ask for buy-in to support your new growth from those people closest to you

The Benefits of Executive Coaching

Business owner talking with her team using her executive coaching in Maple Grove, MN

I have seen many of my clients benefit from executive coaching immensely. Even the most successful senior leaders invest in executive coaching because they recognize the endless potential for improvement. Identifying your professional and personal strengths and your weaknesses and understanding how to make the most of them will help you grow as a leader and person.

What are the Major Benefits of Executive Coaching?

Working with an Executive Coach Amplifies Your Strengths

Every business owner or CEO has a set of natural strengths. An Executive Coach will help you identify and maximize your most valuable aptitudes and skills. Leveraging your existing strengths through executive coaching benefits your company and team as a significant aspect of your leadership success strategy.

Weaknesses May be Minimized through Executive Coaching

Business owners and leaders frequently struggle to communicate effectively and inspire their team. Improving communication skills is an effective way to improve your overall leadership skills. Additionally, you may uncover weaknesses that you are not aware of yet. A coach can identify those weaknesses and work with you to overcome them.

Executive Coaching to Develop a Strategic Plan for Business Success

Executive coaching can help executives prepare for more prominent roles with more responsibility. Every position promotion or stage of business growth will bring a new set of challenges. A trusted coach will guide you to make better decisions, be a more decisive leader, and think more clearly in your new role. As a business owner, this often means that you grow out of your day-to-day role in business operations into a more strategic leadership role in your company.   

Improve Your Leadership Skills

Developing the skills, mindset, and discipline to handle complex situations successfully will improve your leadership. Working with a coach to develop a robust strategy will benefit you when ambiguous or challenging business situations inevitably arise. 

Grow Your Organization in Partnership with your Business Coach

Setting clear goals and employing a strategy to reach those goals advances your business. An Executive Coach will help you develop business goals. Then he or she will arm you with the communication, leadership, and strategic skills you need to turn those goals a reality.

Improve Your Personal and Professional Relationships

As a coach with a psychoanalysis background, my clients have discovered the benefits of reflective exercises to examine and better understand themselves. Self-reflection is likely to improve your personal and professional relationships. Cultivating the ability to build strong relationships with other executives, business owners, and employees dramatically expands your leadership effectiveness.

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How Strategic Business Coaching Can Make You More Successful

Executive coaching will only work for those willing to take a close look at themselves and make changes. Coming to coaching with an open mind is the best way to become a more effective leader. Naomi Kowalik, JD, CLU, ChFC, CLTC, CFP®, CMFC, had this to say: 

“Thanks so much, Richard; you provided such a valuable workshop for our office. We are already using many of the tools and have a great understanding of our different styles of communication. I would absolutely recommend that any business would benefit from your expertise and individuals as well. You are very professional and easy to understand. Thanks again for helping me and my business!” 

What is it Like to Receive Executive Coaching?

You may be wondering what the process of working with an Executive Coach is like as a client. The path to strategic leadership success begins with curiosity. Trusting your coach to be a careful and confidential listener is a crucial factor. You will need to work with your business consulting coach to explore your challenges, underdeveloped strengths, and professional goals.

Business partners recieving business coaching in Minnetonka, MN

Building Trust With Your Executive Coach

Trust is an essential part of the relationship between you and your Executive Coach. I offer my clients complete confidentiality and a nuanced psychological understanding of how they can enhance their personal and work relationships. Also, I act as a knowledgeable sounding board to improve their strategic and leadership decisions.

What Topics Will You Explore In Detail Through Executive Coaching?

  • Challenges and opportunities available to you in your current position as an executive or business owner
  • Your short, medium, and long-term goals, personally and professionally
  • Creative ways to more accurately look at your business ideas
  • Your questions about your business, role within the company, or current business strategy
  • How your personal and professional life interrelates, so you may feel more balanced while still being productive
  • Your business decisions and the ways they could impact other areas in your company or personal life

Given my work as a Licensed Professional Counselor, our discussions will be able to address your personal and business lives simultaneously. Your professional life has a significant impact on your relationships and vice versa. 

As an experienced Executive Coach, I understand the importance of maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Doing so will ultimately benefit your business’s success.

Exploring Your Professional Strengths, Weaknesses, and Leadership Opportunities

Business owner using their executive coaching skills in their office in Hopkins, MN

As strategic leadership coaching progresses, we may clarify your life mission and determine how your current goals can help you achieve more long-range, ultimate goals. To set a practical goal achievement strategy, I will ask questions to identify individual strengths and areas where others could be doing some of what you have been doing. Smart delegating opens you to more opportunities, both within and perhaps outside of your current company.

Together we will explore any blind spots you have within your company or private life. Most importantly, we will look at your communication styles and how you can enhance them. Effective communication practices will improve your relationships with employees, business partners, and family members.

Our strategic and leadership focus at this stage is to:

  • Amplify your strengths when it comes to your preferred approach to interact with the world
  • Identify any blind spots you may have for internal or external business occurrences
  • Generate new, creative business ideas

How We Improve Your Creative Focus by Setting, Analyzing, and Fine-Tuning Your Goals

Once we have identified your short and long-term goals, it’s time to develop a strategy that puts those goals into action. This strategy will require constant analysis of your progress and fine-tuning to ensure you’re on track and moving forward.

During this phase of executive coaching, we may:

  • Set goals that are motivating, attainable, and strategically focused
  • Fine-tune goals based on our analysis of how to grow your business best and improve your career
  • Look at how your goals feed into a healthy work-life balance strategy for both you and your employees

Clearly Define Your Strategic Leadership Strategy

One of an Executive Coach’s essential duties is to be a trusted and confidential sounding board for your business ideas and strategies.

Effective and knowledgeable feedback reveals those business strategies that are most likely to succeed by:

  • Establishing realistic time frames for projects and goals
  • Mapping out the step-by-step guide for achieving those goals
  • Incorporating knowledgeable, experienced feedback into your goal-achievement strategy
Business partners and colleagues discussing a project in Chanhassen, MN

Do You Need Executive Coaching?

Business partner using their business coaching skills to secure a new client in Elk River, MN

Leaders face many challenges that an Executive Coach can help address. I find myself in many roles as an Executive Coach, such as mentor, confidant, and challenger. My goal is to help clients become more strategic leaders and happier people. My approach to coaching may improve both your professional and personal life exponentially.

A CEO and company owner with more than 100 employees had this to say:

“After over four years of working with Richard, I now find myself working in areas of strategy and sustainability of my business for the long term. It was difficult for me to get out of the daily rituals that consumed my business day.”

Working with Richard Chandler, MA, LPC

“There have been times when I have wondered if I have given away too much to my new management team, but seeing our company growing without some of my direct interaction is proof that the decisions I have made, with the guidance of Richard, were the best for my business. Working on the business, rather than in the business, is a significant milestone for any leader within an organization. As hard as it was to make the first step in consulting with Richard, it has been one of the single most important and valuable decisions I have made in my career.”

My priority is to ensure you feel comfortable sharing your business problems and ideas. In addition to challenging you, I will also encourage you and celebrate your victories. The deeper you can dig into yourself during our coaching sessions, the more valuable your results will be.

Are you interested in hiring an Executive Coach? Call or text Richard Chandler, MA, LPC, at 320-223-9481 for a short no-cost phone call, video call, text conversation, or email exchange.

 

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