Hiring A Leadership Coach? Ask Them These 15 Questions

A question I get asked a lot, obviously, as an executive coach is, when do I know I should be hiring an executive coach for myself or a team member? And what exactly should I be looking for? Well, executive coaching is a $20 billion industry, and it's considered one of the highest and greatest return on investments from a leadership development program perspective. And yet what most people don't ask is, if it works so well, then why aren't we taking advantage of it? Why aren't we hiring it? Why are we allowing someone to potentially struggle, or maybe a high potential to hit a wall that they don't even see coming, Or maybe even why are we allowing someone who is creating a toxic environment to continue eroding the morale of the team, yet they're a significant contributor to the business? What tools, what resources are out there for us to leverage in order to see if there's transformation and course correction that could be made and/or if there's continued development and acceleration of a high potential. The research also shows that most of those executive coaches are being chosen badly, or they're not being evaluated at all. If you're here for the first time, I'm Bernadette Boas, executive coach, author, and podcast host. And I am going to walk through a framework that you could use to really identify that powerful tool and resource that you could be using to transform your so-so managers or high potential managers even into more powerhouse managers or individual contributors. Stay with us.

Welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch, the podcast that transforms today's managers into tomorrow's powerhouse leaders. Your host, Bernadette Boas, executive coach and author, brings you into a world where the corporate grind meets personal growth and success in each and every episode. Let's do this.

Before we dive into this, let's really talk about who this conversation is for, who it's directed toward. First off, it could be for the, a leader. The first person might be you. You might be looking for someone to be a sounding board, someone to work through issues with, someone to really sit down and consider what your next step is. Maybe you've been given an assessment where others have stated some skills that still needed polish, so to speak. This conversation will be for you when it comes to what you should be considering and looking for when you are thinking about hiring a coach, or maybe someone's presented you the opportunity for a coach, or maybe they've even presented you a coach. And before you agree to that specific coach, you also want to understand what you should be looking for. Then the next one would be a team or a hiring manager, team leader, hiring manager. They have an individual and/or a group of team members where they're looking to really excel those that are high potential, those that have potential, but they're not quite there yet, and/or those that have a struggling team member. Maybe they're struggling with their own behavior or their own performance. Maybe they're even on the edge of creating a very challenging, difficult, toxic environment. And yet they have so much opportunity. They contribute greatly and you want to help them as quickly as possible to make a course correction so they don't sabotage themselves, the team, or the business. And then lastly is the HR leader. The HR leader might be considering the new hires that are coming in, providing them some support. Those toxic individuals, the HR manager or leader could be looking for those tools and resources that they could be expanding their leadership development program, their talent and development initiatives. And therefore they want to vet some executive coaching to see how they can fill in any gaps or even just enhance what they're already offering to their team members. So now let's look at why coaching matters and what is that ROI that is creating the highest return on investment from a leadership development perspective for organizations. Coaching matters because leaders often will automatically knee-jerk a response, why now? I've gotten this far. Why do I need a leadership or an executive coach now. And yet, when you think about it, what I've observed is the higher you climb in an organization, the quieter it gets, the lonelier it gets, the less honest feedback is given. Not because people don't want to give it to you, but your team members are often intimidated or unsure of not only the how, but what the result will be if they were to give you some of that honest feedback that you desperately need as you climb higher and higher in an organization. The next thing would be that you are now, as you're going up, you're now competing with your peers for that next opportunity. The higher you go in an org chart, if you want to visualize it, the fewer people are there, and therefore the greater competition for that next big opportunity. While at the same time, now your direct reports are also managing up because they're also getting to a level with less and less competition, so to speak. But the competition gets a little bit more strategic, gets a little bit more political, gets a little bit more of managing up. So your direct reports begin to also manage up very strategically and very differently than they did before. And you as an individual leader really needs to know and understand what that is, what that looks like, and how to manage that. The next one would be the fact that your boss is more focused on results than they are on your development. Now that can be said in a lot of cases for a leader at any level. However, again, the higher you go up or the bigger the role and responsibility is, the less opportunity you have with your boss to get the coaching and the development and the feedback that you need. So you need that extra resource. You need that other tool in your toolkit in order to really ensure that you're continuing to address the gaps. Find the blind spots and really accelerate the strengths and the high potential skills that you have that make, that differentiate you from others. And a core value for having a coach is that it's the one relationship in a leader's life that is structurally designed around truth. Not because they're gonna be brutally honest, but because the relationship is built entirely on your personal and professional growth with no other agenda, no political risk to them, no performance review that is attached. They are just there to ensure that you move from A to B, B to C, maybe C to G, and that you are moving toward the goals and the aspirations that you have for yourself. It's just the work. For the coach, and it's all up to you as and/or that client to ensure that they are taking advantage of it and reaping the benefits of it. But here's something that nobody really talks about. Most leaders, when they decide to hire a coach, make the decision badly. They take a referral and yet they don't ask any questions. They're not doing the work that it takes to really ensure that you're getting the right coach for the right team member at the right time. Another big thing that I've often encountered is that they're choosing based on who they're most comfortable with. Now, coaching is all about shifting someone, and it's a lot of the internal work is not necessarily comfortable. And so you really want to ensure you're being careful about just finding someone that feels comfortable because the work is to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, to learn to approach those areas that are not working well for you and to find ways to work through those and to enrich and enhance those. And some, and most of the time that work is not comfortable. A big caution is don't look for someone who's a yes person or someone who's gently walks you to the end goal and allows you to get off and get away with things and not hold you accountable and not be that honest truth that we talked about earlier. You really want to ensure you're finding the right person. Another thing people get wrong too, is that they don't know what the credentials mean or what the weight of those credentials are. So they don't vet them. So if someone comes and they have a lot of certifications listed on their resume or in their conversations, they don't understand what those certifications are. And so they don't even take the necessary steps to vet them. And therefore they don't really look to see if those credentials are really meaningful, valuable, relevant to the work that needs to be done. And I'm also from the school that credentials or certifications don't carry a lot of weight unless there's a lot of experience, hands-on-the-ground work that goes behind them. And so you definitely want to be careful. When you're vetting or not vetting based on credentials. Lastly, the biggest mistake I find hiring managers and leaders making is that they're expecting that this coaching engagement is a quick fix, is something even for the high potentials that just need to fill in some skills and fill in some gaps. They are expecting that that can happen in a very short period of time. Even if they lay out the goals and the objectives with some measurements, they are wanting that investment and that duration to be a quick turnaround. And in some cases, if it's a singular problem that needs to be solved, it can be done in a very short period of time. However, if you're talking about development or transformation of any kind, that takes time, that takes patience, and that takes the— takes an opportunity for that individual, whether high potential looking to fill gaps, looking to learn new skills, enhance behavior and performance, and/or, and especially if it's for those struggling individuals that definitely need a shift or a transformation in their actions, words, behaviors, and performance, you have to commit to the investment of time, let alone money. Because individuals who are 30, 40, 50, 60+ years on this earth have had many years to learn and ingrain certain behaviors and certain attitudes and certain words and actions, and it'll take time to change them, to shift them, to transform them. So don't make the mistake that any engagement that you want to have with a coach is going to be an overnight engagement, because that's not fair to anyone. And you're not going to get that return on investment that you're looking for. So the result of any one of these bad approaches to hiring a coach, what it'll result in is a bad reputation for the coaching program or the coaching individual, because all of a sudden it'll be, we tried it, didn't work. We're not going to make this investment anymore, and we're going to move on. And again, that's not fair to the individual. It's not fair to the team. It's not fair to the business and overall the coaching, because of the fact that maybe someone didn't go through the vetting process, ask the right questions, understand what the gotchas are, understands what to look for, understands how to frame a coaching engagement to get the best results possible. So you really want to ensure that you have a framework that you can work into in order to be successful as possible in any engagement that you have with a coach. Coach is there to help you think more clearly, really help you see what you can't see, what those blind spots are, and to take the appropriate actions that are aligned to the goals that you have for yourself and for your team and for the business. They're a sounding board. They're a guide. They ask a lot of questions and hope to lead you to the answers. To expand on what we talked about in regards to Coaching Matters, your coach is the one person who will tell you the truth. Now, that's a give and take. You have to be open. You have to be vulnerable. You have to be authentic about what you're dealing with, what you're being challenged with. In order for your coach to be able to really cut through what you're telling them and what they're actually hearing and/or observing from you that actually might be the truth. It's really important that they're trying to be that sounding board, be that truth teller for you, be that partner for you, understanding that it gets lonely at the top. However, you need to come to the table with full acknowledgement and transparency about what you're dealing with day in, day out. Not just the challenges, but even what's working, what the opportunities are, your successes. It's really key that you're bringing to the table exactly what they need in order to help you. The second one that we had talked about is the fact that there is almost a performance ceiling or wall we talked about, and oftentimes Uh, individuals don't see those walls and therefore your coach will help you anticipate and think strategically and look around the corner so you can proactively address what might be coming down the road and for things for you to consider. And lastly, that fact that the ROI is measurable and documented. And when I say it's measurable, Anything is measurable, even soft skills. And I'll get that argument a lot. How do we measure if someone is making changes to their behavior, performance, actions, and words? That's where 360s come in. That's where just one-on-one conversations come in. That's where observations and insights come in. And you can put metrics to those in order for you to really be able to accurately measure the return on investment that you're getting from not only the coaching engagement, but from the performance enhancement improvement from that individual. There's different aspects of coaching for different levels of an organization. So for instance, we talked about the executive coach versus leadership coach and how they are used interchangeably. Mid-level managers, they're often navigating the leap from doing to leading, from manager to really becoming a leader, from building influence with authority, from developing and coaching their teams, from really learning how to delegate and navigate the direction of their team. With senior directors and VPs, a coach will look at really what the stakeholder complexity is. Who are those stakeholders? What are their expectations? What are their goals? What does the political landscape look like? How do— how does one navigate that political landscape? What the individual needs from an executive presence, executive communications, overall how they show up each and every day, and what are those invisible barriers, so to speak, in order for them to get to the next level? A coach has to help them really understand and see very clearly what's important to now that new level of stakeholder in order for them to get to the next level. And then lastly, for the C-suite, as I mentioned, the higher you go up, the less feedback you're getting, the less honesty, the less truth, the less even them themselves looking in the mirror and being honest with themselves. Therefore, coaches have helped them wash away any blurriness that they're seeing about themselves in that mirror. So they are very clear, they're very transparent. It's very true to actually the experience that they're creating. And oftentimes that's a very difficult learning to have for someone. And yet it's important for them to have it if they're going to maintain that level and/or exceed that level. As they move forward. It's really important for anyone hiring, including HR, an executive/leadership coach, is to understand exactly why you're hiring them and what type of coaching engagement will this be. Is it developmental? Is it remedial? Meaning, is it corrective coaching for that individual who might be creating a challenging team environment? Is it developmental, meaning is it high potential, someone with a lot of growth opportunity, fill in the gaps of their skills, help them navigate the political landscape? What exactly is it? And then what's most important is however that engagement lays out to be, The individual needs to be part of the conversation about why they'd be receiving coaching, what the goals and the objectives and the outcomes are that are expected, and ensuring that they are on board with all of that before engaging the coach. Too often I see a coach hired, including myself, and an individual connect it to me, and they don't even understand why they're being given a coach. And that is not how you want to set up your employee to work into a coaching arrangement. You want them fully on board. You want them fully understanding what they're getting from it, what their contribution will be, what the expectations are. You want to be totally upfront with them. Whether it's corrective or it's developmental. That's the only way you're gonna get them fully committed to that relationship and that partnership. Now, once you know what type of coaching, individual or group, uh, or team that you're looking for, then you might even consider some factors when it comes to building a business case for that investment. Some of the things that you can keep in mind is the fact that if you were to lose a high potential leader as a result of not providing them the resources and tools and support that they need to grow and develop, let alone advance, then that'll cost you anywhere from 50 to 200% of one's annual salary, making coaching look very inexpensive. To then what it will take to not only fill that position, but onboard that individual and get them trained and up to par to who, what you need in the business in place of that high potential that you lost. 50 to 200% of an annual salary cost. Great ROI justification for an executive coach. The next one would be the fact that Employees who feel supported by being given an opportunity for coaching and for that investment being made on them will stay longer. So retention will be that much stronger because they are feeling supported. They're feeling as if they're valued in the company because the company's making an investment in them. And so they're going to leverage the coaching, in this case, opportunity to really ensure that they are filling in any gaps or just overall developing themselves to be the best contributor to the team and to the business as possible. Third factor to keep in mind is if you, as an organization, were to incorporate coaching into your succession planning, into your team development and growth planning, then that's a huge differentiator for not only today, but for going forward, proactively providing them that opportunity in order to really ensure you have the right people in the right role at the right time for the right reasons. Let alone if you were to assess and look across your team members, if you can proactively address any blind spots or, or skill gap enhancing or enriching one's high potential skills that they already have, you can actually ensure that you're preventing someone from getting into a point of struggle or into a point of creating a difficult team environment, and therefore save yourself a lot of headache and a lot of time in ensuring that you have a very high functioning team overall in the long run. So proactive succession planning, proactive team development planning, all makes for a very powerful business case. But how do you find the right coach? What are the steps that you should be considering? Uh, is a question that I often get. First, you need to do the internal work within the organization. You really need to understand if it's from a organization or global perspective, really lay out what is it that you want to accomplish by having a leadership coaching program? What are those goals and objectives and outcomes that you're looking for? What is the value or the impact that it's going to have on a team and/or a business? Uh, what is it that it's going to bring to the culture and the team as a whole? Let alone just that individual. So identify what those reasonings, what those value propositions are, would be the first thing you really want to get a handle on. Because again, going back to whether or not you're hiring for developmental reasons or corrective action reasons, you want to ensure that you have a good understanding of what fits into each of those buckets. Before even pursuing an individual or an overall organizational program. Next thing you want to do is if there is someone specific that you have in mind or a group of people that you have in mind, really lay out the 1 to 3 things, the challenges that they might be having. You have to be specific. You don't want to be generic. You want to really lay out these are the challenges. That this individual is having. This is the behavior, the performance that we're expecting. This is the goals that we have for them based on that. This is how we're gonna measure it, and these are the desired outcomes we're looking for. Lay all of that out so you're very, very clear when you go to vet any executive or leadership coach. From that, you want to say, okay, then what kind of support is needed for this particular individual or group of people? Is it accountability? Is it skill development? Is it mind shift work? Is it strategic thinking? Is it partnering? Is it relationship building? Is it communications? Is it, you know, one or more of these things? But you really want to lay out specifically the kind of support someone will need as a result of coaching. And if it is an organizational program, that you're formulating. You wanna make sure that you have all of those categories of areas of support. So then you can plot in who might fit that criteria that you're laying out. You wanna be clear as far as the scope of what a coaching engagement could entail and could provide for you. Then you want to really understand what is the preferred learning style of your team members. They'll, they could differ very much. So one might want direct feedback. One might want a lot of questions being asked of them. One might want it to be structured. One might want it to be loosey-goosey. And loosey-goosey is not a bad thing. It just means that it's fluid. It's based on what they're dealing with right then and there, as opposed to a very structured program. Then you want to definitely be really thinking about what is the investment range you're willing to make and that you have a budget to make. At it again, based on what type of coaching is it? Executive coaching? Is it leadership development coaching? Is it development coaching? Is it corrective action coaching? Is it for middle managers or is it for senior level executives? All of those things will create the range of the coaching that you're going to be looking for. And then from there, you want to really think through, because there's a lot of different viewpoints on this, but you want to think through what level of credential are you looking for? Some companies require a lot of certifications, a lot of credentials for their hiring. Some really want bench work, meaning they really want people who've been there, done that, who have been actually coaching for a time period, not just sitting in a classroom, getting certifications. So which credentials and what degree of credentials would you be looking for? So step one would be look internally and do the work internally, understanding what it is you want and what you're looking for and what is needed. Second one is looking at those credentials. What will you, for an individual or a group or the organization, require when it comes to any Accreditation and/or real work, real coaching time. The third step would be there are some very important questions you need to be asking in order to ensure that you are vetting the right individual. And we'll walk through what those are. You can make a note of them, uh, and then you can come back to the recording in order to really be able to take your time and make note of all 15 questions. And keep in mind, a failure to ask the majority of these questions could create gaps, could create weakness in your vetting process. So take the time, take the opportunity to ask these questions and to ensure that you are getting the right person for the right objective that you have. Of the 15 questions I'm going to discuss with you, 10 of them are universal and 5 of them are more specific to HR leaders, just because again, we're gonna be looking at more organizationally, more category of coaching than just what a team leader who's looking for a coach for themselves or team leader who is looking for one of their team members. First question would be, what is your coaching philosophy and how does it typically show up in your work and/or your coaching sessions. The second question would be, what kind of leader do you work best with and who do you not fit with? This is critical because not all individuals are good for a particular coach and/or I'll say it differently. One coach may not be best for all the different types of individuals that you have on your team. Number 3 would be, you know, help me walk through a typical engagement that would last for anywhere from 60 to 90 days. Now, this is important because you want to get an understanding, even if you're the hiring individual of the coach, let alone if you're the client and you're the one being proposed a coach, you really want to understand how they go about in their engagement with your team member. Is it structured? Is it fluid? Is it around certain skills or competencies, or is it more generalized? Is there a process or is it more improvised? So you really wanna get a handle on understanding what you can expect from that individual coach with your team member. Number 4 would be, how do you handle it when a client gets defensive or resists feedback? What is your approach to doing that? Again, it's a telltale sign of how they're going to really bring out the best from your team member and/or address in areas that you might even be confronted with and you're having challenges with. And therefore you're often looking for a coach to help you work through that with that individual. How do you handle when a client gets defensive or resists feedback is a really important question. Number 5 would be, what assessments do you use? What assessments have you used? How do you integrate them into your process? And what can I expect as far as what the roles and responsibilities are when you do use tools such as like the 360, the DiSC, Hogan, a number of other tools. That a coach might use. A real important question to ask is, how do you measure progress and success in an engagement? Now, you wanna ensure that the coach looks for critical milestones, looks for specific measures, specific success factors, specific changes that can be observed or provided feedback on. You wanna know that they have a process for really capturing the changes that are expected and the progress being made. If it's too vague, if it's too nebulous, if it doesn't exist at all, like they don't set up specific goals and measurements, almost like a SMART goal as part of their process, then you might be wary of that. Measuring success is critical because that is the job of a coach is to guide them to a successful outcome? The 7th question would be, have you coached leaders through, and then you list a specific challenge or a specific problem or a specific opportunity? And if so, what did that look like? So I tend to fall into 2 categories as a coach, high potential or struggling, almost toxic type of managers. And therefore, those two, you know, challenges require a whole different type of approach. And therefore, you really want to understand if you have a specific scenario or a specific problem or opportunity in a coaching initiative with an individual or a team, you want to ensure that that individual has been there and done that. As part of their coaching. An 8th question would be, what does your own development practice look like? You want to ensure that they're practicing what they preach and they're also addressing their own development opportunities as part of their own day-in, day-out practice. Because any coach who's not investing in their own growth, well, that can tell you a lot. Question number 9 would be, what's your approach to confidentiality, privacy, especially in an organization that is sponsoring the coaching. Privacy and confidentiality is the cornerstone of a coaching relationship. And I express it time and time again with my clients and/or my sponsors within an organization that privacy and confidentiality is, is the number one priority for any time working with a client. And therefore, what does that mean? What does that look like? Details aren't shared. Specifics are not shared. Status is shared. They're showing up. They're engaging. They're contributing. They're not being upfront. I'm struggling with getting them to open up, but I have a plan. That type of feedback and input to a sponsor or a hiring manager, a team leader, would be appropriate. But there's strict confidentiality requirements around the conversation that you're having with your client, and you want to ensure when you're vetting a coach that they are passionate and committed to that. Any wiggle room has to be a red flag for you. And then number 10 would be, and this might surprise many people, but a key question is, what would make you end a coaching partnership early? Now, why is this important? For me, not all money is good money, and you need to keep that in mind. Not all money is good money for a coach and/or for an organization. If that partnership is not working, if that individual is not showing up, is not engaging, is not willing to look in the mirror, is not willing to be upfront and forthright, is not willing to take feedback, is resisting in any way, is just making the partnership a struggle, then there could be a reason to end early. And whatever other reasons that you might have as a coach for ending it early, this question is critical for you as a leader to be asking them. You understand clearly where they stand from an ethical perspective, an integrity perspective, a values perspective, a belief perspective. It will give you a lot of information about them. As a person in regards to that question and they have their answer to it. Now, these last 5 questions are more geared to the HR individual or to a leader who is sponsoring an organizational program or an investment for one or more team members. Okay. So look at this from a more global organizational perspective. So the first question would be, have you worked in engagements with HR or learning and development where they were the sponsor as opposed to the functional leader, and how did you navigate kind of that three-way relationship, which would be the client, the sponsor, and the coach. Now, sometimes it's four-way. It's client, sponsor, coach, and the client manager, the team leader, who might not be the one hiring. It might be coming from the HR or the L&D organization. And so you really want to understand how that coach would navigate, uh, that three or foursome relationship in regards to communications, updates, status, contracts from start to finish, the confidentiality, the privacy, all the questions that were asked in 1 to 10 comes into play, but yet adds a level of complexity when it comes to a different or an additional sponsor on top of the team leader. All right. The next one would be, what is your written policy on reporting back to the sponsoring organization? And so again, you have client, team leader of that client, yourself, the coach, and then this second entity of either HR, L&D, even a C, C-level office sponsoring the coaching. And so what is your written policy on that reporting back? Well, again, this is going to call into question that individual, that coach's ethics and their values and integrity. And the fact that it talks to no content being shared, only progress toward goals, status of the individual's contribution and participation, but anything specific to the sessions without the client's knowledge is not acceptable. It's actually ethically liable, uh, for that coach. So you want to ensure that the coach has policy around, uh, what's shared or not shared from a third or fourth party perspective. And the reason why I have to really emphasize that is because that relationship will not work if they think a coach is going back to their boss, let alone a organizational sponsor like HR or L&D, and sharing specific content from those discussions. It won't happen. And therefore you just wasted your investment. We need, as a group, We need that individual or that group of individuals, we need them to fully feel safe and, and trust the process when they come into a session in order to then open up, be transparent, be authentic, and discuss what needs to be discussed to achieve the outcomes that are being sought after. Without that, you don't have a coaching relationship or partnership at all. All right. Question 3, how do you handle where the employee's goals and the organization's goals are kind of butting up against each other? So what exactly does that mean? Well, it might mean that the employee through the coaching recognizes that they might not be the best fit for the organization or for that team. And therefore, all of a sudden, their goal or their objective is to work their way out from the organization or from the team. And so here the organization, especially if they sponsored, is expecting that this individual is being invested in for growth within the organization, but then now the client has a different idea, uh, and the client is recognizing that they might not be the best fit for them. And therefore, there could create some tension. Quite honestly, there is a chance that an employee or a client will determine that as their path during a coaching engagement. And a coach's job, at least in my view, is to coach them to be direct, open, honest, and transparent with the organization and decide what the next steps are. Because obviously the organization is expecting growth and development and future, and yet the client might decide differently. Coach's job would be for them to get to their hiring manager and have that discussion with them. Now, of course, there's a lot of politics, a lot of timing, a lot of, you know, risk involved there. Question 4, specifically for HR or for team leaders, over and above the first 10, would be Do you have experience as a coach coaching across different cultures, identity groups, or even senior levels? So let's break these down. Cultures. Do you understand various cultures so you can support them in their unique needs during your coaching? Identity groups. Do you, are you flexible and adaptive and do you understand their unique needs and wants? And, uh, the resources and support that they're going to need in order to support them. And then seniority levels come in mind because coaches that coach mid-level, you'll find some aren't very accustomed to really the senior C-suite level dynamics, political landscape, the stakeholder value that is critical. For coaching at that level. And so you could have various scenarios of an individual or a team that you need to ensure that coach understands. Because again, it's not that a coach has to fit everyone and everything, but you want to ensure that you have the right coach for the right team or individual at the right time, understanding the right challenges and opportunities that, that they might have in order to have the best fit for that engagement. And the last one, similar to the dynamics of having an organizational sponsor, is what does your intake process look like when the organization is the buyer and the employee is the coachee? Now, this is the most common, at least for me, uh, in that I am contracting with the organization and my company while at the same time I have as part of that contract some expectations and requirements of the client or coachee. I give them this profile that they actually have to respond to as part of the contract. And it really vets out that they're coachable, that they're willing to listen, that they're willing to get uncomfortable, that they're willing to get some hard feedback, that they'll show up on time. There's a number of things that I vet my clients around to ensure that it is a good fit. Because like I said earlier before, Not all money is good money and not all potential clients are a good fit. Those are the 15 questions. 10 are universal, as I mentioned, and the last 5 HR or team leaders should consider when looking to invest in a coach from an organizational perspective. So consider those, write them down, come back to the recording, continue scribbling if need be. But those are the questions you definitely want to be asking a potential coach to ensure you're making the right choice. To recap, 3 core things: define your need before you start searching or before you even start hiring. Define what it is that you need. Ask hard questions of those candidates and listen very carefully. Look for those red flags. Then Definitely you want to consider chemistry, credentials, and clarity in their responses to formulate whether or not they are the right coach for you or not. And then we added the layer for the HR leaders around understanding and clarifying from the beginning, is this coaching developmental or is it remedial? Meaning corrective. Which one is it? Because there'll be different coaching requirements as a result. What do we look for, or what do we need around three-way contracting? Client, coach, organization. What is the employee involvement or commitment? And what are those predefined metrics we're going to track in order to deem an engagement successful? That's what all of you should be looking for. When it comes to putting together a coaching engagement or a coaching program. So your challenge this week is to identify that one leadership challenge that you might consider for yourself or for someone else, executive coaching or slash leadership coaching, depending upon the level of the individual or the team. What is one leadership challenge? And start having a conversation around the coaching return on investment that you could be gaining as a result of it, and then decide on the next step that you want to take in regards to that. Now, if you want to have a conversation about it and, and, or walk through an initial coaching session so you understand exactly what a coaching session looks like, then feel free to reach out to me. Go to coachmebernadette.com/discoverycall, and we can certainly ensure that you have a really clear understanding of what the coaching process is and/or how to approach vetting a coach and/or coaches for whatever needs you have within your organization. You're not alone. And there's some very, very powerful, strong, valuable coaches out there. It all goes back to that initial internal work as to why and what do you need when it comes to coaching. Lastly, one thing I always keep in mind when it comes to coaches, especially when I have to explain the value of a coach to a business or a leader. The best leaders in the world have coaches, whether they're athletes, executives, they're heads of state. They all have coaches. It's what helps them to elevate. It's what helps them to see their blind spot. It's what helps them to look around the corner and really become self-aware. And it's not because they're broken. It's because they, as a committed leader, they really want to ensure they're showing up as the best leader that they can be. So the question is, do you need a coach or is there someone on your team that needs a coach? And if there is, then ensure you're using this framework to vet out those coaches and feel free again to reach out to me, coachmebernadette.com/discoverycall. Until next time, I'll see you soon. Bye.

Thank you for tuning into today's episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch. Every journey taken together is another step towards unleashing the powerhouse leader within you. Don't miss any of our weekly episodes. Subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen. And for those who thrive on visual content, catch us on our Shedding the Bitch YouTube channel. Wanna dive deeper with Bernadette on becoming a powerhouse leader? Visit balloffirecoaching.com to learn more about about how she helps professionals, HR executives, and team leaders elevate overall team performance. You've been listening to Shedding the Corporate Bitch with Bernadette Boas. Until next time, keep shedding, keep growing, and keep leading.