*Definition: Executive Coaching

Executive Coaching generally entails working for the executive on any personal or organizational concerns he or she may have.

Some Intervention Areas for Executive Coachingn1. Helping the executive who needs new skills for a new position due to a change in organizational structure.
2. Working with a manager being groomed for promotion.
3. Coaching high performance executives whose personality style impacts negatively on their relationship with peers, staff and clients.
4. Working with executives wishing to develop their career paths and prospects

Executive coaching is a developing field. As such, its definition is still the subject of discussion and debate among practitioners, researchers, and consumers. Executive coaching involves an executive, his coach, and his organizational context (as represented by the interests of his organization and supervisor, including the fact that the organization typically pays for coaching services). All are key stakeholders in the process. This fact by itself would appear to differentiate executive coaching from other interventions, such as career counseling and life coaching.

While both career counseling and life coaching can lend concepts and practice techniques that an executive coach might use, they focus solely on the individual client and his needs and goals. Executive coaching, in our view, focuses on the needs and goals of both the executive and the sponsoring organization. In that spirit, we offer the following definition of executive coaching: executive coaching is an experiential and individualized leader development process that builds a leader’s capability to achieve short- and long-term organizational goals. It is conducted through one-on-one interactions, driven by data from multiple perspectives, and based on mutual trust and respect. The organization, an executive, and the executive coach work in partnership to achieve maximum impact.

Soruce: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_coaching