Executive Coaching goes Life on Linkedin

I am pleased to announce that there is now a Linkedin Page exclusively dedicated to comments on Executive Career Coaching. 

Executive Career Coach

Succession Planning often neglected

A new study released by Stanford Business School highlights the cavalier attitude that many organisations take when planning for the eventual replacement of their executives. While we are happy to assist any client in his search for alternatives we think that the first stop in any well-managed company should be their own pool of seasoned and well-trained managers.

Mentoring and Coaching - a simple model

While some experts try to make things complicated busy market professionals need simple solutions when they reach out for independent advice about how to manage their careers. For most successful executives the most significant barrier to effective mentoring and coaching is the illusion that any outside help is superfluous. After this somewhat arrogant attitude is overcome it quickly becomes obvious even to the most self-confident person that adding another perspective can be a useful tool to overcome any personal or professional issue that arises at work.

Hector Sants may have benefited from Coaching

News that another senior finance professional - this time Hector Sants, Barclays Bank's Head of compliance - needs to take time off to avoid burn-out, highlights the pressure that staff at all levels are facing these days. This burden gets progressively stronger the more an executive moves up the ranks of the organisation. 

20-25 years ago hardly anyone in the financial markets had ever heard or seen a compliance manual, let alone a compliance officer. And the markets functioned quite well. Now the rulebooks run to thousands of pages - and are constantly 'updated' and expanded with new rules - everything is up to interpretation and everyone wants to cover his backside. No wonder that people like Sants feel the stress (ironically he helped create many of these rules!).

Another problem facing senior managers is the fact that their jobs can be quite lonely ones where they are constantly under pressure from two sides - aspiring subordinates keen to get their job or pressure from their own supervisor who wants to squeeze out a better performance from their reports.