Executive coaching is an essential talent development lever that contributes to the success of organizations, especially those in the healthcare industry which faces unprecedented challenges today. According to the Human Resource Executive, healthcare leaders’ top priorities in 2022 are employee wellbeing, leadership development, and overall employee experience. Due to the stressors of the pandemic, healthcare leaders spanning all sectors are experiencing increased feelings of burnout and declining mental health.
Fundamentally, executive coaching enhances leadership performance and supports a leader’s ability to manage themselves and their teams through times of change and disruption. That’s why partnering with the right executive coaching firm is more important now than ever. It’s no surprise, therefore, that choosing the “best fit” executive coaching firm whose mission, vision, and values are aligned to your organization is an important priority. In this article, we’re highlighting the top 4 criteria organizations and their leaders should look for in an executive coaching firm in 2022 and beyond. Let’s dive in.
1. Find an Executive Coaching Firm with Expertise in Whole-Person Wellness
Whole-person wellness is a term that describes an all-encompassing approach to health. Experts at California State University, Fullerton suggest that there are 6 dimensions of wellness: emotional, intellectual, physical, social, spiritual, and occupational. Essentially, when a person invests their energy in taking care of themselves in all 6 dimensions, they achieve whole-person wellness.
Prior to the pandemic, there were few conversations around whole-person wellness. Many people — especially those in healthcare — were afraid to open up about their mental and emotional struggles. However, the pandemic helped shed light on mental health awareness. Now, healthcare professionals are calling for the de-stigmatization of whole-person wellness. According to FOW Insights, the pandemic amplified the importance of mental and physical health by 84% and 89% respectively. In fact, according to their survey, 74% of employees believe that poor mental health affected their productivity beginning early 2020. Likewise, only 31% of employees are satisfied with the health benefits and policies they’re receiving from employers.
In a world where whole-person wellness is now a top priority for most employees, it’s crucial to find an executive coaching firm that is highly skilled in coaching leaders to focus and prioritize their own whole-person wellness as well as their employees.
2. The Best Healthcare Executive Coaching Firms Understand The Healthcare Ecosystem
If you were a professional athlete, you’d look to work with a coach who has experience either playing in or coaching athletes like you. The same goes for executive coaching. Would you want to hire an executive coaching firm that specializes in general leadership development or a firm that specializes in your exact niche and industry? Odds are, you’d choose the latter. To maximize the impact of hiring an executive coaching firm, it’s crucial that your coach has either been in your current career position or has extensive experience working with healthcare leaders and others in the health ecosystem.
Each healthcare professional and team have their own unique challenges to overcome. For instance, pharmaceutical leaders face the challenge of achieving continual innovation, collaboration, and engagement of key stakeholders. Meanwhile, healthcare policy makers have to balance the conflicting demands of regulation, quality, cost, safety, and consumerism. Having an executive coach that deeply understands these challenges and has the knowledge and experience to help you and your team conquer them is critical.
At TLD Group, we’ve made it a priority to source coaches with a depth of expertise in assessments and coaching and a breadth of experience within the health ecosystem either as former healthcare executives themselves or through lengthy experience coaching healthcare leaders. Our Client-Coach Fit drives success throughout individuals and teams as both the coach and coachee are aligned on their shared experiences and goals.
3. Choose an Executive Coaching Firm that Offers Customized and Contextual Coaching
Sometimes, one size does not fit all. When it comes to choosing an executive coaching firm, it’s imperative that whichever firm you choose develops a customized leadership development coaching plan for you and your team. Customized coaching solutions support an individual’s growth objectives as well as the company’s core strategies. Depending on an individual coachee’s current skills, needs, and goals, their coaching plan will undoubtedly differ from the coaching plan of an entire organization.
For example, TLD Group offers multiple types of customizable executive coaching solutions. Take physician leader coaching, for example. Our team of experienced physician coaches work with individual medical and scientific leaders on their mindset, skills, communication, and more to lead them to positive change and success. Additionally, TLD Group offers fully customizable team coaching that places a focus on effective collaboration, shared decision-making, and enhanced interpersonal awareness. If you try to fit yourself or your team into a predetermined course of action, you won’t yield the same results as you will with the proper attention paid to customizing the approach to fit the needs of the client within the context of the organization.
4. Ensure you and your coach create a detailed development action plan
Before you begin your coaching, be sure the coach conducts a thorough assessment with key stakeholders, as well as psychometric assessments, to create a detailed development plan that will challenge you. It is important that the coaching goals and objectives are aligned with the feedback from the assessment and your desire for the future. Only then, will the coaching process drive positive results.
As a matter of fact, Cody Martin, former Talent Management Director at Bristol-Myers Squibb had this to say about working with TLD Group’s executive coaches:
“Their [TLD Group’s] coaching cadre is exceptional and their client relationship team takes the time and effort to identify coaches that meet the business needs of our senior leaders.”
Bottom line, when you’re researching executive coaching firms, be sure to find a firm that wants input from key stakeholders to obtain diverse perspectives and ensure alignment on goals to develop a comprehensive and effective coaching program.
Final Thoughts
While the pandemic may have shifted healthcare professional’s priorities, the ultimate solution to dealing with the challenges and mindset shifts of your employees is to focus on leadership development. Searching for the right executive coaching firm for your organization may seem like a daunting task. However, the Leadership Development Group is here to make the process easier for you.
Get in touch with our team of experts today to determine which coaching plan is right for you, your team, and your goals.
