Founder Potential: The Power of Executive Coaching

Executive coaching is a powerful tool to help start-up founders navigate the various stages of this complex journey, providing the support and development needed to succeed.

As coaching has grown in popularity in the leadership development community, it is often confused with other forms of development intervention, such as mentoring and executive education. This fragmentation and conceptual ambiguity make “executive coaching” a concept with a fuzzy meaning, which is challenging to define for those looking to develop an effective coaching programme for founders or, more broadly, within entrepreneurship education programmes or incubators.

Coaching is a partnership with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximise their personal and professional potential, as defined by the International Coaching Federation (ICF).

In this context, Executive Coaching is a service offered to founders, often by their investment partners, and it has several stages that can include contracting, assessment, intervention, and evaluation. This process is based on a collaborative relationship between an executive coach (unlikely to be a founder) and a founder or, in the context of team coaching, a founding leadership team.

Executive coaching is a service offered to founders, often by their investment partners, and it has several stages that can include contracting, assessment, intervention, and evaluation.

1. Contracting: Establishing a clear agreement that outlines the goals, expectations, responsibilities, and boundaries of the coaching relationship.
2. Assessment: Enhancing the coaching experience by providing a more objective view of a founder's current state, strengths, weaknesses, and potential developmental needs.
3. Intervention: Structured discussions that help leaders reflect on their experiences, identify challenges, and develop strategies for improvement. This might also include feedback based on observations, psychological assessments, or 360-degree assessments.
4. Evaluation: Systematic assessment of the coaching process and its outcomes to determine the effectiveness and impact of the coaching intervention. Following a coaching intervention, evaluation is crucial for understanding whether the coaching has met its objectives and identifying further improvement areas.

Which Founders Would Benefit Most from Executive Coaching

Different types of founders, from operating to nascent and aspirational, can benefit from tailored coaching interventions.

Operating Founders: Founders who are scaling or looking to scale up their business. This category of founders faces a host of challenges related to the development and growth of their companies and may be dealing with acute crises or potential business failures. Executive coaching interventions here might be designed to improve strategic, organisational, and technical competencies.

Nascent Founders: Aspiring entrepreneurs who have taken steps to start a new enterprise but have either struggled or have not yet succeeded. This group might include would-be founders attending entrepreneurship programmes or working in incubators, accelerators, boot-strapped ventures, or early-stage founder-funded businesses. The challenges this cohort faces are often financial but can include a lack of commercial and operational nous. Executive coaching in this cohort can be targeted at nurturing the capability to develop a business vision or improve the initial business idea.

Aspirational Founders: Non-founders who have not founded a venture but are at the ideation stage. They typically have careers and may not know if they want to become founders. This group is involved in entrepreneurial activities including entrepreneurship education programmes (which might include executive coaching) or intrapreneurship programmes run by corporations (possibly incubators). These programmes are typically sanctioned and resourced by businesses to generate, develop, and implement new innovative thinking and ideas that may form new lines of business, products, and/or services.

The Most Overlooked Founder: Supporting the insolvent founder during business failure is a very overlooked area of executive coaching. This intervention has a very specific aim: to improve founder coping resources and well-being at a critical and stressful moment in (let's be honest) most founders' entrepreneurial journeys.

Measuring the Value of Executive Coaching Support for Founders

• Performance/Skills: Measuring objective and subjective ROI reflecting founder performance or the behaviour change required to lead a start-up or scaling business to be effective and sustainable. Executive coaching for founders has been shown to increase entrepreneurial skills, innovative work behaviours, leadership capability, venture growth, scaling beyond borders, and increasing sales.

• Well-being and Coping: Executive coaching significantly enhances founders' well-being and coping mechanisms. According to a KPMG High Growth Ventures survey, only 22% of founders were satisfied with their stress and mental wellness. Coaching positively impacts health and psychological well-being and reduces emotional exhaustion and burnout. It also improves entrepreneurial self-efficacy and stress management by helping founders develop adaptive strategies to handle challenges constructively.

• Work Attitudes: Work attitudes are crucial for a founder as they directly influence the success and sustainability of the business. A founder's positive attitude sets the tone for the entire organisation, fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and resilience. These attitudes impact decision-making, helping founders manage risks and adapt to changes effectively. They also enhance employee engagement, productivity, and team dynamics by inspiring and motivating the workforce. Moreover, positive attitudes improve customer relationships and company reputation, driving customer satisfaction and loyalty. They also support personal well-being, managing burnout and ensuring long-term effectiveness, instilling confidence in investors and stakeholders, making it easier to secure support and build strong professional networks. In essence, a founder's work attitude is foundational to their leadership and the overall success of their business.

• Goal-Directed Self-Regulation: A coach supports a founder in achieving goal-directed self-regulation by helping the founder clarify their vision and create actionable and achievable goals. Coaches help identify barriers and develop strategies for overcoming them, fostering resilience. Regular check-ins and feedback ensure accountability and maintain motivation. The coach also enhances the founder's self-efficacy by helping them develop a growth mindset and reflective practices. This empowers them to navigate challenges effectively and achieve sustained personal and professional growth.

Founders exhibit unique competencies, such as visionary thinking, resilience, and innovativeness, distinguishing them at various stages of their journeys. Executive coaching enhances these traits by offering tailored guidance, helping founders clarify their vision, develop actionable goals, and build resilience. This broad, supportive intervention improves strategic, organisational, and technical skills, contributing significantly to the success and sustainability of their ventures.

By addressing founders' evolving needs, coaching supports them in navigating challenges, enhancing leadership capabilities, and driving their businesses forward.

__________________________________________________________

Get in touch. Follow the links below to discover more, or contact our dedicated leadership experts from your local Odgers Berndtson office here.