Top 5 Reasons to Hire a Leadership and Executive Coach

When John Mattone and Terry Powell founded Intelligent Leadership Executive Coaching (ILEC) in 2019, their mission was clear: take Mattone’s proven and proprietary Intelligent Leadership® philosophy global to help executive coaches make a real difference in solving the global leadership problem.

In short, they wanted to help build better leaders — everywhere.

Since then, our world has changed in a variety of ways, one of them being that a substantial portion of the workforce has moved to a virtual workspace, which can pose a number of challenges for a leader.

“You've got to find a way to really ignite the connection to people and elevate what I call ‘the heart and the soul’ in people,” said Mattone. “Now that people are more removed from the workplace, they’re not connected — and maybe their manager hasn’t really made an effort or done a great job. This is where ILEC coaches step in and really help leaders drive results within workplaces.” 

With organizational and workplace shifts happening so quickly in a rapidly evolving world, leaders must be more nimble than ever, adjusting to the times and continuously evaluating the needs of the workplace and its employees.

“Organizations are more vulnerable than in the past due to fast-moving shifts in business models and major disruptions as a result of uncontrollable circumstances,” said Powell, who is also the founder of Career Ownership Coaching® brand The Entrepreneur’s Source®. “In turn, company culture feels the impact as unanticipated change infiltrates organizations and demolishes employee engagement. And with a robust millennial workforce replacing many boomer-generation professionals, a lack of leadership training has resulted in management that is not adept at leading people and teams.”

Discover What Type of Leader You Are with an ILEC Coach

The most compelling reason to hire a leadership coach, according to ILEC Executive Coach Dennis Pierce, is to discover and become the best leaders we can be. If a leader feels their organization suffers from poor culture, is not achieving desired results or is simply disorganized, an ILEC coach can help. 

“You've got to build something that people want to be a part of, and culture really defines what that is,” said Pierce. “The world is a better place when we're able to have a dynamic team of individuals that all bring separate skill sets and different perspectives to the team. A leadership coach helps wake the culture that you're operating within and helps to transform it, retaining valuable team members.”

An ILEC coach will always first do diagnostic work with each leader to best prepare and

execute a personalized and targeted leadership development “prescription,” called an

Individual Leadership Development Plan. This method allows both the ILEC coach and the leader to understand what the challenges are and how to address them — as well as strengths on which to double-down. Once the prescription is written, ILEC’s coaching process employs powerful, actionable, on-the-job techniques, tips and strategies to develop a leader’s personal improvement points.

Learn How To Express Your Leadership Style and Strengths Strategically

ILEC LeaderWatch® Surveys indicate that 100% of ILEC clients improved their leadership skills. Because leadership clients were able to chart the measurable progress through feedback, they were able to make adjustments immediately and establish healthy, new habits. ILEC coaches teach leaders techniques to express their unique leadership style and to best leverage the power of a network, including stakeholders, managers, peers and employees.

“What I work with my clients on is being very mindful and strategic of the messages they deliver to people,” ILEC Executive Coach John Burt said. “I ask: ‘What message are you trying to get across?’ ‘What type of culture are you trying to create?’ ‘What type of relationship are you trying to create with your employees?’ These questions help leaders remain mindful of the actions they are taking — and if those actions are going to get them the results they’re looking for.”  

Gain Powerful, Actionable Strategies To Develop Personal Improvement Points

A leader’s behaviors are driven by their inner core values: the character, beliefs and reference points they’ve developed throughout their career. These values also influence how they view the world. 

Burt explained that ILEC takes a leader through the process of identifying powerful, actional strategies so they can hone their inner core values and develop personal improvement points.

“It's about first understanding the self-assessments and helping clients to understand their inner core and how it's showing up for them in the workplace,” said Burt. “We do 360-degree assessments. I help the client go through a core purpose statement to try to understand, from a big-picture perspective, what they are looking to get out of their life or their role as a leader, and identify what they think their purpose is. From there, the client taps into the necessary actions and strategies needed to achieve those goals.”

Learn Authentic Techniques to Leverage Your Network 

We’ve all heard the adage that you are the average of the five people you associate yourself with most. This is why ILEC coaches focus so intently on helping clients grow and leverage their networks. 

One exercise Burt does with his clients is he asks them to journal throughout the week and reflect on the interactions, meetings and conversations they’ve had. This allows them to reflect on the kind of leader they are not just in meetings or when performing traditional leadership duties, but in regular conversation. It allows them to step back and see how they are influencing others and whether or not they’re being a good mentor — someone worthy of being one of the five people their employees want to associate with most.

He also encourages his clients to find mentors themselves.    

“The mentors can be in their organization or just people they find interesting,” said Burt. “But they need to find other people who are successful, have interesting work and have probably encountered the same challenges — and start making connections.”

It’s an example of how ILEC coaches leverage internal development and external influences to build a personal ecosystem that fosters better leaders.

ILEC Coaches Believe in Strengthening Leaders’ Outer Core Skills

Outer core skills include critical thinking, strategic thinking, emotional leadership, and communication skills. These include speaking, listening, executive presence, presentation skills and so many more core competencies of leadership.

“The outer core values are those observable behaviors that our peers, our stakeholders, our customers and our teams witness from us on a daily basis,” explained Pierce. “With ILEC, we build self-awareness by first assessing what those traits are and where there may be gaps that need to be addressed. We also want to figure out how they’re manifesting themselves each day in our clients’ interactions with their teams and customers through that heightened awareness of how they’re being perceived.”

Pierce stated that ILEC coaches are then equipped to build a plan, identify those areas of strength and either develop or avoid known deficiencies. 

“More times than not,” said Pierce, “within teams, we find areas to help us address deficiencies so that the leader is performing at their best — and the team is performing at its best — because the team is greater than the sum of its parts.”

About Intelligent Leadership Executive Coaching (ILEC)

Established in 2010, Co-Founder John Mattone is globally recognized as the world’s #1 authority on Intelligent Leadership (IL), the world’s top executive coach, and the pioneer of the unique, powerful and game-changing Intelligent Leadership Executive Coaching® blueprint for success. Intelligent Leadership Executive Coaching® (ILEC) is the world’s top executive coaching franchise dedicated to growing leaders, building cultures, and driving results. The ILEC unique coaching methodology provides a proven philosophy, system and tools to empower leaders and future leaders to unlock and unleash their potential. ILEC clients benefit from a high ROI that delivers real results.