Executive coaching suffers from its own mystique. Depending on who you ask it is therapy, consultancy, cheerleading or an expensive chat. Here is what the work actually involves.
What coaching is
Executive coaching is structured, confidential one-to-one work on how you lead and operate. A good coach helps you see your own patterns clearly, think through decisions with rigour, and develop the specific capabilities your role now demands. The agenda is yours; the discipline is the coach's.
What it is not
- Not consultancy. A consultant hands you answers to a business problem. A coach builds your capacity to find them, which outlasts any single problem.
- Not therapy. Coaching is focused on professional performance and forward movement, not the past.
- Not cheerleading. If a session only makes you feel good, it was a poor session. Useful coaching includes being challenged: troubleshooting, honestly, in confidence.
Who benefits most
Coaching earns its cost at transition points: the founder whose business has outgrown improvisation; the manager newly responsible for other managers; the experienced professional whose next step needs presence and judgement rather than technical skill. It is also the most private way to work on weaknesses a senior person cannot easily admit inside their own organisation.
How to judge whether it's working
Agree at the start what should be different in ninety days: decisions made faster, a difficult relationship repaired, delegation working, a promotion secured. Coaching is developmental, yet it can still be measured. If nothing observable changes, change something.
Our approach
At Kings Business Academy, one-to-one sessions run at three levels, from £170 per session for those starting out to premium sessions for experienced entrepreneurs and senior managers, all taught directly by Dr Martial Godo, a university business lecturer and business owner. The blend matters: academic rigour, applied to your actual situation.