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Change is inevitable. No matter how strongly we cling to what we know, something will happen to change the way things are. Change can be for the better, but for the unprepared, it can prove to be debilitating and may even spell disaster.

In business, change can happen gradually, or abruptly as in the case of organizational turbulence. Gradual transitions are usually easier to deal with as they may be planned and strategized for, such as corporate restructuring, or mergers and acquisitions. However, for sudden, rapid disruptive changes, organizations have a more difficult time adapting. Consider the 2007 global financial crisis—change came like a tsunami, and many companies didn't make it.

Sometimes, businesses have time to come up with ways and means to adopt changes, and yet still fail. Other companies also fail by resisting the inevitable. In this category of companies that fail to heed the changing needs of the market, as well as technological trends, several brands come to mind, including Blockbuster, Polaroid, Nokia, Xerox, Yahoo, and JC Penney.

Of course, even failure is a catalyst for change. As long as a company is able to catch on quickly enough, or if the founder or leader keeps on persevering, failures can lead to success. Entrepreneurs who experienced a number of failures or rejections before succeeding in the end include Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Mark Zuckerberg. And the list continues to grow.

These days, with the rapid changes in technology usually driving the need to evolve, organizational change has become even more rapid and unpredictable. This condition results in greater demands and pressures on managers and executives who are usually tapped to function as change agents.

In order to successfully drive change, companies have turned to executive leadership coaches for help. This help includes training executives to develop their capacity to deal with business transformation, and providing support in achieving work-related or organizational goals.

The role of executive leadership coaching in organizational change

Effective leaders are expected to build the best teams to help them deliver organizational objectives in times of disruptive change. However, very few leaders naturally possess this requisite skill, i.e. leadership that gets results, even when employees seem unprepared or resistant to change.

An executive leadership coach can make a difference here. They have the experience and ability to utilize different cognitive and behavioral techniques designed to achieve a mutually agreed-upon goal with the client, or the people being coached.

The goal of the executive leadership coach is to help the client improve their leadership skills, and professional performance. In turn, the company or organization benefits from this arrangement through having a leader (or a set of managers and executives) who can guide them toward goal attainment. Other benefits include better change readiness, solution-focused thinking, increased organizational resilience, and reduced stress, anxiety, and depression among employees.

Through the effective use of executive coaching, an entire organization or business entity becomes better equipped to deal with the accelerated implementation of change.

Experience as teacher

When a company is well-prepared for transformations, the need for executive leadership coaching may not seem so urgent.

However, whether your company is about to undergo planned-for change, or is experiencing difficult, sudden shifts that have organizational repercussions, an executive leadership coach can provide the much-needed expertise and capability.

If you need help dealing with organizational change, or have questions regarding executive coaching, contact us at Clara Conti. We’d be happy to help you assess your needs and come up with the best solutions for your situation.