Book Review: Coached to Lead: How to Achieve Extraordinary Results with an Executive Coach
By Chris Johnson, Psy.D.

Extraordinary results. Who among us, as consultants or coaches, doesn't want our clients to achieve extraordinary results? I sure do. That's my first reason to have purchased this book. The second has to do with finding myself fielding quite reasonable and curious questions about coaching from those who are seeking extraordinary results. Coached to Lead is a book that offers practical tips to coaches, clients and potential clients. Take a look at these questions to see if they sound familiar to you. " How can a coach help me obtain business results? " What exactly can a coach do for me? " If I did hire a coach, how would I go about finding the right one for me? " What really goes on in a coaching relationship anyway? " How much does it cost, how long will it last, and will the results last?

If you too want to see extraordinary results and have ever wondered how best to answer such questions, you'll appreciate the solid ground, author and Division 13 member, Dr. Susan Battley provides to her audience. Drawing from her rich experience with leaders over the past twenty years, across a vast array of businesses in as many sectors, she provides the first consumer's guide to executive coaching.

Battley framed Coached to Lead on two guiding beliefs: 1) Executive coaching has staying power as a value-added service and, 2) Not only is executive coaching not going away, she predicts that the demand for quality coaching will increase in the coming years due to the 'plug and play' needs of managers today.. She anticipates that the latter will become more obvious as those industries traditionally less engaged in leadership development face the need to adapt quickly in the arena of interpersonal skills in order to perform in an increasingly competitive and global marketplace.

This engaging eleven-chapter, evidence-based guide takes the reader through a series of questions within each chapter designed to educate and provide a structure from which to reap the benefits of executive coaching, all the while avoiding costly mistakes. The reader can select various sections as urgency dictates or read the entire text, complete with usable forms, to guide the process and stay on task.

In the first chapter, Battley sets about dispelling the Ten Myths About Executive Coaching. For example, in Myth #1, "The Myth of the Individual" or 'Successful people don't need coaches,' she reminds us that peak performers in sports, the arts, and business all use coaches to enhance their already sterling performance. She cites a 2001 study by the Manchester Consulting that those receiving coaching exhibited an ROI of 5.7 times the initial investment or more than $100,000. Her Myth Buster: Professionals have coaches; amateurs do not.

Having dispelled the ten myths and leveled the ground in Chapter 1, in Chapter 2 she guides the saavy reader through a process of determining if Executive Coaching is Right for You by asking ten questions focused on one's awareness and commitment level to learning and producing business results. For example, Do I have a strong desire to improve now? And am I open to new ways of thinking and behaving?

Chapter 3, How to Pick Your Perfect Coach, outlines six steps to selection that focus on self-awareness in terms of goals and outcomes from coaching. The result? A personal profile for finding a compatible, or 'perfect,' coach for the reader. She highlights the characteristics of a great coach which includes experienced-based knowledge, education, ethics, and character and competency in coaching. Once chosen, chapter 4 centers on the rules of engagement for coaching, including sample agreements, and highlights the distinctions of private-pay vs. employer-funded coaching initiatives.

In chapter 5, Battley highlights the bedrock of this text, her Five Step Coaching Model, a broad brush approach with its focus on goals, assessment, an actionable plan and review, yet easy to customize. She further explicates each step of the model in Chapters 6-9. It is a written Powerhouse Action Plan, distinct from a standard coaching plan. It confronts obstacles and barriers providing the supercharged energy of this model to shift behavior and enhance performance. With Powerhouse Action Plan in hand, the coach becomes a catalyst to the client for personal growth in what she calls the ''knowing-doing' cycle of reflection and action and back again. This process creates momentum as goals are completed and reviewed in detail for level of satisfaction, learning, business results and return on investment as one is 'Coached to Lead.'

Chapters 10-11 provide a troubleshooting guide to addressing 'sticky' coaching situations and dealing with the concerns of third party sponsors of coaching initiatives.

Who among us wants extraordinary results for our clients? If you answered, 'I do,' this is a must read for you and all executive or leadership coaches, and for potential clients who want to face their own learning and performance head on. This practical, forthright read not only levels the ground, but elevates the ground of executive coaching to peak performance.