The Art Of CEO Coaching: The Role, Soul And Context Of CEO Life

Forbes

25-03-2025

Dr John Blakey is an author, keynote speaker and ⁠CEO executive coach.
The CEO is a particular species. I have spent the past 20 years studying this species "in the wild" and coaching the best to be even better. It is a fascinating assignment, and I have learned much about what makes the CEO tick. It helps to have been one myself in a previous life. I empathize with the restlessness and the ambitious pursuit of challenging goals. I share the temptation to take responsibility and fix the problem.
So how do you best coach the CEO? What is different from coaching other leaders in the organization? Is it simply the same formula of 70% active listening and 30% asking powerful questions? In my experience, this challenge is best answered by considering the CEO's role, soul and context.
Unique to the role of the CEO is that the buck stops here. Many of the board leaders I have coached have eagerly stepped up to the CEO role and then confided to me quietly that "I never realized it would feel like this." There is a weight of responsibility that comes with the top job. As Shakespeare said in Henry IV, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." The CEO crown is heavy and lonely. With it comes much privilege and also the occasional sleepless night.
That said, some thrive on the pressure. I worked with one managing director who visibly glowed in situations that would have destroyed a more gentle soul. They relished going "all in" to pitch themselves against daunting odds. I guess that's where the CEO needs to be brave. How do you coach for that? Well, you have to be brave, too. You have to know how to speak truth to power clearly yet respectfully.
As Ian Day and I said in our book Challenging Coaching, you need to be able to enter the ZOUD—the zone of uncomfortable debate. I was once asked by a budding CEO coach, "How do you get comfortable entering the Zone of Uncomfortable Debate?" "You don't," I replied. "That's why it's called the Zone of Uncomfortable Debate! It never gets comfortable and neither should it."
It sounds grand to talk about the soul of the CEO, but equally, it is necessary because the soul harbors our deepest desires and fears. Most CEOs desire recognition, respect and a sense of achievement. They fear the opposite—being ignored, ridiculed and ineffective. We could speculate on the childhood conditioning that creates such drivers, but CEOs will likely find such introspective, backward-looking musings of little interest relative to the excitement of creating a new world that accelerates them away from whatever they regret.
The CEO coach must mirror this restlessness by stretching the CEO's vision and being careful not to trigger the fear of the counselor's couch by indulging in too much therapeutic musing. Does this mean that the CEO coach is not psychologically adept and incapable of digging deep? Not at all. It is a matter of building trust and waiting for the invitation. When the invitation comes, it can be profound.
I'll never forget bending down to pack my bags at the end of the first coaching session with a new client who was a commercially focused corporate managing director and hearing him say, "... and there's one other goal I've not mentioned," to which I replied, "Oh yeah, and what's that then?" "I want to find God" was his deadpan reply. That was the start of a fascinating coaching journey.
Regardless of the CEO's role and soul, no leader can ignore the context in which they operate. The context of the CEO role is unique in several ways. Firstly, although the buck stops with the CEO, there is always a higher accountability to which they answer. That could be a PLC board, a board of trustees, a regulator or a politician, a private owner or a private equity backer. The CEO needs to develop a high-trust, mutually respectful relationship with their masters, and this can often require the diplomatic skills of a United Nations peacekeeper.
Many coaching sessions with CEOs will focus on the challenges of building these relationships and the CEO coach needs to be adept at helping the "big cheese" manage their ego and sometimes their temper. Alongside this personal relationship-building, the CEO is the chief evangelist for the organization as a whole and needs to be a proficient spokesperson inside and outside the organization.
Many CEOs I have coached did not think they had applied to be film stars but soon found themselves on the big stage of corporate life. In my experience, CEOs typically "fake it until they make it" with this aspect of their role, and the coach is required to provide feedback and best practices on the many ways to engage often skeptical and cynical audiences.
If all else fails, my best advice to CEOs, whether discussing their role, soul or context, is, "Remember, before you were a CEO, you were a human being." This comment always breaks the tension and gets a chuckle, but it is also a powerful truth. As we climb the ladder, imposter syndrome can increasingly kick in. The job starts to shape us rather than us shaping the job. We begin to appear inauthentic and wooden as we measure every word and second-guess every decision. The human being retreats amid the pressures of the role.
The CEO coach must also remember to stay human by not putting the CEO on a pedestal, not saying "yes" when the honest answer is "no" and by instinctively gauging when real help is either an arm around the shoulder or a poke in the ribs.
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