Different problems require different kinds of support.
Coaching, consulting, and trusted advisory work often overlap, but they begin in different places. Executive coaching primarily focuses on the leader. Consulting primarily focuses on a defined business or organizational problem. Trusted advisory work provides an owner or executive with ongoing independent counsel across a changing range of decisions and circumstances.
Executive Coaching
Primary focus: The leader
Typical questions:
- How am I contributing to this?
- What decision am I avoiding?
- How do I lead this person or team more effectively?
- What needs to change in my behavior or leadership?
- What am I not seeing clearly?
- What am I allowing to continue?
- How do I become more effective in this role?
Consulting
Primary focus: The organization or a defined business problem
Typical questions:
- What is actually causing this?
- What roles, systems, processes, or leadership practices need to change?
- Where is the real constraint?
- How should the organization respond?
- How do we implement the change?
- How do we make sure the improvement holds?
Trusted Advisor
Primary focus: The owner or executive across an evolving range of issues
Typical questions:
- What am I missing?
- What are the implications of this decision?
- Who can challenge my thinking without having an internal agenda?
- How should I think about this situation across the business, the people involved, and my own priorities?
- Who already understands enough context to help me think through something quickly when circumstances change?
You do not need to decide which of these you need before we talk. Determining that is part of the first conversation.