We put this topic on our editorial calendar long before we’d ever heard the phrase “social distancing.” I considered removing it from the rotation. I mean, isn’t it a bit too salesy for me to write about needing a leadership coach in the middle of a pandemic?

And yet.

The clients I’m working with right now need coaching more than ever. None of us have been through something like this before. We’re all operating outside our comfort zones and making decisions that will have lasting impacts on the futures of our organizations.

The need to be an effective leader doesn’t go away during times of uncertainty. It’s even more important. I’ve watched as some of my clients have built better communication systems and relationships with their employees during this pandemic. It has certainly forced me and my team to look at the ways we engage with each other and build an improved structure for staying connected and improving effectiveness. Many are things that will benefit our business into the future.

Here’s the other thing: I don’t have a coach. I had one when I was first building my business, and when I started to hire coaches into my organization, I thought, “I don’t need a coach. I’m surrounded by coaches. They can coach me.”

I was wrong. I’m doing things with my business that I’ve never done before. I think that I’m moving out of my comfort zone, but without that outside-in unemotional perspective, I don’t know where I’m getting stuck or where I’m holding back. Everyone has blind spots — even me, even you.

I’m acknowledging that it’s time for me to hire a leadership coach. So at the risk of being too salesy, here’s when I think it could be time for you to hire a leadership coach — and when it’s definitely not.

Signs that you’re ready for leadership coaching

First and foremost, it’s probably time to hire a leadership coach if you’re feeling a lot of uncertainty. It’s an unfortunate time to use that word because yes, we’re all feeling uncertainty right now.

Even when we’re not in the midst of a global pandemic and economic crisis, there are times in your business when you experience confusion, a lack of confidence, or a sense of conflict about every decision. On a basic level, you aren’t sure about either your direction or about the steps to get there.

Other experiences that show it’s time for leadership coaching:

You feel like you’re not being effective.
You’re not meeting your own goals or performing as well as you’d hoped or expected.
Your organization is not meeting its goals.
You’re trying to get your team to follow a certain direction, and they’re not following it.
You’re getting constructive feedback — perhaps that you’re not being effective, that you’re creating more conflict than you’re resolving, or that there’s a lack of clarity around the directions you’re providing.

You also don’t have to wait for a sign of trouble to get coaching. Just like athletes and entertainers get coaching from Day One so that they can perform at their top capacity, every leader has room for growth and improvements that could dramatically change their effectiveness.

Signs that you’re not ready for leadership coaching

Most people can benefit from leadership coaching. There are a few significant exceptions.

You’re dealing with untreated mental health issues. An effective coaching relationship might uncover issues or experiences you may not be equipped to deal with if you’re in the midst of a mental health issue. Just like a personal trainer refers someone with a knee injury to a physical therapist before having them do squats, we don’t want to poke and prod during a coaching session in ways that could exacerbate an existing medical condition.
For example, executives with narcissistic personality disorder rarely benefit from coaching — and they’re also rarely aware of their own mental health challenges. An experienced coach can generally identify when a potential client doesn’t have the capacity to accept external guidance and make changes to their behavior.
You’re looking for a quick fix or an easy answer. Coaching is a process of discovery, skill and confidence development that takes time and a significant amount of mental investment. If you want a simple answer to a question about your business, you may be better served by searching the internet or asking an expert or advisor.
You aren’t interested in trusting a coach. For a coaching relationship to be effective, you have to be honest with your coach about your (and your company’s) challenges and limitations. Otherwise, they won’t be able to help you reach your goals.
You think coaching is only for underperformers. Just like a star pitcher needs coaching whether they’re on their game or off it, all leaders can benefit from coaching. If you’re turning your nose up at the idea because you think it signifies a weakness, you’re missing out on an opportunity to progress.

Can you afford to hire a leadership coach?

Coaching is an investment. While I believe that almost all leaders could benefit from coaching, there are definitely people for whom coaching is not a good investment right now. If you run a catering company, and your entire business has been obliterated by the pandemic, now is not the time to hire a leadership coach. It’s possible you would benefit from it, but the financial risk is likely too high.

Or perhaps your revenues are stagnant and you need to pivot, but aren’t sure what the next step is (or the next step after that), then you have a more difficult calculus. You’ll need to look at your pros and your cons and map it out.

Like any other business investment, each person (or business) must decide whether they’re willing to accept the risk associated with that investment and what they anticipate the return being. Some businesses may be in a better position to calculate or bear that risk than others. If you look at studies that have shown the effectiveness of coaching and estimate how those results would translate to your bottom line, then you’ll have a strong sense of what your return on investment will be.

Do you have time for a leadership coach?

Not having time is one of the most frequent objections I hear about investing in a coach. Some people think of coaching as a distraction from the real business of running their company. I understand the concern, and I think it’s rooted in two things: a misunderstanding about the nature of the coaching relationship and a lack of insight about their own time.

To address the first: in a coaching relationship, you don’t have to invest a huge chunk of time up front. We help you through a process that occurs over the course of at least six months, and possibly years. First, we’re helping you develop self-awareness. Second, we’re helping you develop new behaviors. And third, we’re helping you integrate those behaviors into your life.

All of that occurs alongside the work of leading your business, ideally with you becoming more effective along the way.

And that brings me to the second issue: there’s no reason an executive should be working 65 hours a week. When you are, you lose sight of the potential for a different way of operating. What if you were more organized and knew how to use your time more effectively? Every time I’ve worked with a client who said they weren’t sure they had time for coaching, they’ve looked back on it and said I wish I’d done this sooner.

Is it too early for coaching?

It’s never too early for coaching. When I got my first management job, I had no role models, no coach, and no training. I had six direct reports, and I was ineffective as a manager. My performance review at the time reflected as much. I’d been a stellar engineer, but I was running blind in this new role.

Managing is one of those skills that people still mistake as being innate. You would never send a kid out onto a soccer field and say, “Go play!” without explaining the rules and coaching them through the game. Yet we often expect someone to move from being a sales rep, an engineer, a programmer to a management position and suddenly know how to manage people. Managing is a skill, and it’s one that requires training.

Stepping into any new leadership role will involve new skills, new opportunities for development, and new challenges. Especially if you’re starting or running a business, everyone — friends, colleagues, team members, Google — will happily share their advice with you. Some of it will be good, and some of it won’t be (or at least won’t meet your needs at the time). A coach can help you reconcile all those varied opinions to parse out the ideas that will help you meet your goals from the very beginning

Final thoughts

If it were up to me, everyone in a leadership position, or starting or building a business, would have a coach — not because I want to (or could) coach them all, but because leaders who have coaches are better leaders. At the same time, I recognize that every business leader is balancing dozens of competing priorities, now more than ever.

Is it time for you to hire a leadership coach? A better question might be Are you fine staying right where you are?