The start of a new year is a time for setting new goals. It is also for many people a time for realizing how little progress has been made on last year’s goals. Setting goals is easy. Achieving them is something else.

Business executives know better than most how challenging it can be to accomplish new goals. They face a daily routine that is often focused on maintaining current operations and addressing unexpected challenges that arise. Goals focused on developing new skills, earning new certifications, or shifting into a new career path regularly get relegated to the bottom of the to-do list.

“For many executives, it is challenging to simply find the time to identify valuable goals,” says Alexandra McGroarty, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of McGroarty and Company. “Moving beyond identifying to strategically pursuing and actually accomplishing goals is something that often requires extra help. Executive coaches are specially trained to provide that type of assistance.”

Alexandra is a Human Resources consultant and Certified Professional Coach. She was recently named the winner in the Executive Coach category of Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards for 2022. She founded McGroarty and Company to provide customized and tailored solutions for a wide range of HR challenges, including issues related to talent acquisition, brand revitalization, employee lifecycle, and organizational change management.

“Executive coaching helps executives to get unstuck in the area of setting and achieving goals,” Alexandra explains. “By providing guidance, insight, and encouragement, coaches help executives to explore options, plan actions, and create a future that they can get excited about pursuing.”

The role of the executive coach

Coaches provide business executives with a unique opportunity for growth. Unlike counselors, who often focus on how past experiences may be limiting performance, coaches keep their clients focused on the future. They work with executives to identify a preferred future, then assist in mapping out the steps necessary to get there. The person being coached directs the process, with the coach providing inspiration and encouragement that is tailored for the client’s particular journey.

“One of the beauties of executive coaching is that it is not a one-size-fits-all approach to professional development like you might find in consulting or training,” Alexandra shares. “It is based on a relationship of trust in which a coach works with an executive to discover where they are, where they want to go, and the best way to get there. The coach’s expertise allows him or her to create a safe, structured process that pushes the executive toward maximizing their personal and professional potential.”

Most coaches employ a step-by-step process that starts with exploring and exposing the reality of the executive’s current situation. This is where the relationship starts. Coaches ask questions designed to reveal aspirations and apprehensions. They push back against assumptions that may be hampering growth. They provide a fresh perspective.

The next step is setting goals and exploring options for reaching those goals. This is an area where executive coaches can be especially helpful, as they can leverage their experience to present a wider range of possibilities than the executive may know to exist.

“As a professional executive coach, I have a wealth of case studies to draw upon provided by my previous clients,” Alexandra explains. “These help my current client to see the wide range of possibilities and how a certain strategy could help them to achieve their goals.”

The final step is coaching typically involves selecting a path and embarking on the journey. At this point, coaches help to set a healthy pace for pursuing goals. Ideally, achieving a goal will require effort, but not be so challenging that the executive becomes discouraged and unmotivated.

The impact of executive coaching

For the executive, working with a coach can be life changing. Whether the goals involve broadening a skill set, developing an expertise, or achieving the qualifications that allow for a new position, achieving them plays a significant role in furthering a career. In many ways, executive coaching provides the fuel needed to take a career to the next level.

Executive coaching can also have a corporate impact, as the executive, once achieving his goals, brings new capabilities to his or her company. One example is the ability to share the power and process of effective goal setting. In addition, many leaders who experience effective executive coaching bring a new level of confidence, as well as competence, to the role that they play in their organization.

As corporations come to understand the value of executive coaching, they acquire a tool for guiding their leadership toward new levels of awareness and capability. For example, workplace diversity is an increasingly important topic that is challenging to understand, implement, and manage. Because executive coaches often have a deep understanding of HR issues, they can help to coach executives on difficult issues like diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“Executives in today’s workplace must be able to foster an environment that values diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Alexandra says. “Not only do current employees want to see more DEI initiatives, but prospective hires are looking for positions at companies where DEI is valued. Executive coaches are perfect partners for executives whose goals include growing in their understanding of DEI.”

Alexandra holds a Certified Diversity Professional certification issued by the National Diversity Council. Her book, “Bridging the Gap: Reducing Gender Bias in the Workplace,” lays a path for a deeper understanding of DEI issues by presenting an overview of gender bias in the workplace. Executives will find the book to be a helpful guide on the current state of gender bias, including insights on how the Covid-19 pandemic affected the way women are seen in the workplace.