You are an executive. You are high up on the business food chain. You do not need to know or learn anything else, right? Wrong. No matter how high you achieve on the corporate ladder, there is still more to learn if you expect to either stay where you are or climb higher. You need an executive coach, for all of the following reasons. 

An Executive Coach Is Not a "Yes Man"

"Yes men" (or "yes women" for that matter) are underlings who will always agree with you because they are terrified of being fired. Secretly, they want your job, and they want to be you, so they go on telling you "yes" to everything you ask and everything you say. This lulls you into a false sense of security that could endanger everything you worked for.

An executive coach is not a "yes man." He or she will tell you up front what he/she thinks is a bad idea, and why you should not do "a, b, or c." You may even discover that you have been setting yourself up for failure because you are doing many things that successful executives do not do.

An Executive Coach Will Advise You

Your "support team" is not there to advise you. It is an executive's place to make decisions and follow through, good or bad. However, you undoubtedly (and probably secretly!) wish that someone would advise you. You would actually like someone to tell you if you are about to do something foolish, and advise you of other solutions and approaches to the same problem. Your executive coach will do just that.

An Executive Coach Will Teach You How to Move up or Hold Your Position

In business, there is always someone younger, faster, smarter, fresher, and more willing to trade places with you. If you become lazy or lackadaisical, upstarts will look for ways to take your job. If you personally want to climb to the next rung on the corporate ladder, you are going to have to do more than what you are doing now. 

Behaving naively or not knowing how to impress a boss for that next promotion is going to kill your career. Struggling internally with decisions is often how executives lose their positions. Your executive coach should be someone who has been in a similar position and knows what this is like. Then he/she can tell you exactly what to do next to either hold on to the job you have or reach for that next promotion.

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