When trying to develop a prospective business leader (CEO, President, CFO, Vice President…) there are special “coaching” programs, which are much more focused to create a strong decision maker. Some refer to this as “Onboarding”, or others call it “Assimilation Coaching”.

Once a candidate has been selected for this high-level leadership position, a coach is carefully selected, whose personality and approach is well matched for the leadership candidate. A candidate for this high level requires a commitment with an Executive Coach for a minimum of six months.

An assessment should have been done on the leadership candidate to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses, as well as gaining some individual input from those close to the candidate, prior to beginning this commitment. The key focus is to clearly determine the areas needing refined, corrected, and/or strengthened. In addition, weaknesses should be identified, that need to be eliminated or at the very least reduced. It should be noted what roles and practices will be required of this leader, according to the Board of Directors or the controlling entity, who sets the goals in agreement with the Executive Coach to include a reasonable amount of time to achieve.

This Onboarding process makes a huge difference in the progress of an executive leader of an organization. Such Executive Leaders should be strong delegators and not one to micromanage or be too involved with daily management activities. The Executive Leader should be hiring and training the supportive management staff to grow and become more effective. This is the sign of a successful Executive Leader.