Top management coaching is for leaders who already perform at the highest level and want to become more effective, as individuals and as a leadership team. In January 2023 the regional news site Schaffhausen24 portrayed my work under the headline «Ein Coach für die oberste Teppichetage», a coach for the top floor. This page is the English summary, extended by what I tell executives who ask what coaching at the top actually involves.
«Executive coaching is something for successful leaders who want to work even more effectively on themselves and in the leadership team,» I told the reporter. «In top-class sport, the coach has long been part of it, even though the athletes already play in the top league.» (Translated from German.)
Top management coaching is one-to-one or team coaching for CEOs, executive board members, board directors and the leadership teams around them. It works on how leaders think, decide and lead, measured against goals agreed at the start. The coach offers questions, observations and feedback that help the leader reflect on their own impact and act on it.
The portrait described my role in the same terms: My task is to give clients impulses in conversation for reflecting on their own ability to act.
Because honest feedback gets scarcer the higher a leader climbs. Board members receive filtered information, polite agreement and carefully worded reports. A coach is one of the few people in their working life with no stake in the answer.
The sport analogy holds. A world-class athlete hires a coach for the last few percent: Technique under pressure, recovery, the mental side of the final. Top management coaching works on the same margin in leadership. At the top, the questions change: How do I lead people who are as experienced as I am? How do I decide when every option has a cost? How do I stay myself under constant observation?
The Schaffhausen24 article named two shifts. In business, the drive to keep developing has become a basic expectation for leaders. And the crises of recent years have made that development more complex, because leaders have to grow while they deliver.
For a CEO, personal development is also no longer a private matter. The whole organisation feels how its leader handles pressure, conflict and doubt. That is why top management coaching often includes the leadership team.
In my practice a mandate runs in four steps:
Clarify the assignment. What should be different in twelve months, and who will notice? Goals are agreed and made measurable at the start.
Take stock. Stakeholder feedback, for example with the GLA360 or Hogan 360, shows how the leader's behaviour lands with the people around them.
Work on the few things that matter. One or two behaviours, practised in real situations between sessions.
Measure. The same stakeholders give feedback again. Progress is visible to them, or the work continues.
On request, part of the fee depends on results (pay-for-results). That keeps both sides honest about what coaching is for.
The portrait also told how I came to this work. After a commercial apprenticeship at a bank I was offered a team leader role at a major bank, with the chance to build a lot from scratch. Training at the time focused almost entirely on technical skills, so I learned leadership by trial and error. That is where my interest in self-management, personal drivers, values and motivation began.
Leaders started asking me for support, which became my way into coaching, followed by a three-year master's programme in coaching and supervision. Today I work from the Haus zum Einhorn on Fronwagplatz in Schaffhausen and from Zurich, with more than 20 years in leadership coaching and more than 1,500 leaders coached. My aim is the one I gave the reporter: Organisations in which people notice again how valuable everyone is, and in which collaboration stays fit for the future.
For CEOs, executive board members, board directors and the leaders who report directly to them. Typical triggers are a new role, a strategic shift, a difficult leadership team or the wish to close the gap between current influence and possible impact.
Most mandates run six to twelve months, with sessions every three to four weeks. Twelve months give enough time to change a behaviour and to have the change confirmed by stakeholders.
A consultant brings answers to a business problem. A coach works with the leader who has to solve it: On perception, decisions and behaviour. Top management coaching often touches strategy, and the work stays with the leader's own impact.
With goals agreed at the start and stakeholder feedback before and after. If the people around the leader notice no difference, the coaching has not worked, whatever the leader feels.
Yes. The content of sessions stays between coach and client. When a company pays, goals and progress reporting are agreed with the client in advance, and session content stays private.
Further reading on hofmann.coach: What makes leadership executive coaching effective for top executives? · How to select a professional coach · Executive Coach Cristian Hofmann · C-level confidence: Between self-doubt and arrogance · Top management team: How to make excellence visible
Note: This page summarises the article «Ein Coach für die oberste Teppichetage» by Gabriella Coronelli, Schaffhausen24, 9 January 2023. Quotes translated from German. The extension is mine.
Cristian Hofmann is an executive coach in Zurich and Schaffhausen (MAS Coaching & Supervision BSO, Forbes contributor). Over more than 20 years he has coached more than 1,500 leaders: CEOs, executive boards and leadership teams in Switzerland, with measurably agreed goals and, on request, pay-for-results. More about Cristian Hofmann.
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