Executive coaching has been part of many organizations’ business leadership development programs since the 1980s, but it has been rare for these same organizations to apply these programs to broader leadership development efforts.

In recent years, however, that has started to change as organizations ramp up their investments in business leadership development coaching programs to enhance the skills, competencies, and knowledge of their management teams.

Don’t Take Our Word for It

According to the 2021 Leadership Coaching Report released jointly by Sounding Board and Chief Learning Officer, more than 70% of organizations offer some type of business leadership development coaching program, and another 22% would offer these programs if their budgets allowed. That’s not only, from 2020 to 2021, 40% of these organizations reported an increase in spending on business leadership development coaching programs.

That’s not all. In 2020, Chief Learning Officer released its Learning State of the Industry Report, which reported that more than 55% of organizations not only use coaching programs for business leader development, but also consider these programs among the top three learning and development methods. The investments have been so worthwhile that 54% of organizations expected to increase their budgets for business leadership development coaching programs in the next 12 to 18 months.

What’s Driving the Growth in Business Leadership Development Coaching Programs?

Research has shown an increase in spending in business leadership development coaching programs, and that same research shows that the explosive growth and popularity of leadership coaching isn’t going to end anytime soon. The question is why have these programs moved from the C-suite – where they were usually reserved for senior leaders and high-performing individuals – and down into the ranks of middle management?

The answer to that question started in early 2020 – with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic – and continues to this day. The global health crisis, the move to remote workforces, the downsizings that took place alongside the global economic downturn, and the Big Quit have been the recipe for a tremendous leadership challenge. This challenge is being met not only with a greater investment in business leadership development coaching programs, but also with the accelerated adoption of online training and development to deliver a more relevant and personalized virtual experience.

For instance, Shawn Doyle Training has adopted innovative technology that makes it easier for our clients to manage, measure, and scale their business leadership development coaching programs. We remove the administrative burden of managing complex coaching programs while providing greater transparency, data, and reporting.

Our Approach to Business Leadership Development Coaching Programs

We believe that business leadership development coaching programs should align with the mission, vision, goals, and objectives of your organization. It is for that reason that we created a coaching system that allows you to create a program that precisely matches your organization’s needs.

As a leadership development coaching company that has developed numerous business programs for clients ranging from Disney to NASA, we collaborate with your team to deliver custom programs comprised of business leadership development workshops, executive coaching, team coaching, team assessments, and leadership and executive assessments.

Even better, we collaborate with you to create a resilient organization driven by proven leaders who cultivate adaptive performance. That is the recipe for success for engaged leaders in an increasingly complex world.

The Power 5 RX System

At the heart of our business leadership development coaching programs is the Power 5 RX System, which has a proven five-step process.

• Step 1: Diagnosis: We deploy specific tools, tests, and targeted assessments to diagnose an individual’s coaching needs. The results of these tests allow us to not only determine what kind of coaching is necessary, but also formulate an individualized prescription plan based on actual, objective, quantitative, and qualitative data.
• Step 2: Treatment: Once the coaching plan is developed, we facilitate the coaching process based on the data collected from the assessments. In most cases, the coaching is twice a month for approximately one hour via video call. The length of our engagement can be between three and 12 months.
• Step 3: Prescription: Our participants are expected to complete action plan summaries after each coaching session that increase accountability and drive results. Exclusive access is provided to our online library of resources, including assessments, articles, and checklists to reinforce their development as successful leaders.
• Step 4: Check-Up: Checkup begins with a review of their action plans to determine their progress and to discuss new challenges that have emerged. Midpoint check-in meetings with their leaders are also scheduled at this time.
• Step 5: Maintenance Plan: After successful completion of the above steps, we offer exclusive access to our unique online library of resources to encourage continued long-term success.

What makes Shawn Doyle Training unique is our depth and breadth of experience coupled with the range and flexibility of our coaching offerings. Whether you are a CEO looking for an experienced advisor, a senior executive looking for one-on-one coaching experience, a CHRO looking to design and implement a global coaching program, or a board looking at succession, we are uniquely positioned to address your needs.

Who We Coach

• Board of Directors
• Individual Board Members
• CEOs and Entrepreneurs
• CXOs & Senior Executives
• Executive & Leadership Teams
• High Potential & Emerging Leaders
• Middle Managers

How We Coach

• In-Person Coaching, Phone, Video
• One-on-One and Group Coaching
• Immersive On-Demand Coaching
• Workshops and Facilitations
• Leadership Team Development

“Only 14% of CEOs say they have the leadership talent they need to execute their strategy.”
– Executive Leadership Survey

The Benefits of Shawn Doyle Coaching Programs

While business leadership development coaching programs have many benefits, there are five that we focus on at Shawn Doyle Training.

1. Enhanced Performance: We help leaders more accurately examine their weak points, gain better perspectives about their abilities, and teach them how to make better use of their strengths.
2. Empowerment: We help leaders learn how to empower not only themselves, but also their teams, which improves opportunities to collaborate with staff and colleagues.
3. A Fresh Perspective: We provide an objective viewpoint so that leaders can view challenges from a unique perspective. Having this outside perspective can be extremely powerful when looking to make meaningful and lasting changes. After all, we cannot change what we cannot see.
4. Confidence: As leaders make meaningful changes throughout the coaching process, we celebrate their wins, which can positively impact confidence levels.
5. Job and Life Satisfaction: By taking the time to step back and clearly assess their lives with the help of a coach, leaders can find more time to balance their professional and personal lives. This tends to lead to better performance, retention, and increased satisfaction with their job.

What We Teach Through Coaching

Certainly, the above benefits make business leadership development coaching programs worthwhile, but we also want our clients to learn and grow during our coaching journey. To that end, here are core competencies we teach.

• Self-Awareness: Self-awareness is the foundation of everything we teach at Shawn Doyle Training, because it is the single-most important capability of successful leaders, according to the authors of “How to Become a Better Leader,” which was published in the MIT Sloan Management Review. Successful leaders are acutely aware of their natural tendencies and use this awareness to boost those tendencies or compensate for them. We coach leaders to develop awareness about automatic thoughts and myriad other behaviors and feelings, which then enables them to have a different engagement with themselves, their team, and others in their life.
• Self-Regulation: Self-awareness and self-regulation go hand in hand and are important components of emotional intelligence. Self-regulation is about how you manage your emotions, impulses, and behaviors. To have strong self-regulation skills require you to be highly self-aware; if you can recognize what you’re feeling and why, then you can respond appropriately. We collaborate with leaders to help them become better at regulating their own emotional responses. This may include identifying patterns and potential triggers to decrease their impact on themselves and their teams.
• Communication Style: We coach leaders to communicate more effectively, set clear expectations, offer constructive feedback, and even shift their nonverbal cues. We also help leaders create more inclusive and supportive environments for their teams by examining the language they use with others.
• Listening Skills: Are you listening well? (Hint: if you don’t know, ask.) Are you hearing what others are saying or merely waiting until the person across from you stops talking so that you can talk? Good leadership involves more listening than most would think. With that in mind, we teach leaders how to hone their listening skills and be attuned to others.
• Growth Mindset: Our business development leadership coaching programs help individuals unlock a growth mindset, as opposed to a fixed one. With this type of mindset, leaders can see obstacles as opportunities for growth, not something to be dreaded or feared. Being flexible, bouncing back from setbacks, and thinking creatively are powerful skills to develop.
• Empathy: Ever hear the saying, “No one cares what you know until they know how much you care?” This is about empathy. Leaders who readily tap into empathy for others are more effective in their roles. When an employee is struggling, leaders can provide value just by seeing their pain and acknowledging it. We teach leaders how to look for understanding and ways to better support their employees in trying times.
• How to Leverage Strengths: We are particularly adept at helping leaders see the strengths they bring to the table. Even better, we coach leaders how to put their strengths to use in unique and unexpected ways.
• Executive Presence: More than just a buzzword, executive presence is about how a leader communicates, shows up for others, and how they present themselves to the world. We help each individual leader gain insight into what their current personal brand is and how to work toward making both big and subtle changes to achieve the most effective executive presence possible.

Why Choose Us for Business Leadership Development Coaching Programs?

We have many clients who have gotten remarkable results from our business leadership development coaching programs, such as the president of one company whose revenue increased 10-fold in one year, all with a reduction in stress and hours worked. The increase in revenue also dramatically improved his personal life.

Shawn Doyle, the CEO of Shawn Doyle Training, is a registered corporate coach and a certified professional speaker. He is also the author of 23 books, of which three are on leadership.

Shawn has more than 30 years of experience in professional development and training, including the vice president of learning and development at Comcast, where he was the co- founder of Comcast University.