Decision Making for Executives
Coaching is a framework which serves goal seeking, ambiguity processes, and decision making when it comes to business executives. With numbers, professional relationships, team building, and profits in mind, corporate executives hold a lot in their brain daily. Decisions being made, even with strong leaders, may sit in ambiguity for some time. Not because of ineffectual leadership, rather because stress can inhibit the decision making process.
Stress causes the brain to lose the frontal lobe function. Not completely; it does close down capacity which is where organization, decision making, and higher thought are processed. According to an article in Psychology Today, “Chronic stress has the ability to flip a switch in stem cells that turns them into a type of cell that inhibits connections to the prefrontal cortex, which would improve learning and memory” (Bergland, 2014).
Coaching is about giving a framework and space for clients to reflect through inner processes, and from those reflections clients build clarity, vision, and goals.
Examples of Powerful Questions:
- What matters most?
- How are you creating work/life balance?
- What are the most important performance indicators?
- What serves the power base relationships?
- Is there a framework for conflicts?
- How do you meet strategic situations?
As a coach, creating open space is one of the most vital assets can offer in the coaching relationship. Even a slower paced speed and cadence of how questions are asked gives executives a place to reflect, rejuvenate, and reorganize strategy.
