What Does an Executive Coach Actually Do? A Guide for Leaders

An executive coach partners with you to develop clarity, presence, and the capacity to navigate complexity. I'm Lise Bruynooghe, an executive coach and ICF Master Certified Coach, working with CEOs, founders, and senior leaders globally. Think of it this way: elite athletes don't train alone. They have a coach who sees what they can't see, challenges them beyond their comfort zone, and creates the conditions for peak performance. Executive coaching does the same for leaders. If you're curious about what an executive coach actually does, whether it's for you, and how it works in practice, read on.

Executive Coaching Explained: Think of It Like Elite Sport

A sports coach doesn't play the game for the athlete. They notice patterns, provide feedback, adjust strategy, and hold the athlete accountable. I do the same. I don't make decisions for you. I help you see what you're missing, challenge your assumptions, and create the conditions for you to lead at your best.

Success isn't a solo game, in sport or in leadership.

Who Needs an Executive Coach? You Don't Need to Be Broken (or Senior)

One of the biggest misconceptions about executive coaching is that it's remedial, something you do when things have gone wrong. Another is that it's only for people at the top. Neither is true.

The people I work with range from C-suite executives and board members to founders building their first company and professionals navigating a career pivot. What they share is a willingness to invest in themselves. They come to coaching because they're committed to growth.

Think of coaching as a shortcut. If you want to get to your goal faster, coaching can help. You'll uncover what may be holding you back and ensure traction on action so that clarity turns into momentum.

In many countries, working with a coach has become a mark of leadership maturity. People who think long-term would much rather invest in a coach than in designer clothes or short-lived entertainment. The return is immense and will keep on giving: sharper clarity, stronger presence, better decisions, and the courage to reshape organisations and systems.

A CEO I worked with described our work together as "the most valuable resource for my first year of C-Level responsibilities." A COO I coached pivoted to CEO and went on to take board seats. A lawyer left big law, created his own firm, and brought his Fortune 500 clients with him. These aren't people who were struggling. They're people who took themselves seriously enough to get support.

You're not here to be fixed. You're here to remember who you are and create from that place.

Why Senior Leaders Seek Executive Coaching

I'm often the only person who hears the whole story. Nearly everyone I work with brings me things they can't share anywhere else, wary of being perceived as weak, misunderstood, or judged. There are many ways people arrive at coaching. One pattern I encounter often in high achievers looks like this:

From the outside, you look like someone who can handle anything. At work, you're the one people turn to in a crisis. The steady, trusted hand. You keep showing up long after your body has said "enough." At home, you're the one holding everything together.

People routinely say, "I don't know how you do it." For you, there's nothing impressive about it. You're simply doing what you've always done. Under stress, you tighten your grip and become even more efficient, more controlled.

The world rewards this version of you. The cost is invisible at first: people lean on you even more and check in with you less. They assume you don't need support.

After working with thousands of leaders, founders, and high-performing professionals globally, I can tell you: whatever you're carrying, you're not alone. Those people you think have it all figured out? They don't.

Coaching provides a confidential space where you can be honest about what you don't know, what you're struggling with, and what you need. What you share stays between you and your coach. That's fundamental. And it's often the first relief: finally, a space where you can drop the mask.

What Happens in Executive Coaching Sessions

If you've never worked with a coach, the practical side can feel mysterious. Here's how it works with me.

The starting point: You book a consultation call. That conversation is as much about you seeing whether you'd like to work with me as it is about me assessing whether I think we're a good fit and whether coaching is the right approach for what you're facing.

How we work: Coaching is tailored to you. We might walk in the Swiss mountains, sit and talk, use exercises, or a combination. Sometimes we work online over Zoom or phone. The session is structured around your agenda, not mine. There is no template.

If you're curious about what this looks like in practice, I discussed my approach in detail on The Coaching Catalysts podcast, Episode 51.

Over time, something interesting happens. Some clients tell me they've developed an "internalised Lise." They've worked with me long enough to continue benefitting from coaching even when we're not speaking. When something big comes up, they ask themselves: "What would Lise ask me right now? What am I not seeing?"

That's the real work: you begin to internalise the questions. You start listening differently, noticing patterns, assumptions, and possibilities.Being told what to do might help in the moment, but it's more of a "cosmetic fix". For lasting change, you need to arrive at your own insights. Those are the ones you'll trust and reliably act on.

Duration: Many of my engagements start with an intensive two-day retreat. From there, many evolve into a longer-term 1:1 partnership lasting four months to a year. And some clients come back whenever the next challenge or the next big dream shows up. Usually what brings someone to coaching is either a pain point or an aspiration, and both are equally good reasons to start.

Investment: My packages range from CHF 5,000 to CHF 50,000, depending on scope and duration. The people who gain the most from coaching are those who commit to it fully.

Executive Coach vs Therapist vs Mentor: The Mosaic Approach

People often ask how coaching differs from therapy or mentoring. The honest answer is that the lines are less rigid in practice than they appear in textbooks.

The International Coaching Federation defines coaching as "partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximise their personal and professional potential." Therapy focuses on healing emotional and psychological issues by processing past experiences. Mentoring involves sharing experience-based wisdom from someone who's walked a similar path.

In practice, I often blend elements of all three. I call this a mosaic approach.

If a client is facing a situation I've experienced and asks for my perspective, I'll share it. I'm clear that my experience is just one data point. We explore together how it lands. It might resonate. It might not. Either way, the insight has to belong to them.

Many of my clients have a therapist alongside coaching. In coaching, we may touch on how early patterns shape current views and behaviours, but we don't dwell on the past. Once a pattern is visible, we focus on how it shows up today and what a more helpful way forward might look like.

The key principle is simple: a mentor tells you what worked for them. A therapist helps you understand your past. A coach helps you see clearly, make your own choices, and move forward with intention.

Why Executive Coaching Works: The Relationship, Not the Technique

Great coaching doesn't happen because a coach follows a script or uses the right tools. It happens because of the relationship between coach and client.

When I mentor coaches, I see the cost of lack of presence immediately. A highly capable coach once sent me a recorded session for feedback. Technically, everything was correct, and yet the session was average at best. When we debriefed, he admitted he had rushed straight from another commitment without time to breathe, drink water, or even go to the bathroom. His attention was still scattered; the client could feel it and so could I. Presence isn't something you fake.

In organisational development, Mee-Yan Cheung-Judge talks about the Use of Self: using your own awareness, values, intuition and presence as an instrument of change. That idea has strongly influenced my practice. Presence, in that sense, is not passive. It is an active, alive orientation to the moment, the system, and the people in front of you.

You may operate in environments where honest, unfiltered feedback is rare. Coaching creates a space where you can explore your blind spots, examine assumptions, uncover patterns, test new approaches, and receive honest reflection without judgment.

"It feels like coming home," a client said to me recently. That feeling comes from the relationship, not from technique.

Coaching in Nature: Why Embodied Coaching Works for Leaders

Most people are disconnected from their bodies. A significant part of my work is helping you reconnect, so you can access a broader form of intelligence at all times.

Your body is tangible and always with you. You can't forget it at home. You can work with it directly through sensation, breath, posture, movement, imagery. Deep down, I believe you already have the answers. My job is to help you access them.

Boardrooms are designed for control. Fixed agendas, predictable structures, the same four walls. Nature offers none of that. The wind changes, light and temperature shift, sounds come and go. Your body wakes up and your thinking becomes more fluid.

I once walked with a client facing several important strategic choices when we reached a stream. She took off her shoes. I asked which part of the stream her body felt drawn to: the still, broad pool, the lively narrow flow, or the shallow stretch. Her body knew. Her strategic decision became crystal clear.

Another example stays with me vividly.

A senior leader and I were in the Swiss mountains. On Day one, he walked fast. Very, very fast. On day two, I chose the longest and steepest hike available and I didn't stop. No breaks. No lunch.

I wait for him to tell me that HE needed to stop.

Eventually, he did and said, "Why am I being so hard on myself?"

This type of insight doesn't come from feedback. If I had told him that on day one, he wouldn't have listened. It comes from the lived experience. Relentlessly pushing himself up the mountain made him realise the pressure he's putting himself under every day.

Nature creates breakthroughs and leaves people with something tangible: a view, a stone, a moment on a tree trunk that continues to support them long after the coaching ends.

Executive Coaching: From Problem-Solving to Pattern Recognition

Many leaders are trained to solve problems with logic, planning, and expertise. That works for straightforward challenges. The difficulty is that much of what you're facing today isn't straightforward. Global interdependence, volatile markets, exponential technology. These are complex systems.

I see a familiar pattern: Under pressure, you act quickly. Schedules fill up and initiatives multiply. On the surface, it looks like progress. Underneath, the system hasn't been understood yet. Solutions are built before the problem has been properly seen, sometimes even before there's agreement that a problem exists. I call this solutionising: acting before observing.

Coaching helps you shift from fixing to noticing. Instead of asking "What's wrong and how do I fix it?", we ask "What patterns am I seeing? How am I contributing to this?"

A COO in a fast-growing start-up came to sessions overwhelmed by constant crises. His instinct was to act fast, to solve what was in front of him. Despite his efforts, nothing improved.

So, we began our sessions by "getting into the helicopter" and zooming out to see the whole landscape. Over time, his questions changed. Instead of "What problem do I need to fix today?" he'd ask "What's repeating here?" and "How am I contributing to this pattern?" This changed how he spent his time, how he made decisions, and how he led his team. He became focused on the underlying, still busy, but no longer frantic.

We can't shift patterns we haven't seen. Once we see the patterns, we gain choice. And with choice, a different future becomes possible.

Executive Coaching Outcomes: From Doing to Being

Many people come to coaching seeking better performance, and they usually get it. The deeper work touches something more personal: how you see yourself, how you relate to others, how you show up.

As awareness grows, relationships change. As relationships shift, patterns reorganise. What starts as your own presence shapes your team, your organisation, and the decisions that ripple outward. This is why coaching is so much more than skill-building.

A senior leader wanted more innovation in his organisation. On paper, the ingredients were there: talent, budget, technology. Yet people weren't taking risks.

Instead of starting with the innovation process, we started with him. He began to show up differently: sharing early-stage ideas himself, talking openly about experiments that hadn't worked, thanking people for bringing him bad news quickly. His tone in meetings changed from "I expect perfect answers" to "we're here to learn." Over time, his peers and team followed.

Presence, in this case, meant recognising that fear had crept into the system and choosing to become an active counter-signal.

This is where coaching goes beyond what AI can do. AI is powerful at working on the "what": clarifying options, structuring thinking, exploring scenarios. Where it struggles is the "who": the habitual patterns, the familiar stories, the self-reflection. These are often the root cause of your challenges. Coaching works at that level.

Considering Executive Coaching? Here's What to Know

The way you show up shapes everything around you, whether you intend it to or not. Executive coaching is a partnership for growth: relational, embodied, and grounded in the understanding that nothing shifts until you do.

You don't need to be in crisis. You don't need to have all the answers. You need to be willing to look honestly at yourself and commit to growth.