Coaching Challenging Executives

When a leader’s psychological make-up is problematic, it can have a serious contagious effect. If that is the case, the organization itself is in danger of becoming a mirror image of the leader’s troublesome behavior patterns. Leadership coaches who have a deep understanding of personality functioning, and are familiar with the appropriate intervention techniques of dealing with these people, can help in addressing these mental health issues in order to bring about more effective leadership practices, and ultimately more healthy organizations. In this chapter, we explore four regularly encountered toxic behavior patterns amongst leaders that can derail their organizations. For each personality type, we describe the conditions underlying the behavior pattern, how to recognize the pattern, how to coach individuals who exhibit this pattern, as well as to provide a real live case study to illustrate how coaching can bring about better ways of running their organizations.