Product Description

If you've been looking for sound direction on how to coach top executives, here it is. In Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart, Mary Beth O'Neill outlines the dynamic approach to coaching leaders that she's developed over the course of a twenty-year career. Her unique perspective and sage advice, backed by a specific four-phase methodology, gives you the means to successfully manage the coach-client relationship and effect dramatic changes that ensure the business outcomes leaders' want. It's a one-of-a-kind guide for executive coaches--both aspiring and established--that fills a long-standing gap in coaching literature.

To read the preface from this book, click here.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #232951 in Books
• Published on: 2000-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Review
"Effective leaders require courage, compassion and initiative. O'Neill's systems-based coaching serves as a guide for both coaches and executives to better enable good decisions and good decision-makers." -- Paul D. Purcell, President, Beacon Development Group

"Executives are tough customers with high expectations. This direct and pragmatic book reveals the importance of the coach's immmediacy and self-awareness in successful coaching of top leaders." -- Brian Clewes, Senior Vice President, Human Resources, TransAlta Corporation

"Executives are tough customers with high expectations. This direct and pragmatic book reveals the importance of the coach's immediacy and self-awareness in the successful coaching of top leaders." --Brian Clewes, senior vice president, human resources, TransAlta Corporation

"O'Neill writes in a way that allows you to see this experienced coach in action. What a wonderful way to learn!" --Geoff Bellman, consultant and author, The Consultant's Calling

"This is an important book. Executive coaches will find in Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart a sensible and sensitive process that leads to guaranteed results." --Carla J. Murray, general manager, The Westin Seattle

"In this book, O'Neill brings form and structure to the art of executive coaching. Novices are provided a path while seasoned practitioners will find affirmation." --Daryl R. Conner, CEO/President, ODR-USA, Inc.

"Effective leaders require courage, compassion, and initiative. O'Neill's systems-based coaching serves as a guide for both coaches and executives to better enable good decisions and good decision-makers." --Paul D. Purcell, president, Beacon Development Group

"O'Neill writes in a way that allows you to see this experienced coach in action. What a wonderful way to learn!" -- Geoff Bellman, consultant and author of

"This is an important book. Executive coaches will find "Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart" by Mary Beth O'Neill to be a sensible and sensitive process that leads to guaranteed results." -- Carla J. Murray, General Manager, The Westin Seattle

From the Inside Flap
Coaching high-powered executives requires something special, something extra. Executive coaches must be more than instructors; they must become partners whose emotional investment in business outcomes equals that of their clients. They must have the strength and courage to face an organizational leader in a time of crisis and speak the unvarnished truth. They have to be a force to be reckoned with. They have to have backbone and heart.Mary Beth O'Neill has backbone and heart, and she's used it to help executives become better leaders and make better business decisions for more than twenty years. In this book, she shares the secrets of her success as she details the techniques she's developed over the course of her exceptional career.O'Neill knows first-hand that executive coaching is about self-management, about learning how to be with leaders so you can seize those critical moments when they are most open to learning. She focuses on the need for coaches to build their own signature presence with clients and outlines four conditions that promote such a presence.The author also teaches coaches how to deal with clients in terms of the "force fields" they create and react to; that is, the political and emotional climates within organizations that can ensnare both executive and coach and make for faulty decision making. In so doing, O'Neill introduces an important new systems approach to executive coaching.O'Neill reinforces her observations on coach self-management and her systems perspective with a sound four-phase methodology for implementing both, a methodology that covers contracting, planning, live action intervening, and debriefing. She also addresses special applications such as how to guide conversations that establish coaching relationships and how a coach can help executives coach others.

From the Back Cover
If you've been looking for sound direction on how to coach top executives, here it is. In Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart, Mary Beth O'Neill outlines the dynamic approach to coaching leaders that she's developed over the course of a twenty-year career. Her unique perspective and sage advice, backed by a specific four-phase methodology, gives you the means to successfully manage the coach-client relationship and effect dramatic changes that ensure the business outcomes leaders want. It's a one-of-a-kind guide for executive coaches--both aspiring and established--that fills a long-standing gap in coaching literature.

Customer Reviews

A comprehensive book that should not be under estimated.
It seems quite awhile since I have found a book in my own field that I can completely recommend to almost anyone. This is a terrific book for coaches, consultants and leaders at all levels. Finally here is a book that explains the role of coaching as an Organization Development intervention. As well it clearly alginates the differences between calling yourself an executive coach and the competencies required to actually be one. In fact I would have to say that this is a must read for any executive or corporate coach.

One reviewer said this book was easy to read. While it is well written and gives the illusion of simplicity, the concepts and specifics inside are subtler than that. I am a quick reader and it took me some time to properly digest what O'Neill was really saying. And this is not a big book. When I first picked it up, I remember thinking: "Oh brother another expensive book without much meat." I was completely wrong. There doesn't appear to be a lot of theory, but it is clear that theory is the underpinning of the author's work and it is there front and centre. However, you do not notice it because of how it is presented.  

This one of the few books that I have read where the short case studies really added value to the book. In the cases typical situations and examples of how she expertly handled them were reviewed, as well as some warnings about how the coach can also get triggered by what is happening. Another great part is that this book as a "go back to" reference. The three Appendix contain a personal assessment, questions to ask clients and issues on how to combine consulting with coaching or vice versa.

Best Resource on Coaching I Have Seen
Mary Beth O'niell writes with great clarity and her book is very engaging--almost like watching her in action. O'Neill's four-phased, systems-based methology provides a structure for coaching that encourages individuality. In fact, O'Neill stresses the importance of a coach's self-awareness and developemnt of ones signature presence. She uses many relevant examples to illustrate her approach. I especially value suggestions made throughout the book for how to effectively engage clients. O'Neill has the ability to explain complex sustems theory and interpersonal dynamics in a way that aides understanding. In a recent conversation with a potential coaching client I found myself using, in the moment, the useful information O'Neill offers. If you coach executives, or leaders at any level in organizations, this is a must resource.

Insightful!
Mary Beth O'Neill describes how executive coaches need to work with executives as partners to help them become better leaders. Coaches need the strength to share the truth with clients in times of crisis, she explains. She discusses the core principles that underlie coaching and the four essential phases of the coaching process: contracting, planning, live-action intervening and debriefing. The book is primarily directed to coaches, including consultants and internal or external trainers, who facilitate processes and projects in organizations. While it has its share of fuzzy and jargon-laden patches, the book is generally clear and to the point. It includes a mix of examples, charts, and step-by-step techniques, plus useful chapter highlights. We [...] recommend this book to coaches, to executives who are coaching employees and to executives who are being coached.