How to Set Goals for Executive Coaching

Coaching goals describe how you lead, not what your team delivers

A performance objective measures an outcome: revenue, delivery dates, engagement scores. A coaching goal describes a change in you: how you think, decide, communicate or respond under pressure. The outcome may follow, but it also depends on markets, colleagues and luck, which coaching cannot change.

Compare 'grow the region by a fifth' with 'stop approving every proposal myself so my managers own their numbers'. The first is a business target. The second is something you can work on in coaching, practise every week and see change.

A four-step method for writing a coaching goal

The coaching goals worksheet walks you through these steps on one page if you prefer to write them out.

1. 01

   Start from a real moment

   Recall a recent situation you wish had gone differently: a meeting, a decision, a conversation. Real moments produce sharper goals than general ambitions.

2. 02

   Name the current pattern

   Describe what you usually do in that kind of moment, without judging it. For example, 'When senior leaders push back, I drop my point and agree.'

3. 03

   Describe the new behaviour

   Write what you want to do instead, in terms someone could observe: 'I hold my position, ask a question to understand their concern and propose a next step.'

4. 04

   Choose your evidence

   Decide how you and others will know it is changing: feedback from a trusted colleague, your own log of key meetings, or a follow-up 360 review.

Vague goals and usable goals, side by side

A vague goal is not wrong. It is a starting point that needs one more round of thinking before it can guide a session.

Test each goal against three questions before you commit

• ✦Is it within my control? 'Get promoted' depends on others. 'Show the board I can lead the function' depends on you.
• ✦Could someone else see it? If a colleague could not notice the change, the goal is still too internal to track.
• ✦Does it matter to me, not just to my manager? Goals set only to satisfy someone else rarely survive a busy quarter.

Mistakes that weaken coaching goals from the start

• ✦Too many goals. Five goals mean none gets real attention. Two or three is enough for most engagements.
• ✦Goals that are really tasks. 'Finish the restructure plan' is a project. The coaching goal is how you lead people through it.
• ✦Ignoring the inner side. If self-doubt or perfectionism sits behind the pattern, leaving it out of the goal means the coaching only reaches the surface.
• ✦Never revisiting them. A goal written in the first session and never reviewed becomes wallpaper.
• ✦Measuring only with numbers. Leadership change often shows first in conversations and feedback, before it shows in results.

When your organisation helps set the goals

If your employer is sponsoring the coaching, your manager or HR will want a say in the goals, and that is reasonable. The best approach is a three-way conversation where you, your sponsor and your coach agree two or three shared goals, while you keep the freedom to bring other topics to sessions privately.

Shared goals should still pass the three tests. If a sponsor proposes a goal that is outside your control, such as 'improve team engagement scores', reshape it into the behaviour you will change to influence that score.

Example: a director told to be more strategic

Imagine an operations director in a Gulf logistics company whose CEO says, at their annual review, that they need to be more strategic. The director starts coaching with exactly that goal and finds the first session goes in circles.

Working through the four steps, they recall a recent planning meeting where they spent the whole time fixing a delivery issue. The current pattern is that they step in whenever something breaks. The new behaviour is to hand urgent operational issues to two deputies and protect a weekly block for planning. The evidence is the CEO's view at the six-month review and how often the director is pulled into operational issues.

This example is hypothetical. It shows how a goal that sounds clear to everyone becomes useful only when it describes specific behaviour.

Let goals evolve without losing focus

Coaching goals often change after the first few sessions, because the real issue becomes clearer. That is a sign the coaching is working, not that the original goals were wrong. Review them openly at agreed points and adjust them on purpose, rather than letting them drift.

In my one-to-one executive coaching, we shape goals in your own words and revisit them regularly. If you want to know what progress looks like along the way, read how to know if coaching is working.