What is executive coaching, actually?
A working definition, with the fog removed: executive coaching is a structured, confidential partnership between a senior professional and a qualified coach, aimed at a change the leader chooses — in capability, behaviour or direction. It is not advice, not training, not therapy, and not magic. Here is the whole picture, in plain words.
Four parts, each doing work.
Structured
Sessions on a cadence, goals in writing, a defined close. Not open-ended chat that drifts for years.
Confidential
The room is safe or the work is fake. Even when an employer pays, what the sponsor hears is scoped in writing.
Partnership
The coach brings questions, frameworks and honesty; you bring the situation and do the changing. A coach who mostly gives answers is a consultant.
A chosen change
Better judgement, a habit replaced, a transition held, a direction set. If the change cannot be named, coaching cannot start.
One craft, many aims.
Most “types” of executive coaching are the same craft aimed at different situations:
By outcome
Transition & first 90 days · Performance · Behavioural · CEO & strategic · Leadership development
By context
Team · Group & cohorts · Women in leadership · GCC leaders · Career
By altitude
Director and VP coaching works on scope; CXO coaching on enterprise judgement; board readiness on the move from running things to governing them.
The number nobody publishes.
The ICF’s own guidance to coaches is that serious six-month executive engagements are packaged from around $20,000, and that bare hourly pricing undercuts credibility (ICF, The Executive Coaching Blueprint). In India, premium 1:1 engagements are typically quoted in the low lakhs — though almost nobody says so in public. We do: our prices are at investment.
The industry habit of hiding prices is why first-time buyers overpay or walk away. Published pricing is not generosity; it is how an evidence-led firm behaves.