What is zen executive coaching? Before you can answer that question, it is best to determine what zen means, or what is zen?

Zen is more of an attitude than a belief. Zen is a place of peace that comes from being one with an entity other than yourself. That entity can be anything – for many it is a spiritual being, but for some it can be the physical world, it can be the circumstances of their life, or their career.

Zen executive coaching is all about aligning your practice with the qualities of zen and then helping your clients find zen in their executive careers.

5 Quotes That Help Explain Zen Executive Coaching

Teachers open the door but you must enter by yourself.
Chinese Proverb

As a coach, you are a type of teacher, and you open the door for your clients. What is that door? The door is their mind – an open mind allows in more knowledge, assistance, empathy, acceptance.

Water which is too pure has no fish.
Ts’ai Ken T’an

Executive coaches or clients should not worry about what is already in the mind and try to cleanse it. What is done is done, and we can all learn from our past mistakes and failures. A mind too pure will not necessarily produce the desired results.

Out of clutter find simplicity
From discord find harmony
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity
Albert Einstein

Though we don’t think of Albert Einstein when we think of zen philosophy, this quote perfectly illustrates what zen executive coaching is all about. If life is hectic and cluttered, you must slow it down to find the simplest path to success. Even in the midst of disagreements and discord, an executive must find the best way to reach agreement, or harmony. And most importantly, those executives who see opportunity when things are difficult, will be the most likely to succeed in a competitive world.

Preoccupied with a single leaf, you won’t see the tree. Preoccupied with a single tree, you’ll miss the entire forest.
Takuan

As a coach, you need to see everything in its entirety – that’s why you ask questions. To truly manage a corporation or a team of employees, an executive must not only see the details, they must also be able to see the big picture, or the entire forest.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.
Buddha

This one can be interpreted in so many ways. But it can be applied in coaching as a way of thinking about who and what you want to be and then be it. As an executive coach, helping your clients think about the type of executive they wish to be will help them actually become that executive. This would be at the core of zen executive coaching.

Ultimately, zen executive coaching is about helping your clients learn to be leaders who lead without leading, and embrace the ebb and flow of leadership style.

Become a Zen Executive Coach

Being a leader without leading means an executive gets his team to follow not because they need to, but because they want to. They don’t push and prod their team of employees; they inspire and motivate.

Embracing the ebb and flow of leadership is analogous to the concept of Yin and Yang. Consistency counts, but so does adaptation. The concept of Yin and Yang in executive coaching means to bring opposing people, opinions, forces, and styles together in create one entity, goal, decision, or business creation, and find happiness and success.

Hope you took some great value out of this post today! I’d love to hear your feedback, so make sure you leave a comment with your thoughts or questions. And also, you can click on the Twitter button below to retweet this article… Thank you!

Fred Philips
Business Coach
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