CEO coaching with Mark Murphy

What is CEO coaching?

CEO coaching is individual development focused on the responsibilities of the chief executive: making enterprise decisions, leading the executive team, communicating direction, and building accountability. Leadership IQ offers a 90-day, one-to-one executive coaching sprint with Mark Murphy that can focus on these challenges.

The starting point is a real leadership problem. A useful coaching conversation might examine why a strategy discussion keeps reopening, why a direct report waits for permission, or why apparently aligned executives send conflicting messages to their teams.

Four CEO coaching priorities worth examining

Decisions that keep returning to your desk

If capable executives still escalate routine choices, examine what happens when they exercise judgment. Are decision rights clear? Do you reverse decisions without explaining the criteria? Have you delegated responsibility while keeping every approval? Coaching can help you identify your part in the pattern and define a more useful response.

An executive team that agrees in the room and diverges afterward

Agreement on a broad aspiration can conceal disagreement about resources, timing, or tradeoffs. Work can focus on making those differences explicit and closing a discussion with a decision, an owner, and a clear account of what the team has committed to. Leadership IQ’s research on executive leadership teams provides background for examining team effectiveness.

Feedback that becomes less candid as your authority grows

Ask what happens when someone brings you unwelcome information. Your intention to invite honesty may be undermined by interruptions, visible frustration, or immediately arguing with the example. The work is to make useful feedback easier to give and to respond in ways that keep it coming.

Too much operating involvement and too little strategic attention

Review where your calendar and decisions actually go. Which problems require your unique authority? Which remain with you because the delegation conversation never established limits? The goal is to identify specific responsibilities to clarify, rather than simply promising to “be more strategic.”

An illustrative CEO coaching problem

Imagine a CEO who becomes the final referee whenever sales and operations disagree. Both executives have reasonable concerns, but neither knows which tradeoffs they are authorized to make. The CEO resolves each incident quickly, and the next disagreement returns to the same place.

A coaching discussion could examine the CEO’s role in that loop and prepare a different leadership conversation: define the shared outcome, agree on decision criteria, name the decision owner, and specify the conditions for escalation. The CEO can then observe whether the next disagreement is resolved at the right level. This is an example of the work, not a client case study or a guaranteed outcome.

A focused 90-day engagement

Mark’s sprint begins with a 90-minute strategic intake to examine your situation and establish priorities. The work applies Leadership IQ frameworks, including the FIRE Model and Team Players, to leadership decisions, communication, and team dynamics. Week 12 includes a structured progress review and a plan for continued development.

Bring the decisions and conversations that reveal the pattern you want to change. Useful preparation might include a recent decision that reopened, a delegation that failed, or conflicting expectations among your direct reports. Agree on the specific goals and engagement scope during the strategy conversation.

Learn about Mark Murphy, Leadership IQ’s founder and the coach you would work with directly.

How to make the work measurable

Use a small set of observations tied to the goal. For delegation, track whether agreed decisions are made without unnecessary escalation. For executive-team alignment, examine whether owners, tradeoffs, and follow-through are clear after a meeting. For feedback, look at whether concerns surface earlier and with more useful detail.

Measure your behavior as well as the team’s response. A change in business performance can be relevant context, but it should not automatically be credited to coaching alone.

Questions CEOs ask about coaching

How does coaching differ from consulting or a peer group?

Consulting often focuses on an organizational recommendation or deliverable. A peer group offers perspectives from several leaders. Individual coaching concentrates on your own leadership behavior and its effect on the decisions and relationships around you. The formats can serve different needs.

Can this help a newly appointed CEO?

A role transition can be a useful focus. Explore executive transition coaching for questions about expectations, relationships, and decision authority in a new role.

What about board communication?

Bring the specific communication challenge to the strategy call. Our guide to executive communication coaching describes how to work on recommendations, difficult questions, and clarity under pressure.

What is the cost?

Quote after the complimentary strategy call. Review the cost guide for a checklist of scope and scheduling questions to ask before committing.