Being an executive coach is a rewarding and lucrative career. It involves helping senior company executives, directors, and officers reach their goals and improve their performance. As an executive coach, you become a responsible partner to your clients and provide them with an unbiased vision. You can expect to gain a substantial salary, depending on your client base.
To go deeper, research has concluded that three out of four coaches with an active set of clients (75%) said they expect their number of coaching clients to increase over the next year. It's quite extraordinary that someone who trains on the phone in pajamas from their home office can charge more than a Park Avenue lawyer, but it happens if your clients get incredible results and can pay for them. If you're an executive coach whose commitment is focused on improving the performance of the leader of an organization, you could be hired to work with the executive for one or two hours a month, approximately 24 hours a year for a single client. In addition to your background and work experience, you'll probably get better recognition if you're a certified executive coach.
Recognition as an executive coach generally requires extensive professional experience in business and industry or in the public sector, if you intend to become an executive coach of high-level public officials and politicians. It is expected to help improve the leadership and management skills of its customers, guide them in making sound business decisions, and allowing them to focus on personal and organizational development. Starting and running your own coaching business can also generate higher income, since your salary is basically unlimited and depends on how many clients you can get. See the charts below to see the size of companies that pay to train their CEOs, the size of companies that pay Coach employees 2 to 5 levels below the CEO, and the size of companies that pay at the remaining Coach leadership levels. Other times, their managers decide that an executive coach is the perfect motivator to improve employee performance or more clearly define their professional progress.
That's quite close to previous ICF survey averages for the salary of a life coach (or business or executive coach). But a Sherpa Executive Coaching survey just came out on international coach salaries, so here's some new information, broken down by coach type.
