Why Should a CEO Hire a Coach?

7 Reasons the Best Ones Do

I became the CEO coach I needed and never had when I was a CEO. Why? Because as a CEO, I made a lot of dumb decisions that I thought made sense at the time. I fell in love with all my great ideas, some of which weren’t really grounded in reality. I needed a sounding board, someone to push back and challenge my thinking. And honestly, I rarely had anyone with whom I could have an intelligent, vulnerable conversation, without fear of judgment or disclosure.

In 2013, Stanford's Rock Center for Corporate Governance and The Miles Group asked CEOs a simple question. Do you get outside coaching or leadership advice? Nearly two-thirds said no. Then they asked whether the CEOs would like that kind of help. Almost every one of them said yes. So CEOs know they can benefit from a coach, yet most don't get one. 

Why CEOs are reluctant to hire a coach

If nearly every CEO wants that trusted advisor, why do most go without it?

It looks like weakness. CEOs live under a microscope, and everyone is watching. Coaching carries a persistent, remedial stigma that an executive coach is the last step before someone gets fired. While the link between coaching and high performance has carried over from sports to the C-Suite, a lingering stigma remains: hiring a coach means acknowledging failure.

They don’t feel they need it. While secretly wanting those confidential conversations, successful CEOs simply don’t see the value. It’s interpreted as little more than a therapist you vent to or an overpaid cheerleader, neither of which moves the needle forward.

They fear the mirror. It’s one thing to acknowledge your blind spots, biases, and overconfidence; it’s another thing to deal with them. Confronting internal narratives, weaknesses, and defensive habits is uncomfortable and exhausting work.

There’s no room on the calendar. While notoriously protective of their calendar, engaging with a coach requires private time to think, process feedback, and deliberately confront their mindsets and behaviors. It’s much easier to check emails.

It means someone pushes back. The CEO is the final decision-maker. That's the job. A coach walks into the one room where you've always had the last word and starts asking questions you'd rather not answer. Under pressure, most CEOs grip the wheel tighter and fall back on the habits that feel safe. A good coach makes you look at those habits. That's uncomfortable. 

Seven reasons a CEO should hire a coach.

1. Nobody tells you the truth anymore

The day you become CEO, the information you get changes. Your team filters it. Your board sees you four times a year. Your spouse has heard it so many times they’ve stopped listening.

Dacher Keltner at UC Berkeley calls this the power paradox. The skills that earn you power, like empathy and paying attention to other people, tend to weaken once you have it. You stop noticing what others see. So they stop telling you.

A CEO coach is the one person in your world with no reason to placate you. Their job is to help you see what you’re missing, to challenge your positions, and to clarify your focus.

2. Your confidence is a risk you can't see

Confidence is your secret weapon, and overconfidence is your kryptonite.

Economists Ulrike Malmendier and Geoffrey Tate studied overconfident CEOs and found they were more likely to overinvest and make acquisitions that destroyed value. These weren't careless people. They were sure they were right, and nobody around them was in a position to argue.

A great coach doesn't make you less decisive. A great coach makes you check your certainty before you bet the company on it.

3. It's lonely at the top, and that's a biological problem

"It's lonely at the top" sounds trite, but it's actually neuroscience.

The late John Cacioppo at the University of Chicago spent his career showing that loneliness is a biological alarm state. It puts the brain on guard for threats, narrows attention, and degrades judgment. That is exactly the brain you don't want making a hiring decision or reading a term sheet.

CEOs can't vent to employees. They shouldn't vent to the board. Coaching gives you a place to think out loud where the thinking is the point.

4. Your blind spots grow with your company

Every leader has tendencies that work fine on a good day and cause damage under pressure. The charming CEO becomes impulsive. The careful one freezes. The confident one stops listening.

As a Hogan-certified coach, I measure these patterns directly with the Hogan Development Survey, which identifies the behaviors that show up when you're stressed, tired, or not paying attention. Those are also the conditions under which most CEOs make their biggest decisions.

At 20 employees, a blind spot is annoying. At 200, it's a culture. A coach helps you see it while it can still be cleared up.

5. Your brain is the Company’s most valuable leadership asset

Your brain makes more consequential decisions than anyone else's in the building, often on less sleep and with less recovery. Most CEOs maintain their cars better than they maintain their own cognition.

Mental fitness is not a mindset. It's how your brain actually handles stress, energy, focus, and decisions. Coaching elevates and refines your thinking so you can see what others don't.

6. The company can't outgrow its CEO

As goes the CEO, so goes the company. If you want to build a great company, you need to become a great CEO. And that doesn’t happen on its own.

CEO coaching isn't about fixing broken CEOs; it's about growing the CEO's capacity faster than the company's.

7. The ROI on CEO coaching is significant

The return on investment (ROI) for executive coaching is exceptionally high. According to global research by PwC and the International Coaching Federation (ICF), 86% of companies that track their coaching outcomes report a clear financial profit, typically recovering at least 5 to 7 times their original investment. Additionally, a famous, widely-cited study by MetrixGlobal LLC evaluated a Fortune 500 leadership coaching initiative and found a raw 529% ROI from bottom-line business drive alone. [1, 2].

A CEO does not operate in a vacuum. A change in their behavior fundamentally alters the productivity of the entire corporate pyramid below them. Data published by ICF attributes three primary team benefits to C-suite coaching: [1, 2]

• Organizational Performance: A 48% increase in overall business output, driven by tighter strategic alignment and faster execution. [1, 2]

• Team Performance: A 50% increase in executive committee collaboration, reducing friction and speeding project delivery. [1, 2]

• Individual Employee Engagement: A 72% correlation between C-suite coaching and boosted company-wide morale, directly mitigating costly employee turnover. [1, 2]
  

What a CEO coach is not

A CEO coach is not a consultant who hands you a strategy deck. A coach is not a therapist working through your childhood. And a coach is not a cheerleader. If your coach agrees with you all the time, you're paying for applause.

A great CEO coach is in the arena with you. They ask the questions no one else in your life will ask. Moreover, as you build history with the CEO coach, they can recognize your patterns and mindsets. This enables them to quickly focus on what is most important for you in the moment and to guide your leadership growth over time.

How to choose the right CEO coach for you

Find a superior CEO coach, not a program. A coaching certification merely indicates they can ask questions and ask you how you feel. A real coach meets you where you live and is on your level. That’s the coach that will challenge you and slow your roll long enough for you to think about what you’re doing

Take them for a test drive. Ask them for some sample sessions so you can assess whether they are the right coach for you.

Not everybody is a coach. Being a former CEO, or a Vistage Chair, or a coach with a program doesn’t automatically make them the right coach for you. They must be able to reach you and move you to action.

Frequently asked questions about CEO coaching

Do CEOs really need a coach?Not every CEO needs one, but most would benefit. The Stanford survey found nearly all CEOs wanted outside leadership advice, even though most weren't getting it. The higher the stakes and the more isolated the role, the stronger the case.

What does a CEO coach actually do? A CEO coach helps you see your own patterns, test your decisions, and strengthen how you lead under pressure. Sessions usually focus on real issues in the business right now: a difficult executive, a big decision, a stalled strategy.

How is a CEO coach different from a consultant?A consultant brings answers about the business. A coach improves the person making the decisions. Consultants leave behind a plan. A coach leaves behind a better CEO.

How long does CEO coaching take?Most engagements run six to twelve months. Many CEOs stay longer because the value compounds as the relationship builds trust and candor. My clients typically stay with me for years as they continue to evolve.

Is CEO coaching confidential?Without question. Confidentiality makes candor possible. Ask any coach you're considering how they handle it before you start.

What's the difference between a CEO coach and a CEO peer group?A coach works with you one-on-one and focuses on you. A peer group puts you in a room with other CEOs who face the same pressures. Many CEOs benefit from both.

The coach no one could replace

When Eric Schmidt's board told him to get a coach, he was insulted. He was already a CEO. He didn't need help.

The coach was Bill Campbell. A failed football coach turned Intuit CEO who went on to advise Steve Jobs, Larry Page, and Schmidt himself. The companies he coached are worth more than a trillion dollars. Schmidt and his colleagues at Google published Trillion Dollar Coach in 2019. Schmidt was Google's CEO. Rosenberg ran its product team. Eagle worked on sales and communications there. All three were coached by Campbell. 

Campbell wasn't valuable because he was brilliant. He was valuable because he was rare. He had sat in the chair, so he knew what the job cost. He wanted nothing from his clients, so he could tell them the truth. And he cared about them enough to say it when no one else would.

When he died in 2016, nobody replaced him. Nobody could.

Here's the question. Who tells you the truth?

Not your team. They work for you. Not your board. They judge you. If you can't name that person in the next five seconds, you already know the answer.

Schmidt thought he didn't need a coach either. He was wrong. So are you.

Liam Chrismer is the founder of Chrismer CEO Consulting, a Hogan-certified executive coach, and an Official Member of Forbes Coaches Council. His book, CEO Mental Fitness, is coming from Fast Company Press in 2027.