Executive Coaching

Leadership Development and Navigating Transitions

My Approach to Coaching

We are in a new era where fragile financial, economic, social, and environmental systems are showing signs of weakness. Leaders will increasingly be faced with a broader set of external challenges that require mastery of themselves, especially in the critical area of human dynamics.

More than ever, corporate leaders must equip themselves with the tools and awareness they need to do their jobs well. Effective executive coaching today must focus on technology that does more than bring about surface-level change. Today’s coaching must be holistic and facilitate fundamental shifts in leaders.

Most coaching focuses on skill development and behavioral changes. At Quadrant we practice holistic coaching which means we look at the four quadrants of a person: intellectual, physical, emotional, and spiritual. We help our clients break through internal resistance and update their belief systems in order to change the way a person makes meaning from events so they can be powerful leaders and live the life they envision for themselves.

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The business of wanting more

How It Works

Quadrant offers 6 to 12 month or two-day intensive one-on-one programs. These are custom designed based on your goals, pre-work and stakeholder interviews.

The foundation is the Q7 Process, a method of working from the inside out to access authentic leadership.

All programs are a combination of coaching sessions, “fieldwork assignments” between sessions, learning by experience and skills training.

There are two Executive Coaching tracks: Leadership Development and Leaders Navigating Personal or Professional Transitions.

Executive Coaching to Reach New Heights of Success and Fulfillment

Leadership Development

These programs target CEOs, senior executives and entrepreneurs who strive to increase their personal and leadership effectiveness.

The Quadrant Process generates clear communicators who build and sustain productive relationships and lead with vision and inspiration.

Leaders Navigating Personal or Professional Transitions

These programs are designed for executives confronting a professional or personal transition.

Examples include: entrepreneurs who recently sold a business or left a partnership; major promotions; executives who have left a position or are contemplating a career change; or executives seeking significant shifts in work/life balance, searching for more meaning or satisfaction.

Learn more about the Quadrant approach to executive coaching in these white papers

executive coaching

What I Can Help You With?

What Exactly is Leadership Coaching? Do I really need it?

Here’s What our Clients Say:

I began working with Brian during a critical transition point in my life and business career, without much certainty that leadership coaching was what I really needed. I quickly realized that Brian’s deep business experience and matching personal insightfulness was exactly what I required to bridge the gap to the next phase of my personal and professional life. I derived great value from working with Brian and credit him with having a meaningful positive impact on my life.

Tom Filippini

Co-founder, Exclusive Resorts, Inc.

Brian has successfully coached several of our senior management members. He helps his clients understand how their behavior affects their jobs, co-workers, family members and themselves. Our company has been the beneficiary of the positive changes in the people that Brian has coached. It’s Brian’s common sense and even-tempered style that has made him successful. Brian draws upon his own life experience to help his clients apply the proper perspective to their lives.

Ed Haselden

Chairman & CEO, Haselden Construction

Brian Gast has been the single most influential coach/mentor in my professional career. More importantly, his wisdom and guidance has had a profoundly transformative impact on my life outside of work. The opportunity to work with Brian has truly been a gift!

Brian Watson, PhD

Former Global Head, Operational Excellence Capability Development, Credit Suisse

Brian is a gifted, emotional IQ genius. His Zen-like approach and demeanor was perfect for our group of intense personalities as he allows us to drop our shields and get to our true selves.

President and CEO, Texas-based Manufacturer

Frequently Asked Questions

Why would I want to engage an executive coach?

To realize and access the power inside you to more effectively navigate your external environment.

To gain a new perspective on new and old issues and accelerate your progress toward your goals. In an increasingly complex business and world environment, your coach becomes a partner to help you think through issues, expand your awareness of options, reveal blind spots and help shift recurring patterns that limit you.

What is the role of an executive coach?

An executive coach is a navigator and guide to help you advance to higher levels in career and life.

Your coach will provide tools and processes to engage you on many levels. These help you recognize core dilemmas and conflicting goals. As a result, you will discover new strategies, perspective and creative direction.

Your coach will offer objective observations and will hold you accountable for following-through on your plans.

Coaching is an action-oriented process focused on the achievement of measurable results.

How is coaching different from consulting?

Coaching focuses on individual people and their needs. Consulting focuses on entire departments and/or companies. Consulting focuses almost exclusively on business results.

Coaches engage their clients more with questions than recommendations. A coach will also give assignments and challenge you to learn new strategies and concepts, whereas consultants often concentrate on providing advice.

What is unique about Quadrant coaches?

Quadrant coaches have significant corporate experience combined with coach training and personal development. In addition to their real-world leadership experience, Quadrant coaches are certified or have completed hundreds of hours of advanced coach training. Quadrant coaches bring to each engagement the experience of coaching numerous senior executives of companies of all different sizes and in many types of industries.

For example, in addition to his many years of coaching senior leaders, Brian Gast brings 20 years of business experience (12 years as a CEO), an MBA, and experience navigating his own personal and professional transitions.

What happens during a typical coaching session?

Specific results and goals are established and agreed to at the beginning of the coaching program.

We get together in person or on the phone typically for 1 to 2 hours. We do a brief “check in”, reviewing any fieldwork assignments. Then we will either work on a broad issue that we targeted in the initial coaching agreement, or a “live” issue you are facing.

We will often pull in a model or specific tool during the coaching session that you can apply to current and future issues. Sometimes we will have a dialogue, working within the structure of an exercise to help bring clarity and new information to a topic

How do I launch a coaching relationship?

Prior to the first coaching meeting, my associates and I may administer profiling surveys. We typically employ instruments such as a 360-degree Feedback Survey, Herman Brain Dominance Indicator and others.

We may also conduct interviews with peers, team members and managers.

I also research the company and industry to put the coaching issues into proper context. I’ll ask you to complete a “Checklist” to provide background on what areas of development you wish to focus on.

All this initial background data becomes the topic of discussion for the first coaching meeting. The data is also used to establish goals and your development plan.

How are coaching meetings scheduled?

Individual coaching programs typically consist of a series of twice-monthly meetings. We start with two initial consultations lasting approximately three to four hours. Subsequent meetings usually last about one to two hours.

The programs are always tailored to active schedules and specific goals. Meetings can be in person or by phone. When someone is out of town, I meet in person every 30 to 60 days with phone sessions in between.

How long does the program last?

Executive coaching programs typically continue for 6 to 12 months, with an option to extend. Follow-up sessions can be scheduled as needed.

If my company hires you, how can I be assured that what I tell you does not get back to my boss or the board?

Confidentiality is key to a successful coaching relationship. Although ultimately accountable to the corporate client for results, my primary relationship is with my individual client.

Before coaching begins, I enter into a confidentiality agreement with each person I work with. I offer a parallel agreement with the corporate client that prevents anything discussed in a coaching session from being disclosed to anyone else.

You may wish to specify that your employer has access to information related to progress toward specific goals agreed to beforehand by you and your manager or the company’s board of directors.

Why is coaching more effective than talking things over with a friend, mentor or peer?

Friends, mentors and peers are not objective or trained to address persistent patterns and problems. While their insights may be well-intentioned, their advice is usually right for them, but not for you. In fact, they typically have vested interests that may, consciously or unconsciously, conflict with your goals.

Even experienced business executives typically lack the advanced training to develop others into leadership roles.

In addition, friends and peers are not likely to insist on results and hold you accountable.

Why is an external executive coach better than an internal coach?

The key reason is confidentiality.

Although internal coaches can be well trained and experienced, research has shown that executives (particularly at senior levels) often do not feel comfortable discussing information with internal coaches. This is especially true for the more tangled issues and those relating to leadership.

Does executive coaching focus on personal concerns or just professional issues?

I work on whatever areas that you need to address. My coaching tools are designed to identify behavior patterns in your work life. But these patterns will also appear in your personal or family life. I have observed that all aspects of a person’s life are interrelated. For instance, work life affects home life, and visa versa.

A part of me believes that anytime I meet with a professional to talk about confidential and personal issues I am in therapy — how is coaching different?

Although coaching can be very personal, it is not therapy. Coaching sometimes incorporates elements of therapy. As part of the coaching process, we may analyze underlying attitudes and thought patterns, for example. But coaching is built around action and supporting your development plans.

Coaching is all about achievement and results; while therapy typically is concerned with diagnoses and treatment.

Therapy concentrates on a person’s psychological dysfunctions. Coaching advances highly functional executives into extraordinary leadership positions.

Who are your typical clients?

I typically coach CEOs and other senior level executives and entrepreneurs of medium to large companies in a wide variety of industries. (Click here to read testimonials)

I offer programs that fit the unique needs of CEOs in leading, venture-capital-backed, early-stage companies, and certain mid-level managers.

My clients must demonstrate that they are “coachable,” which means they are committed to their personal growth and open to new ideas and support from others.

How much is the investment my company or I will make when working with you?

The investment varies depending on the level and compensation of the executive. Fees for six month programs range between $20,000 to $30,000 for senior executives and $12,000 to $20,000 for mid-level executives. Travel and other out-of-pocket expenses are billed separately.