Fundamental Peace · Essay
What is executive coaching — a serious conversation with serious consequences
Executive coaching has been diluted by a decade of LinkedIn motivation. The real thing is rarer, quieter and far more demanding. It is a confidential, structured partnership between a senior leader and a trained professional whose job is to make the leader's thinking visible to themselves — and then to support a small number of changes the leader chooses to make.
The reframe: Fundamental Peace
From the ICEF / FP20 view, executive coaching works at the intersection of Inner Wisdom (the still voice that already knows what the leader keeps avoiding), Sense of Self (the leader's identity under pressure), and Emotional Coherence (the alignment between values, decisions and body). Good coaching is not advice; it is a mirror skilled enough to reflect the leader's own intelligence back at a depth the leader cannot reach alone.
Shadow · Gift · Essence
The fluffy 'how does that make you feel' caricature. The cheerleading service that never says the hard sentence. The over-priced motivational pep-talk dressed in business vocabulary. The coach who is, in reality, an under-prepared friend.
When the work is real, executive coaching is one of the highest-leverage interventions in a leader's life. Small adjustments at the top of a system reshape the whole system. The ROI is rarely subtle.
A leader who decides from values rather than from fear; whose team feels their clarity; whose decisions get cleaner over time; and whose private life is not paying the bill for their public one.
The practice
Choosing an executive coach — 5 questions before you sign
What is your training (not your testimonials)? Look for accredited coach training (ICF, EMCC or equivalent) plus serious adjacent expertise — psychology, leadership, operations, or your specific industry.
Show me an engagement structure. A serious coach has a clear arc: intake, agreed outcomes, regular sessions, stakeholder check-ins where appropriate, and a written closure with measurable shifts.
What kinds of leaders do you specifically not work well with? A coach who cannot answer this is selling, not coaching.
How do you handle confidentiality with my organisation if they are paying? You need explicit written boundaries. No exceptions.
Show me a sample of what feedback to me would actually sound like. A real coach can demonstrate the directness and care of their voice on the call.
When to seek more support
Executive coaching is not therapy and is not a substitute for it. If you arrive at coaching while in active burnout, depression, addiction, or a personal crisis, a skilled coach will help you secure therapeutic support first and may pause the coaching arc until you are resourced. Honour that boundary — it is a sign of seriousness, not of rejection.
Frequently asked
How is executive coaching different from mentoring or consulting?
A mentor shares their experience. A consultant analyses and recommends. A coach holds the structured space inside which the leader's own thinking can become unusually clear. The three are complementary; conflating them weakens all three.
What does a typical engagement look like?
Six to twelve months, two-hour sessions every two to three weeks, with shadow work between sessions. A serious arc, not a series of pep-talks. Pricing reflects the level of expertise; cheap executive coaching is almost always a different category of service in disguise.
What is Luis's specific approach?
Luis's coaching draws on his ICF-accredited training, the ICEF framework, and the practice layer of his book The Transpersonal Leader. The work integrates outer performance with inner peace — because leaders who burn the inside to grow the outside eventually lose both. You can request an exploratory call from the Services page.
Measure where your inner peace stands today
FP20 is the Fundamental Peace Scale — 20 questions, about 4 minutes. It reveals which of the four components (including Emotional Coherence) most needs your attention right now, with a personal reading from Luis.
Take FP20 →Continue reading
