Choosing the right leadership development partner involves more than comparing services. Below are answers to common questions about our executive coaching, team development, leadership training, and 360-degree feedback programs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Executive Coaching
Who is executive coaching for?
Executive coaching is designed for executives, senior leaders, and emerging leaders who want to increase their effectiveness, prepare for greater responsibility, or navigate a significant leadership challenge.
Coaching can be particularly valuable when someone is stepping into a new role, leading through organizational change, expanding their influence, taking on greater complexity, or receiving feedback that requires a meaningful shift in how they lead.
What makes Elevated Talent’s approach to executive coaching different?
Our coaching is highly personalized, practical, and grounded in the leader’s real organizational context. We combine thoughtful inquiry with candid feedback, constructive challenge, evidence-informed frameworks, and practical strategies leaders can apply immediately.
Depending on the engagement, we may also use stakeholder interviews, 360-degree feedback, or leadership assessments to help leaders understand how they are experienced by others and identify the changes that will have the greatest impact.
What happens during an executive coaching engagement?
Each engagement begins with a conversation to understand the leader’s role, goals, challenges, and organizational context. When coaching is sponsored by an organization, we may also hold an alignment meeting with the leader, their manager, and an HR or talent partner to establish shared objectives and clarify roles.
The leader and coach then identify development priorities, create a practical development plan, and work together on real leadership situations. Progress is reviewed throughout the engagement, and goals can evolve as the leader’s circumstances change.
What leadership challenges can coaching help address?
Executive coaching can support leaders with challenges such as:
- Stepping successfully into a new or more senior role
- Strengthening executive presence and communication
- Navigating organizational complexity and politics
- Influencing without formal authority
- Delegating and empowering others
- Managing conflict and difficult conversations
- Building trust with teams and stakeholders
- Leading through uncertainty and change
- Expanding strategic and enterprise-level thinking
- Managing competing priorities and sustaining performance under pressure
The focus is determined by the leader’s goals, organizational context, and feedback from relevant stakeholders.
How long does an executive coaching engagement last?
Engagements typically last between three and six months. Six months is often appropriate when the work includes stakeholder alignment, 360-degree feedback, a development plan, and sufficient time for the leader to practise and reinforce new behaviours.
The appropriate length and structure depend on the leader’s objectives, the complexity of the role, and the level of organizational support required.
What is included in an executive coaching engagement?
The scope is customized and clearly outlined before the engagement begins. Depending on the selected program, it may include:
- An initial discovery and goal-setting session
- Alignment meetings with the leader’s manager or organizational sponsor
- Leadership assessments or 360-degree feedback
- A personalized leadership development plan
- One-on-one coaching sessions
- Relevant frameworks, articles, exercises, and other resources
- Midpoint and concluding progress reviews
- Support between scheduled sessions
Not every engagement includes every component. We recommend a structure based on the leader’s needs and the organization’s objectives.
Is executive coaching confidential?
Coaching conversations are confidential. When an organization sponsors the engagement, the leader, coach, and sponsor agree at the outset on the goals, roles, and information-sharing boundaries.
Progress against agreed development goals may be discussed during alignment meetings, but the details of individual coaching conversations are not shared without the leader’s permission, except where disclosure is legally or ethically required.
How do you measure progress?
Progress is evaluated against the goals established at the beginning of the engagement. Measures may include observable changes in leadership behaviour, feedback from relevant stakeholders, progress on specific business or relationship objectives, leadership assessments, follow-up 360-degree feedback, and the leader’s own reflection.
The goal is not simply to generate insight. It is to translate that insight into changes that colleagues can experience and that improve the leader’s effectiveness.
Is executive coaching available virtually or in person?
Yes. Executive coaching can be delivered virtually or in person, depending on the leader’s location and the scope of the engagement. Virtual coaching allows us to work with leaders across Canada, the United States, and internationally.
How is executive coaching priced?
The investment depends on the length of the engagement, frequency of coaching, assessments or stakeholder interviews included, and the level of organizational alignment and follow-up required.
After an initial consultation, we recommend an appropriate structure and provide a clear proposal outlining the scope, deliverables, and fees.
Team Development
What is team development?
Team development helps an intact team improve how its members work together. It focuses on the conditions required for sustained performance, including trust, communication, accountability, decision-making, collaboration, and alignment around a shared purpose.
Rather than treating the session as a one-time team-building activity, we help teams better understand their patterns and agree on practical changes to how they work together.
What types of teams benefit from team development?
Team development can benefit senior leadership teams, newly formed teams, established teams, and teams navigating growth, restructuring, new leadership, or organizational change.
It can also be useful when a capable team is experiencing unclear priorities, communication breakdowns, low trust, unresolved tension, inconsistent accountability, or difficulty making decisions together.
How is team development different from team building?
Team-building activities often focus on strengthening relationships through a shared experience. Team development goes further by helping members examine how the team actually operates and address the behaviours, processes, and dynamics affecting performance.
The two can complement each other, but team development is more directly connected to how the team communicates, makes decisions, manages conflict, holds members accountable, and delivers results.
How does CliftonStrengths fit into your team development programs?
We use the Gallup CliftonStrengths® assessment, formerly known as StrengthsFinder, to help team members understand their natural patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.
Individual debriefs and the team’s collective strengths profile create a practical foundation for discussing contributions, blind spots, communication preferences, friction points, and how the team operates under pressure. CliftonStrengths is one possible foundation for an engagement; the final design depends on the team’s objectives.
What happens before, during, and after a team development session?
Before the session, we meet with the team’s sponsor to understand the business context, desired outcomes, and current team dynamics. Depending on the program, participants may also complete assessments or participate in individual discovery conversations.
During the session, the team works on its real challenges and develops practical agreements or commitments. Follow-up support can be included to help the team review progress and reinforce the changes it has agreed to make.
Do you offer half-day and full-day team development programs?
Yes. Half-day sessions provide a focused exploration of individual and collective strengths, team dynamics, and practical ways of working more effectively together.
Full-day sessions provide more time to address additional topics such as shared purpose, organizational values, communication, accountability, feedback, decision-making, conflict, and team culture. The content is finalized with the team’s sponsor before the session.
Can team development help a team experiencing conflict or low trust?
Yes, provided that the team and its leader are willing to address the underlying issues openly. We can help teams identify unproductive patterns, discuss their impact, and develop clearer agreements for communication, conflict, and accountability.
Some situations may also require support from HR, mediation, workplace investigation, or another specialized process. We will be transparent if team development alone is unlikely to address the issue.
Can team development be delivered virtually?
Yes. Team development can be delivered virtually or in person. The design, activities, and timing are adapted to the delivery format and the team’s needs.
Leadership Training
Who is leadership training designed for?
Our leadership training programs can be designed for new managers, experienced people leaders, senior leaders, or mixed leadership groups.
The appropriate content and level of challenge depend on the participants’ experience, the organization’s priorities, and the leadership behaviours it wants to strengthen.
What leadership capabilities can your programs address?
Programs can address capabilities such as:
- Leadership communication and executive presence
- Emotional intelligence and self-awareness
- Coaching and developing employees
- Delegation and empowerment
- Building trust and psychological safety
- Accountability and performance conversations
- Conflict management and difficult conversations
- Leading high-performing teams
- Influencing across organizational boundaries
- Leading through change and uncertainty
We recommend focusing each program on a manageable number of capabilities rather than trying to cover too much in a single session.
Can leadership training be customized for our organization?
Yes. We begin by understanding your organization’s objectives, culture, leadership expectations, and current challenges. We then adapt the examples, exercises, frameworks, and application activities to reflect the situations participants actually face.
Customization can range from adapting an established workshop to designing a broader leadership development program around your organization’s priorities.
Is the training practical or primarily classroom-based?
Our approach is highly practical and participative. Leaders work with real situations, practise relevant conversations, receive feedback, and identify specific actions they can apply after the program.
Frameworks and research provide structure, but the emphasis is on helping participants use what they learn in their day-to-day leadership.
How is leadership training different from executive coaching and team development?
Leadership training helps a group build shared knowledge and practise specific leadership capabilities. Executive coaching provides individualized development based on one leader’s goals, context, and feedback. Team development focuses on how the members of an intact team work together.
These approaches can be offered separately or combined as part of a broader leadership development initiative.
Can leadership training be delivered virtually or in person?
Yes. Programs can be delivered virtually or in person. The format, duration, and group size are determined by the learning objectives, the number of participants, and the level of interaction and practice required.
How do you evaluate the results of leadership training?
The evaluation approach is agreed upon during the program design. Depending on the scope, it may include participant feedback, confidence or knowledge measures, commitments to specific workplace actions, feedback from managers, follow-up sessions, and evidence that participants are applying the targeted behaviours.
For longer programs, we can also incorporate coaching, assessments, or stakeholder feedback to reinforce learning and evaluate progress over time.
Leadership Insights
What is Leadership Insights?
Leadership Insights is Elevated Talent’s customized 360-degree feedback service for senior leaders who want a candid and comprehensive understanding of how their leadership is experienced by others.
It brings together perspectives from relevant stakeholders to identify patterns in the leader’s strengths, blind spots, communication, trust, influence, relationships, and overall impact.
What is a 360-degree feedback assessment?
A 360-degree process gathers feedback from people who interact with a leader in different capacities, such as their manager, peers, direct reports, board members, and key organizational partners.
Looking across these perspectives helps identify consistent patterns, important differences in how the leader is experienced, and issues that may not be visible through self-reflection or feedback from one person alone.
When is Leadership Insights most useful?
Leadership Insights can be particularly valuable when a leader is:
- Preparing for or adjusting to a more senior role
- Seeking candid feedback that may be difficult to obtain internally
- Developing greater executive or enterprise-level impact
- Working through recurring relationship or communication challenges
- Creating a focused leadership development plan
- Preparing for an executive coaching engagement
- Reviewing progress after a period of development
It is most effective when the leader is genuinely open to feedback and prepared to act on what they learn.
What is the difference between an interview-based 360 and a standardized 360 assessment?
An interview-based 360 uses confidential, one-on-one stakeholder conversations and a customized interview guide. It provides detailed examples, context, nuance, and insight into complex leadership dynamics.
A standardized or survey-based 360 uses a validated questionnaire to gather structured feedback. It can provide norm-referenced data and is particularly useful when an organization wants a consistent approach across multiple leaders.
We offer both options and recommend the approach that best fits the leader’s objectives and organizational context.
What other leadership assessments do you offer?
Depending on the development objective, we can incorporate validated tools such as the Leadership Circle Profile, Hogan assessments, and Gallup CliftonStrengths.
Each tool answers different questions. We recommend assessments based on the insight needed rather than using the same instrument for every leader.
Who provides feedback in an interview-based 360?
Feedback normally comes from people with sufficient experience working with the leader to comment meaningfully on their impact. This may include the leader’s manager, peers, direct reports, board members, and other important stakeholders.
Our comprehensive interview-based process typically includes 8 to 15 stakeholder interviews. The final number and mix are determined by the leader’s role, objectives, and organizational relationships.
Is the feedback confidential?
Yes. Feedback is synthesized into themes, and comments are presented without attributing them to individual participants. The purpose is to help the leader understand meaningful patterns while protecting the confidentiality required for candid feedback.
Before the process begins, we explain the confidentiality approach to the leader and feedback providers. We also discuss any practical limitations to anonymity when a stakeholder group is particularly small.
Who receives the feedback report?
The leader receives the report and reviews it confidentially with the coach. If an organization sponsors the process, any information shared with the manager, HR partner, executive sponsor, or board is agreed upon in advance.
An optional sponsor conversation may focus on high-level themes, development priorities, and organizational support without disclosing confidential comments or unnecessary personal detail.
Is a 360-degree review the same as a performance review?
No. Leadership Insights is a developmental process rather than a formal evaluation of employment performance.
The purpose is to help leaders better understand their impact, recognize strengths and blind spots, and identify focused development priorities. It should complement rather than replace an organization’s performance-management responsibilities.
What happens after the feedback is collected?
The coach analyzes the interviews or assessment results and prepares a report identifying the most important themes, strengths, development areas, and representative feedback.
The leader then participates in a 90-minute debrief to understand the findings and identify priorities. Follow-up coaching can be added to help the leader process difficult feedback, create a development plan, practise new approaches, and sustain behavioural change.