Career, Business, and Leadership Coaching

Coaching Tips for Career, Business, and Leadership

Coaching insights from successful people in business and life can provide meaningful insights that can help illuminate your journey.

The following Coaching Tips from our collection of experts are essential reading for anyone seeking Career, Business, and Leadership Success.

Successful Leaders, you should study for Coaching Advice

• Steve Jobs
  • Steven Jobs (1955 – 2011) was an American business magnate and investor. He was the chairman, CEO, and co-founder of Apple Inc.

• Arianna Huffington
  • Arianna Huffington (born 1950) is a Greek-American author, columnist, and businesswoman. She is the founder of The Huffington Post, the founder, and CEO of Thrive Global, and the author of fifteen books.

• Bill Gates
  • Bill Gates (born 1955) is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is best known as the principal founder of the Microsoft Corporation.

• Elon Musk
  • Elon Musk FRS (born 1971) is a technology entrepreneur, investor, and engineer. He is the founder of SpaceX; co-founder of Tesla, Inc.; co-founder and CEO of Neuralink; founder of The Boring Company; co-founder and co-chairman of OpenAI; and co-founder of PayPal.

• Indra Nooyi
  • Indra Nooyi (born 1955) is an Indian American business executive who served as the CEO of PepsiCo for 12 Years. She has consistently ranked among the world’s 100 most powerful women. Nooyi joined PepsiCo in 1994 and was named CEO in 2006, becoming the fifth CEO in PepsiCo’s 44-year history.

• Jack Ma
  • Jack Ma or Ma Yun (Chinese: 马云), (born 1964) is a Chinese business magnate, politician, and philanthropist. He is the co-founder of Alibaba Group. Ma is seen as a global ambassador for Chinese business and as such is frequently listed as one of the world’s most powerful people by Forbes.
• Meg Whitman
  • Margaret Whitman (born 1956) is an American business executive, political activist, and philanthropist. Margaret Whitman has served as the President and CEO for a number of well-known brands such as eBay and HP and is on the board of a number of high profile companies. Whitman was named in Forbes List of the 100 Most Powerful Women in the World.

• Jeff Bezos
  • Jeffrey Bezos (born 1964) is an American technology entrepreneur and investor. He is the founder, chairman, CEO, and president of Amazon.com, Inc.

• Mary Barra
  • Mary Barra (born 1961) was appointed Chairwoman and CEO of General Motors Company in 2014. She was the first female CEO of a major global automaker. Barra was listed on Forbes and Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list. Barra has also featured on the cover of Time’s “100 Most Influential People in the World.”

• Warren Buffett
  • Warren Buffett (born 1930) is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is considered one of the most successful investors in the world and has a net worth of over US$80 billion, making him one of the wealthiest people in the world.

• Oprah Winfrey
  • Oprah Winfrey (born 1954) is an American media executive, actress, talk show host, television producer, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and ran in national syndication for 25 years.

• Ursula Burns
  • Ursula Burns (born 1958), is an American businesswoman. In 2009, Burns became CEO of Xerox, she was the first among black women to be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Ursula Burns has also been appointed as the chairman and CEO of VEON, senior advisor to Teneo and a non-executive director and a member of the board of directors of many global organizations.

• Mukesh Ambani
  • Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani (born 1957) is an Indian businessman, the chairman, managing director, and largest shareholder of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), one of India’s most valuable company by its market value. According to Forbes magazine, he is one of the richest men in Asia.

• Frank Lowy
  • Frank Lowy (born 1930) is the former long-time Chairman of Westfield Corporation, a global shopping center company with US$29 billion of assets under management in the United States, United Kingdom, and Europe. Lowy was appointed a Director of the Reserve Bank of Australia in 1995 and concluding his term in 2005.

Leadership and Mangement Experts, you should study for Coaching Advice

• Peter Drucker
  • Peter Drucker (1909 – 2005) was a management consultant and educator, whose writings contributed to the foundations of the modern business corporation. He is one of the best-known and influential thinkers on the subject of management theory and practice.

• Stephen Covey
  • Stephen Covey (1932 – 2012) was an educator, author, and businessman. His most popular book is “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” In 1996, Times magazine named him one of the 25 most influential people.

“In a recent study, training alone improved leadership skills by 22%. When combined with Executive Coaching, improvement jumps to 77%.”

– Fortune

Career Advice from the Successful Leaders

“Things never go smoothly.” – Jeff Bezos

“Life is a dance between making it happen and letting it happen.” – Arianna Huffington

“Never give up searching for the job that you are passionate about” – Warren Buffett

“Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.” – Steve Jobs

“If there are nine rabbits on the ground, if you want to catch one, just focus on one.” – Jack Ma

“We become what we repeatedly do.” – Stephen Covey

“Intelligence, imagination, and knowledge are essential resources, but only effectiveness converts them into results.” – Peter Drucker

“Education will open doors. Talent will open worlds. But it is hard work that will enable you to accomplish more than you ever imagined.” – Mary Barra

“Life is not fair; get used to it.” – Bill Gates

“You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.” – Oprah Winfrey

“Find something that you love to do, and find a place that you really like to do it in.” – Ursula Burns

“I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.” – Elon Musk

“You can be very, very competent..but if you’re not willing to speak out..have the confidence based on your knowledge..what’s the point?” – Indra Nooyi

“If you have fun at your job, I think you’re going to be more effective.” – Meg Whitman

“The people who are right a lot often change their minds.” – Jeff Bezos

“The important thing which I’ve really learned is how do you not give up, because you never succeed in the first attempt.” – Mukesh Ambani

“Life has its ups and downs but you can only look forward.” – Frank Lowy

“Your attitude is more important than your capabilities. Similarly, your decision is more important than your capabilities.” – Jack Ma

“Fearlessness is like a muscle. I know from my own life that the more I exercise it the more natural it becomes to not let my fears run me.” – Arianna Huffington

“It’s very important to like the people you work with, otherwise life [and] your job is gonna be quite miserable.” – Elon Musk

“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.” – Steve Jobs

“Turn your wounds into wisdom.” – Oprah Winfrey

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” – Peter Drucker

“It’s a marathon, not a sprint.” – Mary Barra

“It’s important to know where you came from and where you’ve been – personally and professionally – but only so it can help you know where you are going.” – Frank Lowy

“It is important to remember, there are no overnight successes. You will need to be dedicated, single-minded, and there is no substitute for hard work.” – Mukesh Ambani

“Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone to greatness.” – Oprah Winfrey

“A coach is part advisor, part sounding board, part cheerleader, part manager and part strategist.”

– The Business Journal

Business Advice from famous Business Founders

“As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” – Bill Gates

“Vision without execution is a hallucination.” – Arianna Huffington

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs

“Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.” – Warren Buffett

“Don’t confuse progress with winning.” – Mary Barra

” Forget about your competitors, just focus on your customers.” – Jack Ma

“The purpose of a business is to create a customer.” – Peter Drucker

“If you don’t transform, you’re stuck.” – Ursula Burns

“Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time.” – Elon Musk

“The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of a mistake.” – Meg Whitman

“If you want small changes in your life, work on your attitude. But if you want big and primary changes, work on your paradigm.” – Stephen Covey

“One of the hardest things in life to learn are which bridges to cross and which bridges to burn.” – Oprah Winfrey

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates

“The world is full of ideas today if we don’t do it somebody else is going to do it.” – Indra Nooyi

“Obsess about customers, not competitors.” – Jeff Bezos

“You take detours, navigate between the obstacles and make it happen.” – Frank Lowy

“I’m convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.” – Steve Jobs

“Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.” – Warren Buffett

“We need to find the opportunity not to do everything, but to do the important things.” – Ursula Burns

“It’s hard to find things that won’t sell online.” – Jeff Bezos

“Success and profitability are outcomes of focusing on customers and employees, not objectives.” – Jack Ma

“We need to accept that we won’t always make the right decisions sometimes and that we’ll screw up royally sometimes.” – Arianna Huffington

“So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work.” – Peter Drucker

“Any business that has the sole purpose of making money is not worth doing.” – Mukesh Ambani

“I think you should always bear in mind that entropy is not on your side.” – Elon Musk

“Coaching isn’t therapy. It’s product development, with you as the product.”

– Fast Company

Leadership Advice from Corporate Giants

“Be stubborn on vision but flexible on details.” – Jeff Bezos

“I don’t care about being right. I care about the success and doing the right thing.” – Steve Jobs

“Failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of success.” – Arianna Huffington

“My biggest mistake is probably weighing too much on someone’s talent and not someone’s personality. I think it matters whether someone has a good heart.” – Elon Musk

“If we win the hearts and minds of employees, we’re going to have better business success.” – Mary Barra

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker

“Try to find the right people, not the best people.” – Jack Ma

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space where we choose our response.” – Stephen Covey

“To be effective, leaders must have the qualities and attitudes essential to work in a group setting.” – Meg Whitman

“Discrimination has a lot of layers that make it tough for minorities to get a leg up.” – Bill Gates

“Strategy is a commodity, execution is an art.” – Peter Drucker

“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” – Warren Buffett

“Every morning you’ve to wake up with a healthy fear that the world is changing, and a conviction that, to win, you have to change faster and be more agile than anyone else.” – Indra Nooyi

“The most important thing was, and is, to be able to recognize the mistakes, and change them as quickly as possible, and get back on track. – Frank Lowy

“Effective process is not bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is senseless process.” – Jeff Bezos

“My view is to give everyone the space to grow in his own way.” – Mukesh Ambani

“At the end of the day, when the decision has to be made, if we don’t have complete unanimity, I have no qualms about making it.” – Mary Barra

“It makes no difference how many peaks you reach if there was no pleasure in the climb.” – Oprah Winfrey

“There’s a tremendous bias against taking risks. Everyone is trying to optimize their ass-covering.” – Elon Musk

“The best way to get the best out of people is to not force them to be something other than they naturally are. Now, what do they have to be? They have to be respectful.” – Ursula Burns

“I’m actually as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done” – Steve Jobs

“My ritual is to turn off all my devices 30 minutes before I’m going to go to sleep and charge them outside my room.” – Arianna Huffington

“Pattern recognition is gained through experience” – Meg Whitman

“When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course. ” – Peter Drucker

“A leader should have higher grit and tenacity, and be able to endure what the employees can’t.” – Jack Ma

“If you are born poor then it’s not your mistake but if you die poor then it is your mistake” – Bill Gates

“Every human has four endowments – self-awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… The power to choose, to respond, to change.” – Stephen Covey

“Relationships and trust. This is the bedrock of life.” – Mukesh Ambani

“I don’t remember all my successes but I do remember failures.” – Frank Lowy

“A coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to hear, who has to see what you don’t want to see, so you can be who you always known you could be.”

– Tom Landry

Key Coaching Takeaway: Purposeful Learning

Top business leaders often spend an average of one hour per week doing deliberate learning. All the leaders featured in this article, despite their extremely busy roles, set aside on average an hour a day for purposeful learning. Examples of reading habits of highly successful role models include:

• Warren Buffett spends 80% of his day reading.
  • “Read 500 pages every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest.” – Warren Buffett
• Bill Gates reads a book per week. Fifty books in a year. Gates started a books blog and write reviews.
  • “I have always loved reading and learning, so it is great if people see a book review and feel encouraged to read and share what they think online or with their friends.” – Bill Gates
• Mark Zuckerberg reads one book every two weeks.
  • “My challenge for 2015 is to read a new book every other week — with an emphasis on learning about different cultures, beliefs, histories, and technologies.” – Mark Zuckerberg

“I absolutely believe that people, unless coached, never reach their maximum potential.”

– Bob Nardelli

Share this Information to increase Your Influence

Share this page with your network to increase your Influence. Then explore the additional Coaching Information from some of the world’s top experts. Click the links below:

Successful Leaders and their insights to be included in future updates include:

• Marillyn Hewson, Chairman, President & CEO of Lockheed Martin
• Charlie Munger, Vice-Chairman of Berkshire-Hathaway
• Abigail Johnson
• Sheryl Sandberg
• Ginni Rometty
• Ma Huateng
• Ruth Porat
• Safra Catz
• Lynn Good
• Reshma Saujani
• Larry Fink
• Li Ka-shing

Books About Successful Leaders

Coaching insights from successful people in business and life can provide meaningful insights that can help illuminate your journey. The following books about our collection of experts are essential reading for anyone seeking Career, Business, and Leadership Success.

Steve Jobs

• Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson, 2011
• Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different: A Biography, Karen Blumenthal, 2012
• Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader, by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli
• Steve Jobs and Philosophy, by Shawn E. Klein, 2015
• Steve Jobs & The NeXT Big Thing, by Randall Stross, 1993
• Jony Ive, The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products, by Leander Kahney, 2013
• The Bite in the Apple, A Memoir of My Life With Steve Jobs, by Chrisann Brennan, 2013
• The Zen of Steve Jobs, by Caleb Melby and Forbes LLC, 2012
• Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple, A Journey of Adventure, Ideas and the Future, by John Sculley and John A. Byrne, 1988

Bill Gates

• Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire, by James Wallace, 1993
• Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs, by John Doerr, 2018
• Bill Gates: The Man Behind Microsoft, A Look at the Man Who Changed the World We Live In, by JR MacGregor, 2018
• Bill Gates Speaks: Insight from the World’s Greatest Entrepreneur: Wisdom from the World’s Greatest Entrepreneur, by Janet Lowe, 1998
• Who Is Bill Gates? by Patricia Brennan Demuth, 2013
• How to Think Like Bill Gates by Daniel Smith, 2015
• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, by Heinz Duthel, 2017
• The Unauthorized Guide To Doing Business The Bill Gates Way, by Des Dearlove, 2010
• Famous Lives: Bill Gates, by Richard Wood, 2001
• Strategy Rules: Five Timeless Lessons from Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs, by Michael A. Cusumano, David B Yoffie, 2015
• Bill Gates and Microsoft (Great Business Stories), by David Marshall, 1994
• Bill Gates: The Path to the Future, by Jonathan Gatlin, 1999

Elon Musk

• Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, by Ashlee Vance, 2015
• Elon Musk and the Quest for a Fantastic Future Young Readers’ Edition, by Ashlee Vance, 2017
• The Space Barons by Christian Davenport, 2018
• Rocket Billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the New Space Race, by Tim Fernholz, 2018
• Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future, by Ashlee Vance, 2016
• Elon Musk: Life Lessons With Billionaire Ceo & Successful Entrepreneur. How Elon Musk Is Innovating the Future, by Olivia Tomlinson (2018), by Anna Crowley Redding, 2019
• Elon Musk, A Mission to Save the World, by Anna Crowley Redding, 2019

Richard Branson

• Richard Branson 217 Success Facts – Everything you need to know about Richard Branson, by Ann Cherry, 2014
• The Richard Branson Handbook – Everything You Need To Know About Richard Branson, by Ann Mendoza, 2016
• Branson, by Tom Bower, 2008

“Executives and HR managers know coaching is the most potent tool for inducing positive personal change, ensuring better than average odds of success and making the change stick for the long term.”

– The Ivy Business Journal

---

Image Credit: Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay