Executive Coaching Program Template
Five documents and three sheets built so every piece of information has a direction, a default and a named person who decides whether it moves.
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Disclosure Matrix · Thornfield Instruments · Marisa Vail, operations director, eight sessions over six months
Every clause on page one is row three of eleven
| # | What | Direction | Default | Who decides |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Whether sessions are happening, and when | Coach to sponsor | Shared | Nobody. Automatic |
| 2 | The agreed goals, as written in the register | Coach to sponsor | Shared | Marisa drafts them |
| 3 | What is said in a session | Coach to sponsor | Never | Marisa, in writing, per item |
| 4 | The coach's own read on progress | Coach to sponsor | Never separately | Only inside a released summary |
| 5 | Anything the sponsor tells the coach | Sponsor to coach | Repeated to Marisa | Nobody. Automatic |
| 6 | The sponsor's written brief for the engagement | Sponsor to coach | Marisa gets a copy | Nobody. Automatic |
| 7 | The 360 report the sponsor commissioned | Sponsor to coach | Marisa holds it too | Marisa releases extracts |
| 8 | What a stakeholder said in a mid-point interview | Stakeholder to coach | Aggregated only | Threshold of three |
| 9 | Which stakeholders were interviewed | Coach to both | Shared | Agreed at session one |
| 10 | The coach's notes and the data behind them | Coach to Marisa | On request, as a copy | Marisa, any time |
| 11 | Risk of serious harm, or a legal requirement | Coach to whoever | Disclosed | The coach, told in advance |
Row 5 is the one that ends engagements and it appears in no template anywhere. The sponsor rings in week nine and says, between us, she is on a performance plan. There is no between us. Anything the sponsor tells the coach gets repeated to the coachee, and the sponsor is told that at the outset so the call either does not happen or happens knowing it will be repeated.
Row 3 is the whole of page one's confidentiality clause. It is correct and it is one row. The other ten are the ones nobody writes down, and eight of them concern information moving toward the coach rather than away from her.
Eleven flows, four parties, and only two of them need anybody's permission at the moment they move. Everything else was decided in the three-way session in week one.
Search this and the confidentiality clause is already written for you. The coachee is the client, session content never reaches the sponsor, the sponsor gets attendance and progress against goals, and the exceptions are consent, legal compulsion and risk of serious harm. That is a genuine standard and most agreements meet it. It governs one direction between two parties, and a coaching engagement has four parties and information moving both ways. This pack governs one coachee. Coaching a whole team as one client needs its own agreement and its own commitment discipline.
The flow that damages engagements runs the other way. A sponsor rings to say, between us, she is on a performance plan. Nothing on page one covers it, and the coach holds something the coachee does not know exists. Article 14 of the UK GDPR settles it. A controller who takes personal data from anyone but the subject has one month to say what it is, where it came from and who else sees it. The duty falls away where the subject already knows, and being in the room is how they know.
Stakeholder feedback needs the same care. Six interviews, and a theme only one person holds identifies them by arithmetic, so the tracker sets a threshold below which nothing gets reported. Then the progress summary is drafted by the coachee, released by the coachee, and it asks the sponsor what they agreed to change too. A summary reporting only on the coachee is a report card. Set the goals against a structured assessment debrief.
What's in the pack
Disclosure Matrix
Eleven information flows across four parties, each with a direction, a default, the person who decides whether it moves, and the exception that overrides it.
Engagement Agreement
The three-party agreement with the matrix attached as a schedule, the coachee's right to a copy of what the coach holds, and what happens if the coachee leaves mid-engagement.
Goal Register
Every goal with the observable behaviour it produces, the named person who would notice it, its baseline from the assessment data, and the session it was last worked in.
Session Log
Held, attended, cancelled and rebooked, plus the goals worked in each session. The last column marks exactly what a sponsor is entitled to see.
Stakeholder Feedback Tracker
Themes with the rater count behind each one and the attribution threshold that decides whether it gets reported at all. Run the round itself off a structured interview programme.
Development Plan
What the coachee is working on, what the organisation agreed to change, and both sets of dates. The longer version, where each goal names the record its progress is read from, is the development plan pack.
Progress Summary
The releasable document, drafted by the coachee, carrying a standing section on what the sponsor agreed to do differently and whether it happened.
Session Structure
The eight-session shape, the three-way sessions at the start and mid-point, and what each one is for. Fitting it inside the practice's own session ceiling is the coaching business and client pipeline pack.
How to use it
- 1
Open in River, or take it blank
Open the pack in River and send the assessment reports with the sponsor's brief, or download the Word documents and CSV sheets and fill them in yourself.
- 2
Walk the matrix in the room
Three-way session one, line by line, all three people present. Sign it. Everything difficult later gets decided here instead of in the moment.
- 3
Give every goal a noticer
Name the behaviour somebody else would see and the person who would see it. A goal nobody could notice is a feeling.
- 4
Let the coachee draft it
The progress summary is theirs to write and theirs to release, and it asks the sponsor what they agreed to change too.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Yes. The zip is Word documents and CSV sheets, no account and no card. Edit with AI is the optional half: the agent reads the assessment reports and the sponsor's brief, then turns the development themes into goals with a named noticer and a baseline. The rest sit in the template library.
What format are the downloaded files?
Five Word documents and three CSV sheets in one zip. The sheets carry the columns that matter: observable behaviour, who would notice, baseline, rater count, reported yes or no. Open them in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets, and the agreement is a .docx.
Why repeat back what the sponsor tells me?
Because holding it is what breaks the engagement. The coachee finds out eventually, and the day they do, every session before it gets reinterpreted. Telling the sponsor in week one that anything they say gets repeated means the call either does not happen or happens honestly.
The sponsor commissioned the 360 and already has it. Does confidentiality apply?
The report is not the issue, what the coach does with it is. Under Article 15 of the UK GDPR the coachee can ask for a copy of the personal data the coach holds, its source, and who it has been or will be disclosed to. Answer that in the matrix up front.
Why a threshold of three on stakeholder feedback?
Because everybody knows who was interviewed. A theme held by one of six people, reported to that person's boss, is an identification by arithmetic even with no name attached. Above three it is a pattern. Below three it stays out, and the rater is told that before they speak. The mid-engagement re-ask is a mini 360 built from these goals.
What does the sponsor actually get, then?
Attendance, the goals in the coachee's own words, the released progress summary against measurable baselines, and a standing section on what the sponsor agreed to change. That is more than most sponsors get now, and none of it is session content.
What if the coachee leaves the company mid-engagement?
The agreement decides it in advance: remaining sessions, who pays for them, and what happens to the notes. Coaching a departing executive on the sponsor's budget is a conversation to have at signature rather than in the week it happens. The SOW and contract pack handles the commercial half of that.
Decide the flows in week one
Take the Word documents and CSV sheets blank, or send River the assessment reports and the sponsor's brief and get goals with a named noticer and a real baseline.
Edit with AI