If you have ever worked with a personal trainer, you know it is possible to have a love-hate relationship with that person who literally stretches you farther than you may be comfortable going. A good leadership performance coach works in much the same way.

A personal trainer doesn't help you improve your speaking ability, cooking skills or personal relationships, nor does the trainer follow you home to make sure your house is clean. The personal trainer helps you achieve your strength and fitness goals.

The trainer knows how to teach you and guide you through the exercises that will give you the maximum benefit and help you reach your goals. The process begins with a set of questions designed to help the trainer understand your goals.

Then, the trainer develops a plan for you that focuses on your unique needs and abilities. During each session there is a maximum number of types of exercises assigned that can be completed safely and effectively to move you closer to your goals.

An effective leadership performance coach works in a similar way. The coach assesses your goals, then determines the gaps in skills, knowledge and experience you need to get there. Optionally, organizations may use an assessment process that gives this information to the coach.

The coach then works from a prioritized set of performances that will demonstrate the acquired skills, knowledge and experience. Like a personal trainer, the coach determines which practices will build specific skills, and in what order, for you to reach proficiency and fluency.

Fluency in performance — that is, performing with ease and accuracy requires lots of practice. Exercises at the gym build muscle strength and memory, and the personal trainer lets you know if you are doing the exercises the right way to get the right results. Practicing how to do something on the job, in the real work environment with coaching and feedback against clear criteria, does the same.

Too often, leadership performance coaching is a conversation that is centered on the coach's reminiscences of past experiences and advice offered from learning from those experiences. This may be helpful to provide contextual understandings or help you navigate the political landscape, but does not support transfer of learning to on-the-job practice. This is mentoring, not performance coaching.

If you have ever tried training yourself, without a feedback mechanism, you know it is easy to acquire bad habits of practice. When the performance coach provides practice on the job, quantity of practice helps reach proficiency. When the performance coach gives feedback against clear, preset criteria, then practice can achieve the right quality. After all, if you keep doing the work wrong, you will just get better at doing it wrong.

Learning to be a leader by leading, without an understanding of what good leading looks like and achieves, is a trial-and-error effort. It can take years and can result in mistakes and results that you can look back and learn from and adjust your practice.

Unfortunately, some of those mistakes can derail your leadership career, just the way an injury from incorrect exercise or exercise beyond your current capacity can stop you from ever reaching a fitness goal. As your personal trainer says, "It's not practice that makes perfect. It is perfect practice that achieves perfect performance."

A good leadership performance coach looks at your leadership practice the same way, breaks down your work for you, and teaches you how to practice it. The coach observes you and gives you information that lets you know if you are doing it the right way.

Leadership is work a set of behaviors, decisions and actions that impact organizational performance by impacting the work, workplace and workers. Leadership performance coaches focus tightly on achieving proficient practice of those behaviors, decisions and actions.

It is challenging and tiring. Sometimes you won't enjoy your time with your coach, but you are much more likely to reach your career goals.

If you are headed to the gym after work, you might spend that time on the treadmill deciding to work with a leadership performance coach.