Graduate Study in Executive and Organizational Coaching: Considerations for Program Development

PRACTITIONERS CORNER Graduate Study in Executive and Organizational Coaching: Considerations for Program Development Irene F. Stein, Ph.D. and Linda J. Page, Ph.D. As organizations increasingly see the need to include coaching as part of their culture, more and more certificate- and degree-granting graduate academic institutions are including executive and organizational coaching programs as part of their curriculum offerings. There are currently no uniform curriculum standards for professional coaching academic programs, although some are being developed by the Graduate School Alliance for Executive Coaching. This article describes what new executive and organizational coaching programs must consider as they are being planned. The article starts with a short history of professional coaching preparation and then presents the major questions that new programs must answer for themselves. The history of preparation to be an executive or organizational coach has followed the progression of the profession of coaching from that of early, opportunistic adopters toward a more formal profession with an associated body of knowledge, accepted credentials, and accreditation for preparatory schools. The first coach training schools, such as the Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara, Coach U, and Coaches Training Institute, opened in the late 1980s and early 1990s to train individuals in skills to be used in life coaching as well as in coaching for business purposes. At the same time, as the term coach became a more common title for organizational consultants who worked with individuals and teams on improving performance or developing leadership, professionals with a wide variety of backgrounds and experience hung their coaching shingles to work as executive and organizational coaches. Former executives, human resource professionals, psychotherapists, 56 Journal of Psychological Issues in Organizational Culture, Volume 1, Number 3, 2010 2010 Bridgepoint Education, Inc. and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/jpoc.20029

and others found that their skills matched what businesses needed, and coach was the best description of what they offered to businesses and other organizations. There was little regulation of the coaching industry in this early period, and even less commonality in the types of knowledge that each coach brought to his or her practice. As part of the movement to professionalize coaching, the International Coach Federation (ICF) created a three-level credentialing mechanism for individual coaches and accreditation standards for coach training schools, both based on a series of competencies that included basic coaching skills and professional conduct as well as minimum requirements for coach training and coach practice hours. Most of the coach training schools the ICF accredited were nonacademic, non-credit-awarding schools that coaching students attended to learn basic skills, become acculturated into the coaching community, and thus prepare for obtaining the first level of the ICF coaching credentials. Notable exceptions were Fielding Graduate University s Evidence Based Coaching Certificate program and Georgetown University s Leadership Coaching Certificate program; both were accredited by the ICF and provided graduate credit, along with a proprietary certificate and preparation for ICF credentialing for their students. In 2000, the Association of Coach Training Organizations (ACTO) was founded as an organization of independent coach training schools to share ideas, strategies, and best practices to enhance the quality, and the impact of coach training and education (ACTO, 2009). The association has an informal alliance with the ICF, as a resource for the ICF in its attempts to regulate coach training through the accreditation process, but the ACTO has not focused its efforts on developing academic educational standards for degreegranting programs. Even with the proliferation of coach training schools, many more people than were attending those schools were calling themselves executive or organizational coaches. Some of those executive coaches received credentials from the ICF in order to list ACC (Associate Certified Coach), PCC (Professional Certified Coach), or MCC (Master Certified Coach) after their names, but many more did not see the benefit of navigating through the ICF credentialing process and found that they could be gainfully employed without the credential. Still others were using coaching as another description (explicitly or implicitly) of what they were doing while calling themselves consultant, trainer, organizational development specialist, project manager, human resource professional, and so forth. As internal coaching employing coaches permanently as an integral part of an organization became more prevalent, the ICF created a special internal coaching credential. Still, most internal coaches may not see the need to be ICF certified unless their organization requires it. Most recently, coaching has been viewed as a leadership skill within organizations, with executives and other managers expected to be able to coach subordinates and peers. The ability to coach teams and create a coaching culture within an organization is seen as necessary for effectively running a 21stcentury organization, making coaching ubiquitous and not just the territory of specifically executive coaches. As coaching becomes integral to organizational management, graduate schools that provide programs for educating managers, human resource personnel, and others interested in effective management and leadership have been adding specializations in executive and organizational coaching to existing business and leadership programs. Most of these programs use the term executive coaching as an umbrella term for organizational, leadership, Journal of Psychological Issues in Organizational Culture, Volume 1, Number 3 DOI: 10.1002/jpoc 57

and workplace coaching. The remainder of this article uses that shorthand term to describe the many aspects of organizational and business coaching, as opposed to strictly life coaching or coaching as used in the education field. As graduate schools began to include executive coaching in their curriculum, the obvious concern was what knowledge to include in an academic coaching curriculum. In 2005, a group of educators from graduate schools that offered executive coaching programs met to develop curriculum standards that would allow graduates of executive coaching programs from different schools to have some consistency in their educational preparation related to coaching. The new group named itself the Graduate School Alliance for Executive Coaching (GSAEC), and it is currently in the final stages of developing an executive curriculum for graduate schools. Much of the rest of the information in this article is taken from its work (GSAEC, 2010). Major Considerations There are three things to note before delving into specific curriculum considerations. First, not all students in executive coaching programs will become professional coaches. Some students will use their coaching education to become better managers; others may use it to become more like internal coaches in a variety of possible positions, including roles in human resources or training and organizational development. Still other students may become more general consultants to organizations. Second, graduate-level executive coaching programs may come from schools with a business orientation, a psychology orientation, or another foundation, such as education. Ultimately, there may be a separate coaching studies discipline that can provide a common research and knowledge foundation for coaching in a variety of settings, but for now, most of the academic coaching research is coming from a business school orientation in North America and from psychology units in Great Britain, continental Europe, and Australia. A topic currently under discussion is whether coaching is a rich enough field of study to support a degree program on its own, or whether it should be referred to as coaching and organizational development, coaching and leadership, coaching and adult education, and so forth. Third, there are many modalities in which to deliver coaching (e.g., face to face, by telephone, in groups) and a variety of modalities by which graduate schools deliver instruction. As more schools adopt distance-learning models, the question of how to deliver professional education for practicing coaches that includes developing competence in coaching skills becomes an issue in designing executive coaching programs. Whatever orientation a graduate-level coaching program starts with, certain decisions must be made to determine how the program should be administered to students and how the program fits with existing local and outside structures. A newly developing graduate professional program in executive coaching must meet organizational, curriculum, professional development, and ongoing quality-assessment standards: 1. It must be housed in an organization that meets accepted requirements for granting graduate professional degrees. 2. It must educate students for coaching in general and for executive and organizational coaching specifically. 3. It must have resources and procedures for developing students as practitioners and as exemplars of their chosen role, 58 Journal of Psychological Issues in Organizational Culture, Volume 1, Number 3 DOI: 10.1002/jpoc

whether as a professional coach or as a manager or other leader who uses coaching skills. 4. It must demonstrate ongoing commitment to maintaining and continually improving adherence to these standards for the organization, its faculty and students, and other stakeholders. Except for a focus on executive coaching as stated in Point 2 above, these are general concerns for any field in which practicing professionals are educated. The rest of this article will addresses each of the four areas with regard to executive coaching, with each section focusing on the questions that particular programs must answer for themselves. Organizational Considerations When a graduate school decides to add coaching to its curriculum, a few key programmatic questions must be addressed even before specifics of a curriculum can be discussed: 1. What levels of instruction will the program offer? 2. What professional certification should the students expect on completion of the program? 3. What field-specific bodies should the program approach for accreditation? Level of Instruction Executive coaching programs developed by a graduate school may focus at the master s degree level, at the Ph.D. or Psy.D. level, or as credit or noncredit continuing education programs resulting in some local or field-based certification. The program may be a specialization of another area (such as leadership ) or may be a degree in itself. Continuing education programs may also offer single courses for credit or noncredit in addition to a whole program. In deciding at what level to offer executive coaching, institutions must make a clear differentiation between requirements of a master s degree, a Ph.D. or Psy.D., and a continuing education certificate in both academic content and professional coaching training and skills instruction. Expectation of Professional Certification Students who are deciding on a school for their coaching education may be interested in whether the institution provides the basis for professional certification, particularly from the ICF. A decision about how tightly the school s offering should be tied to preparation for professional certification must be made when deciding on the program s content. In the future, as with other professions, the title professional coach or the activity of professional coaching may be protected or restricted through either a self-regulatory body (as with management consultants) or legislation (as with psychologists or physicians). The question of regulation is complex and contentious, especially internationally, so a newly developing program must decide to what extent it will comply with students, organizations, and field-related certification expectations. A related consideration is the preparation a student is expected to have prior to entering an executive coaching program. Besides a typical minimum academic preparation that is expected in all graduate programs, the question is what other coaching-related preparation a student should have, if any. One possibility is to require a minimal level of professional coach certification for example, at the level of an ICF Associate Certified Coach (60 hours of coach-specific training plus 150 hours of coaching and 10 hours mentoring) prior to enrolling, or an equivalent or concurrent amount Journal of Psychological Issues in Organizational Culture, Volume 1, Number 3 DOI: 10.1002/jpoc 59

of training obtained in the first year of enrollment in a graduate coaching program. Another possibility is for the graduate coaching program to create the skills-based instruction itself as part of its curriculum. Certification-related considerations also depend on whether the students taking the program are going to become professional coaches or are leaders, managers, or others who are just adding coaching skills and education to their academic and professional portfolio. Program Accreditation and Association Degree-accrediting bodies require robust governance structure, solid business models, academic policies such as grievance procedures, and management policies. Regionally accredited institutions have this already. In addition, field-specific accrediting bodies such as the American Psychological Association for clinical and counseling psychologists, the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs for counselors, and the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business for business schools require additional assurances that match the needs of the profession in question. Currently, for executive coaching higher education, as opposed to coach training, there is no recognized accrediting body. Some graduate schools are voluntarily aligning with the standards under development by GSAEC, which is not currently an accrediting body but is designing its standards in accordance with general accreditation requirements. A few schools are aligning with both GSAEC standards and the ICF coaching program accreditation standards. The decision as to where to position a new graduate professional program requires something of a crystal ball, as it is not yet clear which accrediting standard students and the organizations they work for will expect. Curriculum Considerations The wider field of coaching studies is not yet a discipline itself but draws on several traditional disciplines, each of which has its own language, research methods, history, and professional expectations (GSAEC, 2010, p. 12). Most executive coaching programs are housed within an established department or organization that is informed by one of the traditional disciplines of education, management science, psychology, and so forth. The theories and knowledge taught within an executive coaching program naturally take the flavor of the host discipline. However, the newest programs may choose to deviate from that discipline to reflect the more multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary nature of the coaching studies field. For instance, the extent to which a business school teaches psychology as part of its coaching program, or vice versa, is a choice that depends on the population of students the program wants to attract and what those students needs are upon graduation. A program that is unaffiliated with a particular traditional discipline, such as Fielding Graduate University s Evidence Based Coaching Certificate program, can highlight the multidisciplinary nature of coaching by including the widest variety of coachingrelated theories and knowledge. In general, a reasonable curriculum for all executive coaching programs should cover these topics at least in part: 1. Individual processes, including individual (adult) development, motivation and behavior, thinking and learning, interpersonal dynamics and communication, and individual change management 2. Systems and group processes, including social psychology and social systems dynamics 60 Journal of Psychological Issues in Organizational Culture, Volume 1, Number 3 DOI: 10.1002/jpoc

3. Organizational systems and leadership theory 4. Coaching-specific theory and principles 5. Coaching competencies and skills 6. General business acumen for understanding the basics of the issues that clients might have and also to prepare for the possibility of being in business as a professional coach In addition, some programs may want to emphasize the student s (or coach s) own development. One of the strengths of current coach training programs is that students learn about themselves by being coached by others similar to the requirement for clinical or counseling psychology students to undergo psychotherapy. A further aspect of development is to enhance one s use of self skills by raising awareness of the impact that a coach as an individual has on the person being coached (Curran, Seashore, & Welp, 1995), and vice versa. Professional Development Considerations As opposed to a strictly academic exercise, coaching is both a practice that requires certain skills and a profession in which certain standards are expected. An executive coaching program would be expected to have resources and procedures for developing students as practitioners and as exemplars of their chosen role, whether as a professional coach or as a manager or other leader who uses coaching skills. Three considerations for professional development in an executive coaching program are important: 1. How will students learn coaching skills, and how will they be assessed on that knowledge? 2. How will the program integrate theory and practice? 3. What aspects of professional practice, such as ethics, should the program teach? Developing and Assessing Coaching Skills and Processes A large part of professional development is training in core coaching competencies and in the coaching process. As discussed earlier, students may or may not arrive for an executive coaching graduate program with this background. Upon graduation, students should be able to demonstrate a minimum level of competence in basic coaching processes and skills. How they develop those skills and how their competence in them is assessed is an important consideration in the design of an executive coaching program. With the proliferation of distance-learning programs, teaching and assessing individual skills may be more problematic in a school whose academic programs do not require an in-person residency. This area requires asking and answering these questions: How are the students to learn coaching skills and processes? Are certain numbers of hours of training required? Is face-toface training necessary, and, if so, how much? What other modalities may be used? How are the students to practice coaching skills and processes? Are certain numbers of hours of practice coaching required? What would that consist of, and how would it look? How are skills competencies assessed, especially as universally accepted standards are still under development? Journal of Psychological Issues in Organizational Culture, Volume 1, Number 3 DOI: 10.1002/jpoc 61

Should students be required to obtain their own coach and undergo a coaching process? How would they do that, and how would their coaches be compensated? What would be the expected outcome of the coaching process, and how should it be assessed? What requirements for coaching supervision (sometimes called mentoring) should be instituted? How would supervision be implemented, and what resources would be needed? Should the student obtain an internship or practicum in an actual organization? How would that be implemented? As these professional development considerations incorporate much more than traditional academic-only studies, schools designing an executive coaching program need to decide whether to develop their own training, supervision, and assessment resources or outsource them to (or partner with) an existing coach training program. One advantage of outsourcing is that the coach training programs may already be ICF accredited, and therefore graduating students can more easily obtain an ICF credential. Another advantage is that outsourcing allows schools to use an already existing program rather than developing one from scratch. Integrating Theory and Practic A key differentiator between coach training and an academic coaching education is that coach education explicitly draws on theory to inform practice. Theory can provide a lens with which to understand a coachee s situation as well as provide a research-based approach for working with particular coachees. Academically housed executive coaching programs have the opportunity to explore new applications of theories from a variety of disciplines to the coaching situation. Conversely, coaching practice can help to inform and expand older theories and develop new ones. Professional Practice Practicing coaching at a professional level includes more than developing coaching skills. Although not all students may become professional coaches in private practice, those who want to do so should have some knowledge of how to build a practice, how to become engaged with other coaching professionals, and how to maintain ethics and standards of practice. In addition, coaches often use a variety of tools, such as various types of assessments, that may be expected of practicing coaches who work with individuals and teams within organizations. Sustainability Considerations Related to the discussion of organizational consideration for developing an executive coaching program are concerns about the continuing viability of the program, the profession, and the field of coaching studies. Part of the viability of a program relates to the marketing of that program and assessing whether the program is successful in meeting students, other stakeholders, and the home institution s needs. The usual processes for program development and maintenance govern those two areas and will not be discussed here in regard to an executive coaching program in particular. We look at three questions: 1. Do faculty and supervisors need special qualifications? 2. How will the program contribute to and sustain a body of knowledge in the coaching field? 62 Journal of Psychological Issues in Organizational Culture, Volume 1, Number 3 DOI: 10.1002/jpoc

3. How should the program contribute to or be connected to the greater coaching community? Faculty and Supervisory Qualifications To what level should an executive coaching faculty be composed of scholars, coach-practitioners, or scholar-practitioners? In relation to the ICF certification levels and program accreditation standards, accredited programs must have a director of training who is a Master Certified Coach, the highest certification, which includes 2,500 hours of practice. Although that might make sense for coach training schools, many coaching scholars spend their time researching, teaching, and developing curricula and do not accumulate the practice hours that other coaching professionals have. And the most experienced coaches may not have the advanced degrees required to teach at the graduate level. While ICF accreditation may not be the choice for a new program, the balance of experience and academic credential is a consideration, especially in a newer field where fewer coaches may have had the chance to attend one of the relatively few graduate coaching programs. The same considerations apply to those hired as coaching supervisors or mentors. Contributing to a Body of Knowledge So that the coaching profession and the field of coaching studies continue to be viable, schools that institute coaching programs need to address the question of how to contribute to the body of knowledge related to coaching. To what extent do programs want to be involved with established venues for knowledge dissemination, such as conferences and journals in other fields? To what extent do programs want to expand the influence of the field of coaching studies or of the subfield of executive and organizational coaching? At the very minimum, research would be encouraged and theses and dissertations pursued in traditional ways. But a newer field like coaching, coming of age in today s research environment, has an opportunity to develop and privilege different research methodologies than more traditional disciplines. By expanding the use of qualitative and action research in coaching applications, a more rounded view of the coaching process may inform not just coaching but those fields that privilege quantitative research. Dissemination of research practices and results of studies can be accomplished through participating in conferences or by creating a new conference alone or in collaboration with other similar institutions. Such educational conferences could also approach the theory surrounding the development of coaches in terms of exploring the best ways to educate coach-practitioners and scholar-practitioners. Teaching coach-practitioners at any academic level how to do research in their own practice would serve to add knowledge to a coaching field in its early stages of knowledge creation. To what extent should practitioners be trained in research? Creating a Community Graduates of academic executive coaching programs will want to be involved in a community of similarly educated professionals. How can a community of alumni and other stakeholders be built and maintained? How can graduates be encouraged to contribute to the profession? Given that graduates of programs such as these will be the people who will define, shape, and even determine the survival of coaching and executive coaching as fields and as practices, what must educational institutions be aware of and do now? Conclusion A growing number of programs are turning to GSAEC as the organization working to ensure a Journal of Psychological Issues in Organizational Culture, Volume 1, Number 3 DOI: 10.1002/jpoc 63

measure of consistency such that the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of graduates from one executive coaching program have more than a passing similarity to those of graduates from other programs. Although GSAEC is not yet an accrediting body, the development of standards has followed those of other professional fields. Moving from training to education of coaches and others who use coaching processes demands a special set of considerations, many of which are familiar to graduate schools because they are common to education in other fields. Considerations that are unique to executive and organizational coaching involve skills training and assessment and connecting to a field and profession of coaching that are still newly developing. Making educational program decisions in the current shifting sands will not be easy in this environment, but addressing the organizational, curriculum, professional development, and sustainability considerations will help a newly developing program start with the best possible footing. References Association of Coach Training Organizations. (2009). About ACTO, http://www.acto1.com/about_acto. html Curran, K. M., Seashore, C. N., & Welp, M. G. (1995, November). Use of self as an instrument of change. Paper of workshop held at the 1995 Organization Development Network National Conference, Seattle, WA. Retrieved from http://www.equalvoice.com/use_ of_self.pdf Graduate School Alliance for Executive Coaching (GSAEC), Curriculum Committee. (2010). Guidelines for graduate academic program in executive and organizational coaching (version 2). Unpublished manuscript. Irene F. Stein, Ph.D., is a coach, educator, and researcher on faculty at University of the Rockies. She is host of the International Coach Federation Research SIG and a board member of the Graduate School Alliance for Executive Coaching. She can be reached at Irene.Stein@faculty. rockies.edu. Linda J. Page, Ph.D., is founder and president of the Adler Graduate Professional School and co-director of Adler-OISE University of Toronto Certificates in Leadership Coaching. She co-chairs the Academic Standards Committee of the Graduate School Alliance for Executive Coaching. She can be reached at ljpage@ adlearn.net. 64 Journal of Psychological Issues in Organizational Culture, Volume 1, Number 3 DOI: 10.1002/jpoc