Program Curriculum – 5 Modules to Certification

In this very important first touch point, we talk about the role of Courage, Humility and Discipline in becoming a Leader Coach. The three elements form the central commitment that you require to become an empowering, caring and coaching Leader of tomorrow.

Courage refers to your ability to recognise your comfort zone and venture beyond it to adopt new, unfamiliar ways of communicating.

Humility refers to having the motivation and openness that our skill of communication can improve, wherever we are in our career. It embodies the growth mindset that makes accepting tough feedback easy and helps us focus on our growth.

Discipline is the rigour and determination we decide to unleash to see the learning journey through, so we can reap the rewards that we are looking to get.

The Big Picture:

This lesson helps you prepare for the conversation with your Mentor Coach in Step 1-4 ‘Our Agreement’, where we lock in our mutual commitment for the journey ahead and both sign an agreement on how we want to show up in the months’ ahead.

As Simon Sinek correctly stated: It all starts with our WHY.

When you decide to become a Leader Coach, you have a certain vision in your mind of what it allows you to do in the future or even what you anticipate it allows you to become.

In this lesson, we help you pre-think your own business case for becoming a Leader Coach. We help you think through the positive effects of this learning journey on your own person, your family, your team, your peers and even your Leaders and Organisations.

Doing this is coaching in practice, as we jointly create a positive vision for the future.

The big picture:

This lessons is an important, foundational exercise to help you envision your future as a Leader who coaches well and uses coaching skills in all areas of your life and work. The business case you pre-think here will be part of our conversation in session 1-4, where we talk through your case and make an agreement to make it happen.

Coaching is very closely linked to personal development and growth. In this session, we talk about what it means to have a growth mindset as a coach and why it is important to cultivate and preserve it in ourselves as Coaches first, before we expect it in others.

What is a fixed mindset?

Someone with this mindset believes that skills and intelligence are set and you either have them or you don’t, that some people are just naturally good at things, while others are not. In short, they believe that you are not in control of your abilities. They have an external locus of control, which is likely to make it hard for them to be coachable. A coach with this mindset might say: ‘I want to learn coaching to help others. I don’t need coaching myself’.

What is a growth mindset?

It is the fundamental attitude and perspective that your abilities, qualities, and capabilities can grow and improve over time. People with this mindset typically display humility and hunger to learn. They don’t see themselves as ‘finished’ or ‘arrived’, no matter where they are in their career. They will constantly ask for feedback to improve themselves. Someone with a growth mindset is likely very coachable. A coach with this mindset will likely say: ‘I know the value of coaching. I seek it for myself as much as possible, as it accelerates my own growth and performance.’

The Big Picture:

As Coaches, we should be role models in displaying a strong growth mindset and continuous learners. We do this by constantly seeking feedback and coaching ourselves. In this lesson, you will reflect and share your own thinking about the growth mindset you display. You will take a light-hearted self-assessment on coachability. In lesson 1-4 (our agreement), we confirm your reflection on how you express your own growth mindset.

In this step of the preparation, you meet your Mentor Coach 1-1 for 30 minutes BEFORE the actual program starts. What will happen in the session?

1. We document our commitment to the journey ahead (see lesson 1-1)
2. We confirm your business case for joining the program
3. We clarify any outstanding points on your own growth mindset.
4. We both sign the agreement and store it as a reference point.

The agreement is central to success of the journey as it documents in a powerful way how we envision our Personal Leadership as part of the Coaching Learning journey.

The signed agreement will be stored in your personal Learning Document Space.

The Big Picture:

This lesson is unique element of the IntelliCoach Leader Academy. It give us the chance to get to know each other and set you up for success for the journey ahead!

At the end of the call, you will make the decision whether to go ahead.

This lesson has two components: (1) Pre-Reading and (2) Pre-Thinking

Pre-Reading

We will share with you a list of curated articles and papers as required pre-read before the session starts. These are handpicked resources worth your time that get you ready and synced up before we begin.

Pre-Thinking:

You will define a number of areas that you want to be coached on throughout the journey.

The Big Picture:

This lesson will help to bring program participants on the same background knowledge level through a set of highly curated pre-reading. It’s also essential that ever participant defines a number of overarching coaching goals to be applied throughout the program journey.

In this first real online lesson of the learning cycle, we accomplish three things:

1. We get to know each other. Who is learning together?
2. We share each others’ business case and coach each other on our commitment.
3. We establish a basic set of ‘Rules of Engagement’ for the journey ahead, i.e. how do we give each other feedback? How do we communicate our ideas with clarity?
4. We chart out the road ahead for the next module: ‘Become a Coach’

The Big Picture:

In this exciting first online session as a cycle cohort, we take a last deep breath before we jump head-first into the content itself. We get our first testes of coaching and agree on our ways of interacting over the coming months.

This lesson dives right into the heart of the matter.

We establish a definition of coaching and establish what it is and what not.

We explore what are the mindsets and skills of a great coach.

You will get your hands dirty right away when we start to explore with each other what coaching feels like, both as a coach or as someone getting coached.

We also clarify some common misconceptions about it.

The Big Picture:

‘Coaching’ can mean many things to many people. This session is our grounding to establish a common understanding and platform. Whatever we do in this session, underpins the entire curriculum.

In the application of professional coaching standards, there are three particular challenges that we will explore.

1. The first is confidentiality.
2. The second is the capacity to clearly communicate the differences between coaching, consulting, psychotherapy, and other helping professions, and the knowledge of when to refer a client to a different kind of professional practitioner.
3. The third is the special challenges that a Coaching Leader might face in an organisation, when they have a duty not just to their coachee, but also to the organisation.

We will dive deeper into the ICF Code of Ethics and its central connection to the coaching agreement with a number of quizzes and case studies.

The Big Picture:

Coaching and Ethics are inseparable. As an ICF credentialed coach, we want to uphold and defend the highest ethical standards. Ethical challenge are inevitable, especially if we use our skills within organisations.

When we develop a coaching mindset, we see our client as fully capable to gain awareness and make meaningful choices for themselves.

In this session, we explore the coaching mindset as a central competency that can be developed and must be maintained intentionally.

We explore the coaching mindset in two facets: (1) towards ourselves as Coaches and (2) towards our clients and coachees.

1. Applied to ourselves, the coaching mindset means that we maintain intentional humility towards our own growth and reflective practice. We are aware how to develop ourselves further and how to regulate own emotions.
2. Applied towards others, we deeply believe that our clients and coachees benefit the most from developing their ideas and making their own choices. Every client is unique and the expert in their content. We are curious, open and flexible towards their ideas.

In this session, we help participants make a leap: from helping by giving advice to helping someone WITHOUT giving advice.

The Big Picture:

The Coaching Mindset is more important than any skill we discuss in the following. It is the adoption of a radical distinction: The coachee is the expert in their topic and responsible for their own choices. The coach is the expert in the process of coaching.

A coaching conversation is quite unlike a ‘normal’ conversation. One very visible difference is that it includes the central element of the coaching agreement between coach and coachee.

Establishing and maintaining agreements is a central and foundational skill that many new coaches struggle with. It introduces a formal element in the coaching conversation that initially feels unnatural.

In this lesson, we will learn about the role of the coaching agreement in a coaching relationship, on the level of coaching engagement and for each coaching session.

We will explore how a Leader Coach could effectively manage time and focus of the coaching session while maintaining the coaching mindset.

We will introduce and practice a number of techniques to establish the agreement.

The Big Picture:

In most cases, a coaching sessions succeeds or fails based on the strength of the coaching agreement. We will establish foundational skills in this lesson that we will practice again and sharpen in many following lessons.

Coaching and Trust are deeply intertwined. On the one hand, coaching requires Trust; at the same time, coaching can significantly contribute towards building it.

In this lesson, we talk about the trust that is required between Coach and Coachee to make coaching work in the first place.

We then explore different ways how a Coach will partner with the client to create a safe, supportive environment that allows the coachee to share freely.

We will take an early dive into how the application of a variety of coaching skills can help Leaders accelerate building trust and strengthen relationships with stakeholders by using this competency.

The Big Picture:

Coaching without Trust is like swimming without water. It’s impossible. Our ability to cultivate trust and safety depends on our ethical practice and on how we live our coaching mindset. This lesson will deepen the understanding between coaching and trust and establish it as an intentional coaching competency.

When you coach, you provide something special to others: An external force and stimulus to create a space to grow and develop something that others had in them, but which they could not access alone. 

We can only accomplish this by being grounded, centered and self-aware.

In this lesson, we explore and practice a competency that is exceedingly rare: to maintain full, undistracted presence with someone. You learn how to become comfortable with not knowing, handling silences and creating vital spaces for others to think and grow.

The Big Picture:

To many new coaches, ‘maintaining presence’ is a quite unintuitive concept to grasp as a concrete ‘skill’. Yet, the ability to manage yourself and staying fully with the coachee is a key value driver in the practice of coaching. It must be learned and can be practiced.

Active Listening is what a Coach arguably does the most during any Coaching Conversation.

In this lesson we explore active listening on multiple dimensions:

1. Listening for what is said and not said
2. Listening for what is visible and not visible
3. Listening for meaning and desires
4. Techniques of active listening

We explore 5 different levels of Listening and practice the kind of active listening that makes others feel truly heard and understood.

The Big Picture:

Active Listening is a challenging skill to master. It becomes an increasing standout communication skill for modern Leaders. As a competency, it is enabled when we are successful in maintaining deep presence.

In the Leader Coach Academy, participants learn to Coach for Performance and for Growth.

The quickest win in Coaching comes from giving others the space for their own thinking, creativity and solutions. However, the powerful long-term effect of Coaching stems from the coach’s ability to evoke a new awareness in the coachee.

In this lesson, participants learn to use coaching skills to help others generate new insights and learnings about their own situation, thinking and behaving. It is this process of stopping and looking at yourself that is the most powerful contributor to long-term success.

You will learn to use tools and techniques such as powerful questioning, silence, metaphors and analogies. You will learn how to challenge right, help to reframe and share observations without attachment.

The Big Picture:

When Coaches are able to create a new kind of awareness in others about themselves, it is the magic sauce and main building block for excitement, learning and movement. ‘Aha’ moments generated by coachees are the true joy of Coaching and essential to long-term progress and learning by the client/coachee. They make the next step of creating meaningful actions natural and easy.

In this lesson, participants learn to help coachees turn learning and insights into action. They do so by promoting maximum autonomy for the coachee, while co-creating a solid accountability structure with them to succeed.

Participants will learn how to help the coachee craft meaningful steps forward and connect their progress to the coaching agreement.

They will set up the client/coachee for success moving forward and prepare them to be successful between coaching sessions.

The Big Picture:

When Coachee’s have gained a new kind of awareness and thinking about their challenge, it is often surprisingly easy for them to define next actions. As a Coach, we learn to build an accountability and action structure that works for our particular coachee.

This lesson is the connecting point between the module ‘Become a Coach’ and ‘Become a Leader Coach’. We introduce 5 powerful Coaching Models:

1. Two models to help Coach others for PERFORMANCE
2. Two models to help Coach others for GROWTH
3. One model to Self-Coach and Improve

All models are simple, yet comprehensive for different purposes. In this lesson, we will introduce them, play with them and set them up as a foundation for our further journey to become Leader Coaches. We will connect all models to the ICF coaching core competencies.

The Big Picture:

The use of powerful models simplifies and accelerates coaching success for both Coach and Coachee. We will us the 5 models that we introduce all throughout the remaining program sessions, when we experience different coaching scenarios and decide to chose one of the models we introduced.

This powerful session kicks us off into the exciting journey to apply our Coaching Competencies in the context of our organization.

In this session we are laying the foundation to flexing on multiple dimensions over the following sessions:

1. Coaching is one style of many that a Leader uses in their day-to-day interaction. We zoom out wider and explore how Coaching competencies fits in with other styles. We rely on the popular Situational Leadership Model.
2. We become comfortable applying our Coaching Toolbox and find out how we should chose between them given the situations that we encounter.

The Coaching Core Competencies we espcially focus on in this lesson:

• The Foundation – Demonstrate Ethical Practice

• The Foundation – Embodies the Coaching Mindset

In this lesson, we learn what it is like to apply coaching skills in everyday conversations in organisations. This could be with own team members, peers or superiors. Scenarios may involve team member discussions, project meetings or hiring interviews. We evaluate the positive impact and what makes it important.

The Coaching Core Competencies we especially focus on in this lesson:

• Co-Create the Relationship – Cultivates Trust and Safety

• Co-Create the Relationship – Maintains Presence

• Communicating Effectively – Listens Actively

Goal-Setting is a fundamental element of any Leader’s role.

In this lesson, we evaluate and discuss how a Leader would be able to implement a coaching mindset, while having a duty towards the organization they work with. 

We discuss:

• The duality of being Leader and Coach at the same time.
• The role of outcome and process goals in living a coaching mindset

The Coaching Core Competencies we especially focus on in this lesson:

• The Foundation – Demonstrate Ethical Practice

• The Foundation – Embodies the Coaching Mindset

• Co-Create the Relationship – Establishes and Maintains Agreements

In this first of two lessons on ‘Help People Perform’, we practice how to use especially transcational coaching techniques to embody a coaching mindset in day-to-day interactions with team members. 

We discuss:

• Options how to respond and react to requests for help by team members
• How to bring topics to discuss witht our team members while upholding the coaching mindset
• How to switch appropriately between coaching and other styles.
• We practice day-to-day interactions and short coaching sessions using the popular and simple GROW model.

The Coaching Core Competencies we especially focus on in this lesson:

• The Foundation – Demonstrate Ethical Practice
• The Foundation – Embodies the Coaching Mindset
• Co-Create the Relationship – Establishes and Maintains Agreements
• Cultivating Learning and Growth – Facilitates Client Growth

In this continued lesson on how to ‘Help People Perform’, we practice and apply further transactional models that we can simply ‘plug’ into our day-to-day interactions with team members to help them perform and find solutions to their own challenges.

In this lesson, we evaluate and practice the role of the popular OSKAR model to help team members understand their challenges better and make meaningful small or big progress steps towards resolution.

The Coaching Core Competencies we especially focus on in this lesson:

• The Foundation – Demonstrate Ethical Practice
• The Foundation – Embodies the Coaching Mindset
• Co-Create the Relationship – Establishes and Maintains Agreements
• Cultivating Learning and Growth – Facilitates Client Growth

Effective Prioritisation of tasks is a vital element in the relationship between Leader and Team Member. 

In this lesson, we introduce and apply a number of techniques that help Leaders maintain a Coaching Mindset in relation to helping their Team Members prioritise their work with as much autonomy as possible and appropriate. 

We learn to coach and help using the ‘Importance/Urgency’ matrix and how to use coaching skills to understand what is truly important.

The Coaching Core Competencies we especially focus on in this lesson:

• The Foundation – Embodies the Coaching Mindset

• Co-Create the Relationship – Maintains Presence

• Communicating Effectively – Listens Actively

• Cultivating Learning and Growth – Facilitates Client Growth

Giving effective Feedback is a central quality that a Leader has. It apples in almost all interactions with stakeholders and especially with Team Members.

In this lesson, we focus and practice to

• give feedback that is non-judgmental and neutral
• share observations to help the other person reframe, change perspective and reflect
• share feedback that is direct and viewed as caring
• seperate situation, behavior and impact in our observations and feedback

The Coaching Core Competencies we espcially focus on in this lesson:

• Co-Create the Relationship – Cultivates Trust and Safety

• Co-Create the Relationship – Maintains Presence

• Communicating Effectively – Listens Actively

• Communicate Effective – Evokes Awareness

Holding People accountable is a central element of a Leader’s toolkit with their stakeholders. It refers to remembering and recognizing agreements that were made and our ambition to help others follow through on work goals and career ambitions.

In this lesson, we discuss how to

• construct effective accountability and commitment structures
• how to spot and improve weak commitments
• how to support growth and momentum in a partnering way

The Coaching Core Competencies we especially focus on in this lesson:

• Communicate Effective – Evokes Awareness
• Cultivating Learning and Growth – Facilitates Client Growth
• Co-Create the Relationship – Establishes and Maintains Agreements
• Communicating Effectively – Listens Actively

This is the first of three lessons that focuses on helping others grow, i.e. build capability for future performance. 

In this first of three lessons and developing people we discuss how we can use coaching skills and coaching models to build long-term sustainable ownership and change.

We practice to:

• use the transformational DREAM model to help a team member make meaningful progress in their career
• understand people’s real ambition and get clarity on their underlying goals and priorities to help them make decisions that are right for them.

The Coaching Core Competencies we especially focus on in this lesson:

• Co-Create the Relationship – Cultivates Trust and Safety

• Co-Create the Relationship – Maintains Presence

• Communicating Effectively – Listens Actively

• Communicate Effective – Evokes Awareness

• Cultivating Learning and Growth – Facilitates Client Growth

In this second lession on developing people, we focus on techniques of strengths-based development. 

We discuss and evaluate how to help team members:

• become aware of their own unique resources
• learn about themselves using a personal SWOT tool (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)
• gain balanced perspectives around their own strengths and weaknesses

The Coaching Core Competencies we especially focus on in this lesson:

• Communicating Effectively – Listens Actively

• Communicate Effective – Evokes Awareness

• Cultivating Learning and Growth – Facilitates Client Growth

Transitions are a major element of the human experience, in organizational and work context. 

One of the main roles of any Leader is to help team members and other stakeholders embrace and lead change that is often involuntary.

In this lesson we focus on:

• Applying Bridge’s model of transitions to help the adoption of change
• Building ownership and agency in organisational and personal transition periods

The Coaching Core Competencies we especially focus on in this lesson:

• Co-Create the Relationship – Cultivates Trust and Safety
• Co-Create the Relationship – Maintains Presence
• Communicating Effectively – Listens Actively
• Cultivating Learning and Growth – Facilitates Client Growth

Building on the previous lessons on trust and expectations with peers, we introduce a structured model to influence without authority that is amplified by the use of powerful Coaching skills.

Participants will learn a model of positive influence that is structured and easy to learn. It introduces influencing as dealing with a set of ‘currencies’. Using Coaching Skills, we identify the currency of a peer and make intentional decisions how to move forward with it.

Our ability to coach relies on our humility to accept that everyone is different and that their perceptions are reality. In this session, we sharpen our approach and merge our growing coaching competence with one of the most powerful (yet simple) models to influence without authority.

The Coaching Core Competencies we espcially focus on in this lesson:

• Co-Create the Relationship – Cultivates Trust and Safety

• Co-Create the Relationship – Maintains Presence

• Communicating Effectively – Listens Actively

Supervised Coaching Sessions with Group Mentoring.

Emphasis on the Coaching Competencies: Embodies a Coaching Mindset and Demonstrates Ethical Practice

Supervised Coaching Sessions with Group Mentoring.

Emphasis on the Coaching Competency: Establishes and Maintains Agreements

Supervised Coaching Sessions with Group Mentoring.

Emphasis on the Coaching Competencies: Trust and Safety, Presence

Supervised Coaching Sessions with Group Mentoring.

Emphasis on the Coaching Competencies: Trust and Safety, Presence

Supervised Coaching Sessions with Group Mentoring.

Emphasis on the Coaching Competencies: Cultivate Learning & Growth

Supervised Coaching Sessions with Group Mentoring.

Practicing all Coaching Competencies

Supervised Coaching Sessions with Group Mentoring.

Practicing all Coaching Competencies

Supervised Coaching Sessions with Group Mentoring.

Practicing all Coaching Competencies

Supervised Coaching Sessions with Group Mentoring.

Practicing all Coaching Competencies

Supervised Coaching Sessions with Group Mentoring.

Practicing all Coaching Competencies

The Leader Coach Academy Assessment consists of two parts:

1. A knowledge-based assessment that tests participants’ understanding of concepts in the course. Participants will pass with 80% score.
2. Submission of a Coaching Recording that satisfies the criteria set out by the ICF Coaching Core Competencies. Participants require 1 recording of up to 40 minutes length that demonstrates competence in coaching.

We discuss all options and requirements on the journey ahead to become a globally recognized ICF Coach.

We help you collect your required 100h of Coaching practice by proving you with opportunities to connect with peers/alumni and volunteer coaches.

We prepare you for the ICF ACC Assessment, so you can complete it with confidence.

We help you with the selection and pre-assessment of your coaching recording to ensure it meets the standards required by ICF for your ACC certification.

It is time to celebrate 🙂