Executive Coaching for Leaders
Transform how you lead: build trust, unlock growth, and coach through change with executive leadership coaching grounded in real-world practice.
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At a Glance
- Enrollment:
- Part-time
- Length:
- 8 weeks
- Format:
- Online
- Investment:
-
$3,500Withdrawal and cancellation policy
Upcoming Dates
Course starts
Offered by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Develop a confident, coaching-centered leadership style.
Executive Coaching for Leaders brings you into a focused, high-caliber learning environment where you can step away from day-to-day demands and reflect on how you show up for your team. Alongside experienced executive coaches and a cohort of peers, you’ll experiment with new ways of listening, asking questions, and having the conversations that shape people’s work and careers.
The eight-session, instructor-led program at the University of Chicago introduces the core principles and practices of coaching for leaders. This highly interactive, experiential program uses real-world leadership scenarios to equip you to lead more effectively by using coaching-based approaches to support growth and career development.
For leaders seeking more sustained, personalized support, additional 1:1 executive coaching packages are available either as an add-on to the Executive Coaching for Leaders program or as a standalone option.
Designed For
This executive leadership coaching program provides a digital credential for mid- to senior-level leaders who want to better support their teams, develop talent, and drive results using research-backed coaching insights and practices.
Learning Objectives: Executive Coaching for Leaders
AI-driven transformation, intergenerational teams, and new expectations for growth are making effective leadership more complex than ever. If you’re a leader who cares as much about how you show up as what gets done, this executive leadership coaching program gives you space to step back from the day-to-day, examine your current habits, and practice a coaching approach you can bring back to your team. Guided by experienced executive coaches and a cohort of peers, you’ll learn to turn key moments into opportunities to build trust, develop talent, and move your people and your organization forward.
Some of the skills you will gain after completing this program include:
- Explain core coaching principles, ethics, and models.
- Distinguish coaching from managing, mentoring, and advising.
- Adopt a non-directive, growth-oriented coaching mindset.
- Use coaching frameworks to support career goals and development plans.
- Build trust and psychological safety for honest career conversations.
- Integrate coaching into performance reviews and development planning.
- Coach through change, career transitions, and performance challenges.
Approach and Framework:
Person-centered coaching
Positive psychology
Solution-focused approaches
Psychoanalytic perspectives
Career development frameworks
GROW and other coaching conversation models
Ready to Bring Executive Coaching Skills into Your Leadership?
Register today and unite your professional practice with our distinctive blend of academic rigor and real-world application.
GET IN TOUCHProgram Format Features
- Eight highly interactive sessions that bring you, your peers, and your instructor together to explore real leadership challenges and practice coaching skills.
- Learning with lectures, self-assessments, role-plays, case studies, and peer coaching practice that help you apply coaching tools to your own context.
- Guided support from expert executive leadership coaching instructors who answer questions, offer feedback, and help you translate insights into everyday leadership.
- Course content that aligns with Association for Coaching (AoC), European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC), and International Coach Federation (ICF) competencies.
Course schedule
| Course Start | April 27 |
|---|---|
| Weekly Live Sessions |
Saturdays 10:00–11:30 a.m.
|
Program Sessions
Define what coaching is (and isn’t) in the context of leadership and career development. Through a leadership style self-assessment and coaching mindset reflection, you’ll identify where coaching can enhance your current approach.
Explore psychological safety and the role of trust in meaningful career dialogue. You’ll work through an “Assumptions Check” exercise and practice a career conversation role-play to create space for honest, growth-focused discussions.
Strengthen your ability to listen deeply and ask powerful, career-oriented questions. In small groups, you’ll apply these skills to real cases, practicing how to unlock insight and ownership in others.
Learn to use the GROW model and alternative coaching frameworks to structure development conversations. You’ll coach a peer on a real career challenge, applying each step of the model from goal-setting to next actions.
Help individuals clarify their values and strengths and connect them to their roles and career direction. Using tools like the Hogan Values Inventory, you’ll reflect on your own profile and practice guiding others through similar conversations.
Coach others through promotions, lateral moves, new leadership roles, and broader organizational change. Through case-based coaching scenarios (such as a new manager or a mid-career pivot), you’ll experiment with approaches to resistance, uncertainty, and ambiguity.
Use coaching techniques to turn feedback into a constructive, future-focused conversation. You’ll practice “feedforward” with real career goals, learning how to frame insights in ways that build motivation rather than defensiveness.
Synthesize what you’ve learned and design a plan to keep using coaching in your role. In a peer coaching showcase and closing reflection, you’ll share key takeaways, receive feedback, and celebrate your progress as a leader-coach.
In addition to the eight core sessions, your tuition includes one 90-minute 1:1 Executive Insight coaching session with an experienced executive coach. This dedicated time allows you to personalize your leadership plan with a coach, reflect on what you’ve learned, and translate program insights into concrete goals and next steps in your role.
For leaders who want deeper, ongoing support, you can also explore extended 1:1 executive coaching packages
Extended Executive Coaching Packages (Optional)
For leaders who want deeper, ongoing support, extended 1:1 executive coaching packages are available as an optional add-on to the Executive Coaching for Leaders program or as a standalone offering. These packages provide targeted coaching on goal setting, long-term career planning, and internal mobility, and can help you sustain momentum well beyond the program.
You can use extended coaching to:
- Set and refine SMART goals and a long-term career roadmap.
- Navigate promotions, role changes, and other major transitions.
- Explore internal mobility and talent development opportunities for yourself and your team.
Note: The Executive Coaching for Leaders program offers a University of Chicago credential and digital badge upon completion. Optional coaching packages extend your learning experience but do not offer a separate badge or credential.
Earn a Credential in Executive Coaching for Leaders
After successful completion of the Executive Coaching for Leaders program, participants receive a credential of completion from the University of Chicago and a digital badge recognizing their achievement in executive leadership coaching. Executive coaching packages extend and deepen the learning experience but do not grant an additional badge or credential.
Meet Your Coaching Instructor
Our Executive Coaching for Leaders program is led by an experienced team of executive coaches who work extensively with senior leaders and Chicago Booth Executive MBA participants. In a market where most coaches have only a few hundred hours of experience and training of varying quality, this team stands out for both depth and rigor.
Participants in this program have access to a significantly more experienced coaching team than is typically available in the market. The Chicago Booth EMBA coaching team is made up of certified, well-trained coaches with well over 1,000 hours of executive coaching experience. Our lead team member has more than 4,000 coaching hours and a coaching supervision certificate from the Tavistock Centre for Human Relations.
You will also benefit from the strength and reach of the University of Chicago, gaining access to UChicago resources, perspectives, and a powerful professional network.
Chris Lecatsas-Lyus
Executive Coach
Chris Lecatsas-Lyus is a London-based coach/therapist. Chris leads the executive coaching provision for the Sokolov Executive MBA global programme at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and is a doctoral candidate on Chester University’s psychological trauma course. Chris has been a...
Special Group Rates
To enroll a group, please contact our admissions team.
How Do I Register for This Course?
- Log into UChicago's course registration portal by creating an account using your username and password.
- Navigate to the Executive Coaching for Leaders course page and click on "Add to Cart" to include it in your course selection.
- Review your course selection and click on "Proceed to Checkout" to complete the registration process.
Offered by The University of Chicago's Booth School of Business
Of Interest
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