MA Leadership Coaching

Start date: September

Course length: Three years of part time study, mainly at weekend workshops.

Campus: Cromford Mill, Derbyshire and online

Coaching is a rapidly growing area and leadership coaching is gaining popularity amongst private and public sector organisations as a means of inspiring leadership, building relationships and developing individuals and teams at work. This course is for you if you're an experienced manager, leader, HR practitioner or a professional working in training, learning or development. Alternatively, you may just want to develop your staff and business, and enhance your organisational and people development skills.

We've developed this course in close collaboration with the Association for Coaching to ensure it's relevant and up to date. Throughout the course you'll work to the ethical and good practice guidelines for coaches, and also follow the industry standard coaching competency frameworks. You'll be encouraged to apply the tools, theories and techniques you're learning during the course in your workplace, so you will bring immediate benefit to your organisation and practically develop your skills along the way.

At Derby we believe you cannot train a coach. We will help you to develop through practical learning and application, so that you can bring out the best in others. Reflective learning and using your own workplace experiences and analysing your own experiences at work will help you to become an effective coach. You will also study alongside students from a variety of disciplines and the flexibility of the course allows you to explore your own coaching philosophy drawing on the origins of coaching.

There is also an opportunity for you to gain additional experience of coaching by applying for a place on the University's Employer Mentoring Scheme. You will be paired up with a mentor from an organisation to help you enhance your employment knowledge and skills, and you can also tailor the scheme to your specific requirements and focus on coaching skills for example.

Postgraduate Certificate in Business Coaching

You will study these modules:

Principles and Practices of Coaching at Work
You'll focus on the meaning of ethical and professional practice guidelines set out by leading professional coaching bodies, which have been embedded in the historical roots of business coaching. You will explore the origins of coaching through the lens of a range of influences emerging through psychology, business, sports, management, linguistics and adult education. With a dynamic history to support coaching you will explore how contributions (as defined through doctoral level research) have informed how coaching behaviours, skills and knowledge can resolve many professional challenges faced in business today. You will explore the use of psychology in the coaching process and be able to address motivational, attitudinal and behavioural influences.

Advanced Coaching Psychology
Many aspects of coaching have evolved that are influenced by, or directly derived from, a number of areas of psychology - in the fields of therapy, learning, sports and personal development. You will explore the philosophies regarding human change that each brings about and look at the different sets of tools that you can use as a practising coach.

The Context of Professional Practice
The current employment market for professionals can no longer be built on experience or education qualifications alone. Employers and professional bodies are looking for evidence of fitness to practice. During this module you'll critically analyse, interpret, discuss, argue and justify your own approach as a professional by evaluating evidence found in current literature. You will develop your own learning agenda and critically evaluate your progress as part of the module. As an outcome, you will come to evidence your professional identity, learn a strategic approach and demonstrate this through various methods and models. This module embraces the notion of the Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory Model whereby to ensure success there is a need to remain curious, develop critical curiosity, make meaning and have a strategic awareness to proactively position yourself in readiness for future opportunities.

Postgraduate Diploma in Leadership Coaching

You will study these modules:

Inspiring Leadership
This module will provide you with opportunities to explore the role of coaching and mentoring in promoting an employer's learning and talent development framework and workforce planning needs. You will also develop your ability to deliver, contribute significantly to or plan and implement organisational strategies for workforce training, learning and development and address your own continuous personal and professional development.

Strategic Business Coaching
This module is about the various dimensions of how strategic business tools and the concepts of entrepreneurialism can be used by coaches to work with entrepreneurs, business owners and executives.

Action Research for Professionals
You'll negotiate a topic to investigate and use systematic and rigorous research methodology to investigate the effectiveness of your practice with your clients, team, colleagues and/or organisation. You'll produce an action research based assessment of a current theory, trend, technology or recent innovation in thinking and critically evaluate how it may contribute towards the sustainable improvement of the individuals within organisations.

Masters in Leadership Coaching

You will choose one of these modules:

Independent Study
This module will provide you with the opportunity to use and enhance the knowledge and intellectual skills you've gained during the course, by means of an extensive investigation of a significant management area. You will reflect on the research experience and use what you have learned to guide your future development through a reflective statement and development plan.

Business Impact Study
This module is a major learning experience that will provide you with an opportunity to explore in considerable depth a specific area of organisational intervention, building on the concepts, models and paradigms you have already studied.

We're looking for applicants with relevant maturity, managerial experience and motivation who will gain from developing their knowledge and coaching skills over the duration of the programme.

You should normally have:

• An honours degree or equivalent professional qualification
• Relevant experience

For highly experienced professionals there may be capacity for some Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning (APEL) on submission of suitable evidence plus an interview. 

All interested candidates can expect to be interviewed.

Some of our students have gone on to formally coach executives and senior managers within local small and medium enterprises; some apply their learning to job roles working in human resource management and professional development related departments. Others are enhancing management and leadership roles and applying their new skills and techniques as a facilitator, trainer or teacher; coaching young adults and mentoring within their own industry sector.

Maria Iliffe, current student
"I have found the course to be not only highly enjoyable, but highly relevant to my work. I've learnt a myriad of new tools and skills, all of which I have been able to apply in my work. The course is highly experiential learning based and I find that I learn and apply the skills much more quickly compared to traditional teaching methods. The tutors are highly competent, and make the course interesting, relevant and fun. I'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone who wants to work more effectively with people."

Jill, current student

"The joy of the programme is that it takes a group of people, all with different skills, work and life backgrounds and, through the positive support, exceptional academic understanding, knowledge and experience of coaching that the Programme Leader and teaching team bring to the programme, creates a rich and fertile learning environment for adult students. What have I gained? A much deeper understanding of me and my strengths and how I can use these in my relationships with people in work and life. I have learnt about theories and models, tools and practices of coaching and now have confidence in my academic abilities and writing skills! I understand the importance of my coaching philosophy and understand, where I had not even considered before, my values and beliefs and how these affect the people I work with."