Using Executive Coaching to Enhance the Professional Development of Graduate Students

Abstract: Executive coaching is an individualized professional development program typically reserved for experienced business leaders. Coaching is, however, being used by a growing number of Master of Business Arts (MBA) programs to help prepare students for the workplace. There have been few studies of the effectiveness of coaching programs, and virtually no papers focused on executive coaching outside of a business school. The purpose of this case study is to illustrate how the executive coaching model is being used by one master’s program in industrial-organizational psychology and to examine student perceptions of that coaching experience. Thirty students who had participated in a coaching program over 15 years completed a survey containing questions about the perceived benefits of executive coaching. Coaching helped students develop better self-awareness, be more assertive, and be more self-accepting. Coaching also helped students understand the importance of networking, career goals, and personal development. Coaching can help students in a wide variety of graduate programs prepare for the workplace.

Key Words: executive coaching, graduate students, psychology, career development

Executive coaching is an individualized development program designed to help employees lead more effectively and advance their careers. Coaching sessions are periodic meetings within which coaches help employees examine their competencies, set goals, develop action plans, and discuss progress toward completing the plan. Coaches are typically seasoned leaders and/or specialists with training in psychology, counseling, or business.

Executive coaching has grown steadily since the mid-1980s (Berglas, 2002; Espeland, 2023). Many Fortune 500 companies employ coaches, and globally, there are over 100,000 executive coaches/coaching firms (ICF, 2023). There is no licensure requirement for coaching, but most coaches have some form of certification from a university or one of several accrediting agencies like the Coaching Training Alliance, Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC), or the International Coaching Federation (ICF). Meta-analyses of executive coaching effectiveness show that coaching can have positive effects on goal attainment, interpersonal relationships, job performance, self-efficacy, well-being, and resilience (Burt & Talati, 2017; DeMeuse et al., 2009; Jones et al., 2016; Nicolau et al., 2023; Sonesh et al., 2015; Theeboom et al., 2014).

There is a growing trend for universities to integrate executive coaching into Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs (Mura, 2003; Ostrowski, 2019), but there have been few studies of the effectiveness of these programs. In addition, we are unfamiliar with any papers about executive coaching programs for students outside of business schools. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how graduate students can benefit from executive coaching. We provide an overview of the limited studies on executive coaching for graduate students, describe how one program has used coaching, and summarize data from a survey of the alumni of that coaching program.

Research on Coaching

Academic coaches (employees of university learning centers or tutoring centers) can increase completion rates and improve class performance for undergraduates (Bettinger & Baker, 2014; Capstick et al., 2019) and graduate students (Lehan et al., 2018). However, business leaders are asking universities to provide students with more than classroom knowledge. Surveys conducted by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU; Finley, 2023), the Conference Board (Casner-Lotto, 2006), and the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE; 2023) show that business leaders would like universities to build students’ competencies in people management, communication, teamwork, and problem solving. These are skills not traditionally covered in coursework or acquired during thesis completion. In response to this problem, a variety of MBA programs added executive coaching services to their curriculum (Butler et al., 2008; Ostrowski, 2019). In some cases, faculty serve as coaches; in other cases, the university hires coaches. The second option can add to the already steep cost of an MBA program. Given the popularity of and costs associated with coaching, we are surprised that there has been limited research on the effectiveness of these programs. The notable exceptions are the following studies.

In a study of MBA students who had completed a course about how to be a coach, Butler et al. (2008) found the course helped students to allow others to own their problems and solutions, assess their own ignorance, create a learning dialogue, participate in active inquiry, clarify goals, deliberately seek feedback, follow up on coaching dialogue, use Lewin’s Force Field Analysis, and prepare for difficult conversations.

In one of the first studies about coaching students, Lawrence et al. (2018) described a program in an MBA program wherein faculty served as coaches and asked students to complete a leadership potential assessment that measures drivers, experiences, awareness, learning agility, leadership traits, capacity, and derailment risks. The assessment was followed by coach-supported reflection and development planning assignments. The program stimulated a process of awareness, reflection, and intentional development, and supported the identification and pursuit of goal-directed learning opportunities throughout the students’ MBA program.

Steiner et al. (2018) describe a coaching program wherein local business leaders volunteered to serve as coaches for MBA students. Coaches completed a short training course that emphasized facilitating self-discovery rather than career advice. Once assigned to a student, coaches reviewed the student’s professional development plan, resume, course projects, and performance in mock interviews. Then the coaches met with students for three, 1-hour sessions per semester. The authors found that students who participated in the program developed a more positive attitude about coaching. They also reported improvements in their own self-awareness, goal setting, goal prioritization, job search tools, leadership in team contexts, interpersonal communication, and cross-cultural adjustment.

Studying coaching sessions held in group settings, Ostrowski (2019) found that MBA students benefited from direct feedback and from vicarious learning when others received feedback. The students were also better able to acknowledge latent skills, legitimize personal values, and distinguish habitual behaviors. In addition, the students felt they gained new capacities, achieved new clarity about priorities, and developed deeper self-awareness. Most recently, Fulmore et al. (2022) interviewed 14 alumni of an MBA program who had participated in coaching. The coaching sessions were conducted in person, over email, and on the phone. The authors found that coaching sessions resulted in personal development by overcoming personal deficiencies, coaching translated into learning about leadership, and coaching motivated sustained change.

In the next section, we describe the coaching program in a graduate program in industrial-organizational psychology.

Coaching Graduate Students: A Case Study

Background

The Minnesota State University, Mankato Industrial-Organizational (I-O) Psychology includes 2 years of coursework, comprehensive exams, a summer internship in an applied setting, and work in the program’s on-campus consulting practice (The Organizational effectiveness Research Group). The MSU I-O program comprises four faculty and about 20 students, and uses a cohort model such that students who are admitted each year take all their classes together for the 2 years they are in the program. Unlike executive MBA programs, the MSU program primarily attracts students who recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree.

Each year, for the last 15 years, two experienced management consultants have provided individualized coaching services to graduate students. Richard Olson, a PhD in Psychology, worked in employee assessment and coaching at Personnel Decisions Inc. and then for Olson Consulting. Carol Lynn Courtney received a PhD in Industrial-Organizational and Applied Experimental Psychology. She previously worked for or with Quaker Oats, Motorola, Pillsbury, and Malt-o-Meal (Currently Post Cereal). She now does executive assessment for selection and leadership development, executive coaching at an individual and team level, and organizational development for Courtney Consulting.

The Process

There are dozens of models coaches can use to guide the coaching process. For example, Whitmore’s coaching model (2010) includes goal setting, reality testing, option analysis, and action planning. The positive psychological coaching model (Van Zyl, 2020) involves creating a relationship between coach and coached, strengths profiling, feedback, developing an ideal vision, goal setting/strategizing execution, and conclusion/recontacting. The ACT Model (Brock et al., 2006) includes three steps:

• Awareness: through assessment and guided reflections on one’s experience.
• Choice: deciding what needs to be done, creating a plan of action, and committing to that course of action.
• Tenacity: or sticking with the plan long enough that genuine change occurs.

Our coaching program includes the following steps: selection, orientation, assessment, feedback, assignments, developmental planning, and a final wrap-up session.

Selection

At the beginning of each academic year, an email is sent to second-year graduate students inviting them to apply for the opportunity to receive coaching services.

If you are interested in 1:1 coaching from a trained execute coach, please write a brief (2-ish page) essay discussing why you’d be a good candidate for coaching (no specific format, but you might want to discuss what things you are good at, what you want to work on, how you think you’d benefit from coaching, etc.). This is a special opportunity, and students are not very good at guessing who will be selected, so we really encourage you to give it a shot.

The coaches and program faculty then meet to discuss the students’ applications. In this discussion, we consider whether the student expresses sufficient motivation/interest in coaching, whether they have an accurate sense of the areas they need to work on, and whether the coaches feel there would be a good fit between a particular student and coach.

We have found that it is best to allow students to apply and then select the most motivated students to participate because coaching is a process of facilitated self-discovery and action planning. It is not effective if students are not motivated. See also Gehlert et al. (2013) for advice about matching students to coaches.

Orientation

In the first meeting, coaches introduced themselves and describe their work histories and professional backgrounds. Then the coaches provide an overview of the coaching process, set ground rules around information sharing, and define expectations. Students are asked to describe what they want to get out of coaching and are asked about their school and career goals.

The initial meeting also includes a 2-hour behavioral interview wherein students discuss their approach to work. Students are asked to refer to specific incidents and describe how they made decisions, organized their work, worked with others in a team, dealt with conflict, and led others.

The last third of the orientation includes questions about how the student has grown over time and includes questions about personal history, family background, current relationships, and work relationships. The coaches operate from a social systems perspective and assume that a student’s behavior is not only a function of one’s personality traits but also a function of the complex interaction of relationships, expectations, and influences in one’s social environment.

Assessments

Students next complete a series of online standardized leadership and work style surveys.  These usually include the Hogan assessment series, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Step II, Firo B, and California Psychological Inventory.

Students are then given a business case simulation and placed in the hypothetical role of vice president in a company. The student learns that there are problems related to an acquisition, tech services, employees stepping out of their roles, and a conflict between sales and engineering. The case includes 14 attachments (email, messages, notes). The student must read the messages, prioritize the problems, and develop an action plan. Then the student, as the leader, must meet with the coach and the coach takes on the role of the direct report who has performance problems. The student delivers performance feedback and offers suggestions for dealing with conflict situations and development opportunities.

Feedback

Students next receive feedback from the various assessments they completed. Certainly, the selected leadership and personality surveys are not perfect predictors of job behavior or success (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998); however, standardized assessments do provide a common language that the coach and student can use to explore the student’s motives, preferences, and behaviors.

Over the remainder of the semester, the student and coach meet on a regular basis. Students work with the coaches to create assignments, write a developmental plan, and discuss progress. Coaches strive to engage with students in an open and supportive manner. Coaches provide recognition to reinforce progress and may nudge students when there are delays. It is important to keep in mind that coaching is different than mentoring because mentors offer advice and instruction, whereas coaches guide a process of self-discovery, goal prioritization, and action planning.

Assignments

During coaching sessions, students and the coaches create assignments. Examples of the type of assignments students might choose include:

• List your 6–10 greatest strengths.
• Reflect on a time when you were stressed: What was the context/setting? How did stress affect your behavior?
• Confront one of your classmates regarding something they have done or said that was counterproductive.
• Practice active listening with one of your classmates.
• Create a list of behaviors you could perform to be a better group/team player.
• Complete an online seminar or training class.
• Practice skills and receive feedback from a colleague.
• Teach a behavior to someone else.

Development Plans

Coached students are given a sample development plan and asked to create their own plan. It is best for students to focus on their strengths, with the goal of the development plan to both increase strengths and to leverage those strengths to address limitations. Students are also asked to consult with others (e.g., supervisors, faculty, managers, directors, etc.) for guidance. Typically, a coaching development plan is built jointly by the individual and coach. In the workplace, the employee and leader would work together on the employee’s developmental plan.

There are a few issues that students struggle with when setting goals. Some students will set development goals that are poorly defined. These are goals for which it is difficult to assess progress or completion. Other students will set goals that are unrealistic or unattainable. Variations on this problem include setting too many goals and expecting results too quickly. Finally, many students want to work on their limitations at the expense of augmenting their strengths. In fact, many students either are not fully aware of their strengths or modesty keeps them from embracing their strengths. It is also possible that because students have limited experience in the real world, and they have spent the last few years surrounded by highly capable people, their strengths are not as salient as they might otherwise be.

Wrap-up

During the final session, the student, faculty advisor, and coach meet to discuss the results of the coaching process. The coach first reiterates the coaching program goals and tries to ensure a common understanding of the feedback.  Faculty have access to a report that summarizes the student’s strengths, limitations, and ideas for development. Coaches ask students what they have learned from the process, and how they plan to apply the knowledge in the workplace and at school. Students are asked to make three recommendations about what they could target next for development. This includes a strength the individual can continue to build, something of high interest that they can do more in their work, and a limitation that the individual can address. Coaches also discuss what the students would need from their instructors or managers (or any other key individuals) to be even more successful in accomplishing their goals in the future.

An advantage of this coaching process is students have deliverables they can refer to when interviewing and starting their new jobs after graduation. Students have a better understanding of their own strengths and limitations, which they can share in the job interview process. Students also have a development plan that they can share with their new leader to provide initial understanding of style, strengths, motivators, and limitations. Participating in this process also helps the students establish control over their own professional career growth.

Student Perceptions

In this section, we describe the results of a survey of alumni who participated in coaching.

Fifty-one alumni who participated in the coaching program over the last 16 years were emailed an invitation to complete an online survey. Thirty alumni responded to the survey (58% response rate). Twenty completed the entire survey (66% completion rate).

Participants were first asked to indicate the years in which they had participated in coaching. Responses ranged from 2009 to 2023 with every year between represented in the sample.

Participants responded to two Likert-style items (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). The first item read, “My career has advanced farther than it would have without coaching.” Fifty-two percent of respondents indicated “somewhat agree” and 31% “strongly agree.” The second item read, “I would recommend coaching to most graduate students.” Eighty-nine percent of the participants responded with “strongly agree,” and 11% with “somewhat agree.”

Next, participants were asked, “Have you received leadership/executive/personal coaching after you were a student?” Forty-two percent had received additional coaching. Participants were also asked, “Have you served as a coach to employees or graduate students?” Again, 42% of the participants had served as coaches.

Participants then responded to an open-ended question, “Overall, how did coaching help you?” Nineteen participants provided comments. We used a natural language processing tool (Chat GPT) to categorize the responses. We also read the comments and created our own comment theme categories. The AI and researcher-generated categories were the same.

• 84% mentioned that coaching helped them develop self-awareness (strengths, weakness, interests, priorities, how they were perceived by others, and/or personal values).
• 37% said coaching helped them gain confidence, be more assertive when providing suggestions, and/or be more self-accepting.
• 32% indicated that coaching helped them better understand the value of networking and relationship building.
• 32% responded that coaching helped them gain insights about their own career goals including two participants for whom coaching lead to a career in leader coaching.
• 26% stated that coaching helped them with a specific skill (interviewing, being a better team player, listening, stress management).
• 16% said coaching heightened the value of personal development/growth.
• 10% mentioned that coaching provided a mentor they called on after they graduated.

Finally, we asked, “What could be done to improve the coaching process?” There were relatively few suggestions, and all involved extending coaching rather than modifying its content. Respondents suggested that it would be helpful to include a 12-month check-in after graduation, provide virtual coaching (pre-COVID participant), offer a greater number of sessions, increase the number of students who are coached each year, and create a course so that the coaches could train graduate students to be coaches.

Overall, the results of our survey are consistent with coaching studies in MBA programs. Alumni felt that coaching helped improve self-awareness, confidence, relationship building, and job-related skills. Coaching also focused student attention on, and value for, professional development. All participants recommended coaching and over three-fourths thought that coaching helped advance their careers. Many of our coaching alumni sought coaching after graduation and/or served as a coach for others.

It is noteworthy that participation in our survey was voluntary and those who were unhappy with the process may not have completed the survey. In addition, it is difficult to tie the various facets of coaching like exercises, feedback, and self-reflection to specific behavioral or attitude outcomes because participants in coaching programs vary in their experience, needs, and motivation (Bono et al., 2009). There are a wide variety of potential outcomes like promotions, self-acceptance, and performance to consider. Coaches vary in the models they use, personality, and experience. Finally, the numbers involved in the studies described earlier are relatively small and participants were self-selected. The study of executive coaching, particularly in academic environments, is still in its infancy. That said, coaching graduate students using an executive coaching framework appears to have positive effects.

Final Thoughts on Coaching Programs

Faculty who are thinking about starting a coaching program should consider finding volunteers in the community to serve as coaches. Hiring coaches can be expensive by academic standards. Steiner et al. (2018) noted that it is surprisingly simple to find people who will volunteer to help because many leaders enjoy working with students. It is a good idea to use experienced volunteers and/or those who have a coaching certification. In either case, applied experience as a coach is critical.

It is also important to find motivated students. As one student who completed the survey above mentioned, “My main advice for future students who are considering coaching is to fully invest in the process and allow yourself to be vulnerable. Keep in mind that your outcomes will reflect your level of investment in the process, so approach it with a sense of appreciation and an eagerness to learn.”

Coaching is not therapy. If a student has behavioral or mental health issues, they should be directed to a therapist or on-campus counseling center. Coaches must follow ethical guidelines from the American Psychological Association, Society of Human Resource Management, and/or Association for Talent Development.

Coaching could certainly be useful beyond management and I-O psychology programs. The coaching process could be used to help in a variety of other academic programs. Coaching also could be effective for doctoral students applying for faculty jobs in academic departments. We find that the executive coaching model can be used to help prepare most graduate students for the workplace. We encourage other graduate programs to start a coaching program for their students.

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