Coaching Skills for Leaders
Multiply your impact by developing people and teams.
The best leaders build the capability of the people around them. This program gives you the coaching skills to do that in the flow of everyday work, grounded in the state of the art in coaching science.
These are the sentences we hear before people join.
“My team brings me problems. I hand back answers. Nothing changes.”
“I'm the bottleneck on every decision and I put myself there.”
“I want to ask better questions, but under pressure I just tell them.”
“Our talents leave because nobody grows them on the job.”
This program changes that.
The best leaders do not hand out answers. They build people who find them.
Most leaders were promoted for being good at the work — not for developing others. Under pressure they fall back on what they know: telling, fixing, deciding. It feels efficient, and it keeps the team dependent on them.
Coaching is the alternative, and it is a craft that can be learned. Professional coaches work with tools, structure and a discipline of listening and asking that most leaders have never been taught. In this program you learn exactly that — and how to use it in the flow of everyday leadership, not only in a formal coaching session.
Professional coaching tools, made for leaders
You work with the same tools professional coaches use — adapted to the reality of a leader who has ten minutes between two meetings and a team that needs to move.
Contracting and presence
How to open a coaching conversation so it has a clear purpose, a shared agreement and your full attention — the step most leaders skip, and the one that decides whether anything changes.
Listening and powerful questions
Listening for what is not being said, and asking the one question that opens thinking instead of closing it. You practise until it holds under pressure.
The ACE it! coaching structure
Address, Create, Execute: a clear arc for any development conversation — from naming the real challenge, to ideas that come from the other person, to a first step they own.
Feedback that develops
Feedback specific enough to act on and delivered so it can be heard. How to turn performance conversations into development conversations.
Tools that move a stuck conversation
Best Work, the Learning Curve, the Wheel of Motivation and more — short, structured tools you can use with a person or a whole team the same day.
Assessments and AI in coaching
How to use You at Your Best and ACE Preferences to ground a conversation in data — and where AI helps a coach prepare, reflect and follow up, and where it should stay out.
What you'll learn
You coach — from the first session on
Coaching is not learned by watching. In every live session you coach real situations from your own team, you are coached in return, and you get feedback from experienced coaches and from your peers.
Real cases from your team
You bring situations you are actually carrying: the talent who stalls, the conflict nobody names, the decision you keep taking back.
Observed practice
Experienced coaches watch your practice rounds and give feedback specific enough to change what you do the next morning.
Learning teams in between
Small groups meet between sessions to practise the tools on each other and bring back what worked — and what did not.
Applied the same week
Every tool goes straight into your own one-to-ones and team meetings, so the habit forms while you are still in the program.
Who this program is for
Leaders at every level
From team leads to executives who want their people to think for themselves — and want to stop being the bottleneck.
New and future leaders
Specialists moving into their first leadership role, who want to learn to develop others before the first year teaches it the hard way.
HR, L&D and people leads
Who want coaching to become part of how leadership works in their organization — not a one-off workshop.
Founders and business owners
Who are building a team that can grow without them in every conversation.
Go deeper — at your own pace
For anyone who wants to learn coaching with real depth and at a professional level, there are two routes.
Start with Coaching Skills for Leaders
Build the foundations in four sessions and use them with your team straight away. If you want more afterwards, continue with the Making Others Great Certification Program.
Go straight to the certification
Ten live sessions over five months, supervised coaching practice in every one, and a coaching credential at the end — for leaders, coaches, mentors and teachers alike.
Program structure
{{ s.title }}
{{ s.body }}
“The Coaching Skills for Leaders program has been a real booster for my coaching capabilities: excellent materials, excellent faculty, a deep-dive experience, accelerated learning and a very convenient time investment. Highly recommended.”
José PonsDirector Alumni and Institutional Development DACH, IESE Business School; Executive Director, IESE Stiftung Deutschland
“Applying the insights from our own learning and communication preferences, measured with Autoris assessments, to those of our clients was tremendously instructive, particularly for giving actionable feedback and navigating difficult conversations. The course provided the research-based tools, and the small-group breakouts gave us a platform to practice on our own cases. The diversity and leadership qualities of the participants were extraordinary.”
Dr. Theresa McGuinnessFounder and CEO, Pathfinder Strategy Partners
“This program changed how I approach conversations. I am still learning to think and act much more like a coach: listening first, asking better questions, and trusting people to find their own answers. What made it truly special were the people. Everyone brought wonderful intentions and genuine openness, and with some of them I’m still in touch regularly.”
Mihai MelonariStartup Coach, TECH.LAND Accelerator
“What I valued most were the relationships and the exchange in the peer groups. The program lets people learn from each other instead of positioning the faculty as owners of the knowledge.”
Thiago PradoTransformation, Value Creation and M&A
“With each session I added another method to my coaching toolbox which I could immediately apply with my teams. I learned to focus more on addressing the challenges we really need to tackle.”
Charlotte BoujassyDirector Talent & Leadership Development Europe, Daiichi Sankyo
“Using a pen to jot down ideas in one minute of quiet brainstorming — it is amazing how many great ideas are generated in this short time. I have seen this simple but powerful tool work over and over again.”
Terry ChuahFounder & Chief Career Strategist, The Career Life Cycle
Spring 2027
Live sessions run 4:00–6:00 PM CET, every two weeks.
$2,400
EUR 2,100 (plus VAT). Scholarships available.
Who will facilitate
Both facilitators are practicing executive coaches. You are learning the craft from people who still do it every week — and who give feedback on your own cases in the live labs.
Verena Lauffs
Executive coach, mentor and facilitator for over 10 years. Leads the live practice labs and the feedback work between sessions.
Full profile →
Prof. Dr. Dr. Matthias Ehrhardt
Professor, executive coach and advisor for over two decades. Author of the ACE it! Method behind the coaching approach taught here.
Full profile →Build capability, not dependency.
Apply to the next Coaching Skills for Leaders cohort.