Contact Us
For more information about the Executive Coaching certificate program, contact us at ProfessionalLearning@gse.upenn.edu
Develop a coaching mindset to equip you with tools and methodologies to support your team in reaching their full potential.
Learn how to develop the mindset, presence, and skills to lead to your organization’s success.
What Sets Us Apart
Led by a group of interdisciplinary Penn GSE faculty
Pathway for career advancement
Accelerated schedule designed for working professionals
About the Program
The Executive Coaching certificate program is designed to equip leaders with the skills and techniques to inspire positive change in others. Our program is led by faculty experts in adult learning, ensuring you receive evidence-based education to achieve your coaching objectives.
Application DeadlineOctober 1, 2025
Program StartOctober 10, 2025; 3 days
Cost
- Standard rate: $11,500
Designed forProfessionals who want to become executive coaches.
QualificationsProfessionals in leadership positions with a graduate degree / ~10 years of professional experience.
Modality
- Online
Overview
The Executive Coaching certificate program is designed to introduce coaching concepts and methodologies to leaders across various industries, such as healthcare and education. The primary goal of executive coaching is to help the client identify and achieve specific professional goals. The coach provides guidance, support, feedback, and accountability to facilitate the client's personal and professional growth. Through this program, you will learn to adopt a coaching mindset to enhance the performance, effectiveness, and leadership skills of individuals in executive or leadership positions within organizations.
We’ll also guide you on the process of integrating coaching into your future career as you earn valuable hours toward International Coaching Federation (ICF) certification. Our approach is evidence-based and relies on proven approaches, focusing on the pivotal role of the coaching leader.
Upon successful completion of the certificate, you’ll be able to:
- Develop and implement coaching strategies as a core leadership practice
- De-mystify coaching and coaching presence into actionable steps.
- Identify and deepen key coaching skills, including active listening, powerful questioning, providing useful feedback, working through resistance, creating actionable goals, and empowering others.
- Integrate adult learning principles into your coaching and leadership practice.
- Explore how flexing coaching styles to fit different situations will maximize your impact as a coach.
- Assimilate and apply the foundational theories of evidence-based coaching to elevate coaching, leadership competencies and organizational performance.
International Coaching Federation
Through our partnership GroupWorks Global, Penn GSE offers an Executive Coaching Certificate that provides 60 credit hours (30 hours are synchronous and 30 hours are asynchronous) for those seeking an ICF Credential. After the successful completion of this program and a subsequent evaluation conducted by GroupWorks Global, participants will have completed the ICF Level One certificate and will qualify to apply for the ICF ACC Credential.
Synchronous Instruction Schedules
Accelerated Schedule Cohort
| Date | Time (Eastern Time) |
|---|---|
| October 10, 2025 | 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. |
| October 11, 2025 | 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. |
| October 12, 2025 | 9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. |
There will be additional 3-hour sessions scheduled after these initial dates.
Program Structure and Curriculum
The Executive Coaching Mindset
Topic: Program Overview and Community Building
An essential element of learning the theory and practice of coaching is to create common ground and build a safe learning environment for participants. This module will clarify the rationale behind the program's components, ensuring clarity on operational terms, course anticipations, and familiarity with an experiential learning environment.
Objectives:
- Foster a robust community of executive coaching learners by establishing a common language and becoming familiar with each other.
- Discuss the structure and ambitions of the course, establishing achievable expectations.
Topic: Defining the Coaching Mindset
Participants will exchange insights on what sets the executive coaching mindset apart from traditional teaching, psychotherapy, consulting, mentorship, and management. We will collectively draft a definition synthesized from scholarly sources and real-world applications, aligning it with the ICF's depiction of coaching.
Objectives:
- Define executive coaching and distinguish coaching from other disciplines.
- Differentiate between coaching skills and the coaching mindset.
- Introduce the ICF Competencies and Ethical Guidelines.
Coaching Conversation Dynamics: Active Listening and the Power of Paraphrases and Questions
Topic: The Listening Lab™
The Listening Lab™ is a dynamic educational platform, designed to immerse participants in the art of active listening. This Lab emphasizes the cultivation of presence and the strategic use of paraphrasing and open-ended questions as coaching conversation alternatives to the common conversational habits of advice-giving and problem-solving. It's a space where executive coaches are equipped with the techniques necessary to amplify a client’s self-awareness, guiding them to discover their own resolutions and paths forward.
Objectives:
- Experience the transformative impact of active listening by practicing presence in coaching conversations.
- Practice paraphrasing to ensure understanding and validation of the client's perspective.
- Experiment with use of open-ended questions to facilitate deeper client insight rather than providing direct advice or solutions.
- Enhance skills in fostering client self-awareness, enabling them to uncover and articulate their own solutions.
Topic: Transformational Coaching
We are living in a time of extreme turmoil, and clients need coaches to help them navigate through changes. In this session, we will build on typical human patterns when coping with change and ways to help clients set and reset achievable goals, as well as help them reframe perspectives and overcome limiting beliefs.
Objectives:
- Explore psychological models of change.
- Practice co-creating achievable goals for coaching conversations.
- Explore reframing perspectives.
Leadership Competencies for the Coach
Topic: Emotional Intelligence and Self-Awareness
Leadership and coaching competencies are intertwined, and coaching itself is a style of leadership. Emotional intelligence is at the heart of both effective leadership and impactful coaching. In this session, participants will explore how emotional intelligence underpins leadership excellence and is integral to the coaching process. We will focus on enhancing the coach's self-awareness and provide targeted strategies for raising awareness.
Objectives:
- Incorporate the research on leadership and emotional intelligence into your coaching practice.
- Cultivate Self-Awareness in coaches and clients.
Topic: The Power of Self-Regulation
This class is designed to equip coaches with a deep understanding of emotional landscapes as a rich source of data for personal development. Participants will learn to recognize and interpret their emotions and triggers and to use this information to assist client development.
Objectives:
- Recognize emotions as data.
- Explore the psychological and neurobiological underpinnings of self-regulation, including the role of the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system.
Coaching Power Tools
Topic: The Art of Contracting
The process of co-creating the coaching relationship and establishing a clear coaching contract is fundamental. The potency of coaching is significantly enhanced by the strength of the relationship between coach and client. While forging this bond may appear to be a natural and intuitive endeavor, the research underscores the necessity of iterative goal-setting and solid contracting from the outset. Such upfront clarity and agreement are paramount, rivaling the trust that forms the bedrock of the coaching partnership.
Objective:
- Recognize the power of contracting and goal setting in the coaching relationship.
Integration of Skills
Topic: Coaching Practicum
This session is designed to be an interactive session where participants engage in the roles of coach, coachee, and observer. Guided by a seasoned certified executive coach, attendees will have the opportunity to hone their coaching competencies through practical application. This immersive experience is essential for reinforcing coaching skills and ensuring participants are well-prepared to embark on their professional coaching careers with confidence.
Objectives:
- To apply and refine coaching competencies through practical experience.
- Receive input on coaching skills.
Our Faculty
President and CEO at GroupWorksConsulting LLC; Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Ph.D. Temple University
Program Contact
If you have questions about the curriculum, practicum, or the ICF credential, contact the Academic Director: | If you have questions about the cost or the application process. contact the Center for Professional Learning: |