SPECIAL REPORT: Coaching masters programmes are a way for coaches to research fresh thinking and spark innovation in their work, but which masters should you opt for?
Varya Shaw looks at what’s on offer across the market
Do you feel certain of yourself as a coach?
Do the skills you learned when you first trained still work well, and are you confident about your practice? If so, now could be the perfect time to stop, take a long hard look at what you do, and pull your practice apart.
One way to do just that is by enrolling on a masters programme.
The number of dedicated coaching masters has exploded since the turn of the millennium, from just a handful in the early noughties to more than 20 today. Many of these offer a ‘metamodel’ approach, which means studying a variety of theoretical models, analysing your own style, and thrashing out a synthesis of what you have learned to create a new, more effective practice.
The benefits
This may well sound intriguing, but masters are a relatively expensive form of development and require a significant time commitment of one to three years. Why should you take the plunge?
One reason is employability and differentiation.
Having the letters MA after your name does not guarantee you better-paid or more interesting work, but it helps. Simon Cavicchia, joint programme leader of the Metanoia Institute’s Psychological Coaching MA, says: “According to our alumni, purchasers of coaching are interested in the fact that coaches are coming forward with masters. It implies a level of reflexivity and competence beyond a skills-based accreditation.”
Elaine Cox, director of the coaching and mentoring programme at Oxford Brookes University, adds: “An MA develops your logical reasoning and critical thinking. That will be appreciated by higher-level clients. If you have got leaders for example, with MBA qualifications themselves, or years and years of experience in senior level organisations, they want someone with that deep understanding of what they are doing.”
Masters offer an opportunity for freelance coaches, who usually work alone, to enter a community of peers who share a spirit of inquiry. And if you consider that a significant investment in CPD is expected of you anyway, a masters may not seem so expensive.
The ultimate reason to take a masters is because you have big ideas you want to contribute to the profession. Katherine Long, lead facilitator for the MA in Coaching at Warwick University, says: “A masters is a place to really develop fresh thinking, and spark innovation and creativity. Students research their own thinking and practice to benefit coaching as a whole.”
Who gets accepted?
But would you be accepted on to a masters? Who is it for?
You need to be fairly mature, according to Long: “Masters are ultimately for people who are robust and secure enough in their own immediate practice, but who want to really probe into that and expand their horizons. It’s not so much for someone who is at the early stage of their career and needing lots of reassurance.
“You need to be open to ambiguity and the inherent tensions in coaching. A lot of coaching programmes try to
instil certainty, and if there’s one thing coaching masters try to instil, it’s uncertainty. A good masters should inject healthy
self-doubt.”
In fact, many masters are entry level, if you have the right experience. Oxford Brookes University’s MA in Coaching and Mentoring Practice, launched in 2000, was one of the first true coaching masters. It is open to people with a relevant professional background who want to enter the profession, as well as experienced coaches who wish to enhance their practice.
It helps coaches gain a deeper understanding of a range of theories, then articulate their own unique approach. It has a strong psychological strand, with modules like Psychological Perspectives on the Self and Positive Psychology, and culminates in a dissertation. Students are assigned a professional coach supervisor during the first year. Teachers include leading researchers like Cox and Tatiana Bachkirova, as well as visiting professors like David Clutterbuck and Anthony Grant. It costs £10,640.
Middlesex University has developed a new, organisation-focused masters that reflects the wider trend towards in-house coaching. The Coaching and Development in Organisations MA launches in January 2015 and will be a conventional, taught masters aimed at the internal coach, or coach consultant working in an organisational context. It will prepare students to, for example, design organisation-wide interventions, train an internal cadre of coaches, or develop a coaching culture that suits their company.
Entry requirements are an undergraduate degree or relevant professional experience, plus a foundation course in coaching.
A feeder programme, Coaching for Learning in Organisations, will allow people to get a taste of the full MA and will contribute
30 credits towards it.
Entry to the feeder programme is available to HR professionals or consultants who have done at least two or three days’ training
in coaching.
Annette Fillery-Travis, professional doctorate co-ordinator at Middlesex University’s Institute of Workplace Learning, says: “It’s different because it’s aimed at the learning and development professional in an organisational context. That seems very timely in terms of how coaching is developing.”
One of the most psychological masters can be found at the Metanoia Institute. Relational and integrative theories inform its MA in Psychological Coaching which, according to the institute’s website, “draws heavily on principles first developed in the area of counselling and psychotherapy”.
Programme leader Simon Cavicchia says: “We make the relationship between the coach and practitioner centre stage. Human relationships are central in terms of how learning and change happens, and we teach students how to make use of the subtle and complex dynamics of the helping relationship.”
Metanoia’s MA covers many other theories, such as complexity and systems, and supports students to develop their own integrated model. Research projects so far include helping people getting back into employment, helping people with dyslexia, and imposter syndrome among senior executives.
A skills curriculum runs alongside the MA so it can be an entry-level course as long as you have a background in HR, management or the helping professions. The course also provides the opportunity to
gain an Associate Practitioner accreditation from the Association for Professional Executive Coaching and Supervision.
Warwick University’s Coaching MA places perhaps the greatest emphasis on creativity. It consists of six modules and a 15,000-word dissertation, and its underlying philosophy is person-centred. This means there is little conventional teaching. Rather, an environment is created in which coaches can reflect upon and research their own practice through different theoretical lenses.
Long says: “Primarily, I take a facilitative role – it’s much more about creating and supporting an effective learning environment over the course of the two years, with perhaps some light-touch input and structure.”
However, action learning runs through the programme to ensure all this insight is thoroughly applied in the real world.
The MA, which costs £7,000, is intended for experienced coaches. Long adds: “People on our MA don’t want a taught masters – they’ve done training around specific approaches and methodologies. They want freedom in terms of where they take their own thinking, and want a supportive environment to
take that journey.”
The Professional Development Foundation (PDF)’s MA in Professional Development (Coaching) is one of the oldest, having run since 2000. It, too, draws heavily on students’ own practice and helps them develop their own robust, evidence-based model. It arranges supervision, drawing from a wide network of coaches to ensure the right fit for each student. It is aimed chiefly at experienced coaches, although applicants are assessed on merit.
What makes the course unique is its emphasis on complexity.
Dr David Lane explains: “Virtually all coaching models are based on linear relationships – cause and effect – and the idea that you
can track that pattern and devise a plan for people’s work and behaviour.
“We look at highly complex situations where there is no chance of tracing cause and effect. Most psychological models fall down here because they are not built to deal with complexity. You have to learn to make decisions in the absence of information, where there isn’t a simple goal that can be set and a plan to reach that goal. We teach people to go beyond decision-making as a process of accuracy.”
PDF also offers MAs in Business and Executive Coaching. The fees start at around £9,500.
The i-coach academy MA in Professional Coaching stands out for its high level of challenge – students are pushed to be honest with themselves.
Managing director Caroline Horner says: “We ask people not to be all things to all people. We want them to find out what they do really well, and find an authentic way of working. We constantly ask, ‘What do you think you do and what do you actually deliver?’ to find congruence.”
The MA is for experienced coaches. Its first year is aimed at coaches who have the basics in place and want to articulate and develop further their own “signature style”. The focus is less on theory than on achieving insight and improving practice through action research and critical reflection.
Its second year is for committed individuals who want the identity of “professional coach”. It is also of interest to heads of coaching in large organisations who need to inform their job role with a deeper understanding. Students continue to develop their model, but there is a greater emphasis on theory and on psychology. Finally they complete a research project.
It costs up to £18,000 over a period of two or three years, which includes the cost of supervision.
Specialised courses
A few courses are more specialised, for example University of East London (UEL’s) MA in Career Coaching.
A general coaching degree with dedicated career modules, it was the first of its kind in the country. It costs £6,600.
Year one teaches coaching fundamentals followed by a module on Career Coaching Theory. In the second year students choose two modules, which can focus on careers or other aspects of coaching. Finally, students must submit a paper. This is already generating original research – one student has just had a paper on the quarter-life crisis published in a peer-reviewed journal.
UEL’s course can be an entry point. Programme leader Julia Yates says: “Half our students already have a background in coaching or some kind of careers work. But it can be a first step into coaching – we don’t need you to have done any coaching, but we do need you to believe in its value and do quite a lot of reading.”
As well as a strong foundation in psychology, the MA gives students an insight into the rich world of career research. Yates adds: “There is an enormous wealth of evidence about careers that isn’t known about in the coaching world.”
MScs
MScs are more scientifically rigorous. Metanoia, for example, offers a Coaching Psychology MSc, which, unlike the MA, requires a qualification in psychology.
Sheffield Hallam University’s MSc in Coaching and Mentoring offers a “deep and critical approach” to alternative theories, according to David Megginson, emeritus professor of HRD at Sheffield Business School. It also draws on the school’s strength as the first provider of an MSc in Organisation Development.
It has run for 12 years and costs around £8,000. Modules include Leadership, Scheme Design and Evaluation, Developing Strategies for Change, and Research Methods. Students must also complete a dissertation.
Another MSc, launched in 2009 and costing £16,900 from 2015, is the Henley Business School MSc in Coaching and Behaviour Change. The title reflects the course’s determination to be purposeful and practical and create real transformation.
Again, the course covers a wide range of models. Students normally come from a business background – 30 per cent of the first intake had MBAs – or are experienced coaches seeking to differentiate themselves in the marketplace. Instead of writing a dissertation, students are asked to undertake practical research in their area of interest.
Making your choice
So how do you choose?
Long says it is about “chemistry”. Horner agrees, saying how you get on with the faculty is as important as the course content.
The level of self-examination in most coaching masters requires maturity, even if experience is not essential for every course. But if you are at the right stage in your life, it could be the passport to the next level in your practice, another strand to add to your portfolio, or even a new career.
By dissecting your own approach to coaching – which virtually all masters require you to do – you could also contribute original ideas, staking out new territory for coaching as a whole. And learn a lot about yourself along the way. n
More masters options
Derby University
Masters in Applied Coaching
“A robust academic qualification that also enables professional accreditation from the International Coach Federation”
New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling
MA in Existential Coaching
“The philosophy of this programme is existential, which means that the focus of students’ practical work will be on understanding the human predicaments of their clients in a philosophical way”
University of Portsmouth
MSc in Coaching and Development
“Ideal if you are seeking to use a coaching approach in a line management role, build a coaching culture within your organisation, or embark on a second career as a professional freelance coach”
Birkbeck, University of London
MSc in Career Management and Coaching
“One of the few programmes in the UK to focus on adult career management and coaching”
University of Wolverhampton Business School
MA Coaching and Mentoring
“Students go on to develop their own coaching and mentoring practices, introduce related schemes within their businesses and use their enhanced skills within both professional and personal contexts”
Coaching at Work, Volume 9, Issue 4