Coaching, Leadership and Change Management

licensed by the International Academy of Social Sciences, Organization and Management – World Citizen Campus (CCW)

Outlook

In the future, coaching is set to become a self-evident task of every manager and executive. In addition to the operative duties involved in human resource management, the so-called soft skills here are being increasingly refined as determining factors in corporate development processes. The new challenges that executives face include managing corporate activities in decentralized structures and having a global focus, as well as adequate management of their staff under permanent pressure for change. The skills required consist of flexibility, the ability to learn, and innovativeness – with these needing to be demonstrated not only in application documents, but especially in the executive’s daily practice and work. This includes the ability to recognize talents and foster them appropriately, to manage team processes, to identify conflicts at an early stage and to develop flexible approaches leading to solutions. In this regard, an important aspect and prerequisite at the same time for managerial competence consists of self-care. This means that management and executives are not only responsible for motivating and developing the potentials of their employees, they also have to reflect on their own competencies and their development. In this way, emotion and intuition have now become key qualifications among the management competencies required today – with coaching as the basis for their professionalization. Thus, applied coaching not only promises and provides new leadership techniques and skills, but also a profound transformation in management and leadership.

The boom in label coaching has caused a dilution in and a multitude of coaching concepts and designs, which is also reflected in the wide range of related training and education courses on offer, among others. Coaching is (still) not a protected term, while its excessive use and the manifold array of qualification providers frequently result in detriments to quality.

To achieve this, the Master study course combines findings on coaching processes based on scientific and empirical research with practical training and education to become a Business Coach. This integrative approach, consisting of business management practice and psychological views and aspects, facilitates a holistic perspective of the processes and structures, together with the development of personal competencies.

Course Content Focus

The focus of the study course is on the unique, personal and professional requirements involved in the roles, functions, tasks and process designs respectively for coaching, leadership and change management. This includes the standalone conducting and implementation of coaching activities already during the studies, together with their constant monitoring and support by peer supervision and teaching supervision or teaching coaching respectively.

Due to the growing challenge to now have competencies in the field of intercultural management, a specific focus is accorded to the unique conditions and issues in the field of intercultural coaching.

With the fundamental characteristics of professional consulting and change processes as the background and basis, the course participants learn the methodical and systematic applications required here, as well as how to manage and handle issues creatively under the specific underlying conditions for leadership and management in differing corporate and business environments. Doing so, the modularly structured study course combines the conveying of theoretical-empirical knowledge and findings with the practical organization and design of processes in coaching.

Aims and Qualification

With the Coaching, Leadership and Change Management Master study course, leading to a Master degree, the course graduates become qualified to provide informed answers and responses to the growing challenges that executives and management face in their everyday corporate practice.

The participants learn professional coaching concepts and designs intended as efficient and practical methods for managing, leading and motivating employees. Furthermore, their awareness for and understanding of change processes is enhanced, permitting them to make an effective contribution to the development and strengthening of the related corporate culture.

Admission Requirements

• A successfully completed first academic degree or qualification (e.g. BA, diploma), preferably in the fields of business management, psychology, education or related disciplines.
• Several years of professional experience, preferably in leadership/ management, as well as in individual or organizational consulting.
• Applicants without a first academic degree or qualification (but with at least 5 years of relevant professional experience) can be accepted onto the study course by means of a suitability test.
• Fundamental business management knowledge and sound English skills are desirable.
• Minimum age limit: 23 years old.

Study Course Contents and Progress

The interdisciplinary Coaching, Leadership and Change Management Master studies consist of a four-semester fulltime study course and a one-semester study course (also refer to the Module Overview on page 8) to be taken parallel to working. The study course provides education and training to professionally experienced academics in management and leadership positions, who would like to specialize and professionalize their individual skills and abilities on a scientific basis.

In addition to conveying well-founded specialist know-how and knowledge about differing teaching disciplines and methods, the teaching content and lecturing formats are intended to enable the participants to recognize and resolve problems and issues related to everyday practice. The interdisciplinary design serves the purpose of creating a bridge between the underlying business-management and psychological conditions, as well as for developing Pareto efficient solutions and applying them methodically.

In order to do so, the first semester of the study course focuses on the scientific-theoretical principles of coaching, leadership and change management from a business-management and psychological perspective. The specialist and professional knowledge gained is combined in its own module under ethical and sustainability aspects in an interdisciplinary design, and related to practical questions and issues.

The second semester focuses on the development of the individual methods and competencies. Doing so, specific coaching, leadership and change management methods and techniques are acquired, developed and deepened, and applied to exemplary practical problems and issues. In the third semester, the participants learn to apply their knowledge in working contexts on the basis of their own cases. This includes the standalone conducting and implementation of coaching activities, together with their constant monitoring and support by peer supervision and teaching supervision or teaching coaching respectively. This project-related experience is reflected upon scientifically in the fourth semester and forms the conclusion to the studies in the form of the Master thesis.

MA Coaching, Leadership, Change Management

Specialist Competencies, containing Coaching, Leadership and Change Management:

• Business Management
• Psychology
• Methods and Competence Development

Final Phase

Module Overview

• Human resource management
• History and development
• HR as a building block of corporate success
• Personnel management
• Management/leadership theories and methods
• Organizations and organizational development

(This module will also be offered as a one-semester study course.)

• Personality development
• Motivation theories
• Therapeutic foundations
• Personnel management
• Management/leadership style and concepts
• Theories of group dynamics
• The organization as a social system
• Communications and conflict management
• Corporate culture as a basis for corporate management/leadership

• Interdisciplinary combining of Modules 1 and 2 under ethical and sustainability aspects

• Process design and methods
• Phases in the coaching process
• Coaching as a personalized service
• Reasons/occasions
• Target groups
• Outsourcing and reintegration
• Team coaching

• Process design and strategies
• Concepts for sustainable corporate management/leadership
• Coaching for managers and executives
• The manager/executive as coach 
• Challenges of intercultural management/leadership strategies

• Organizational models
• Culture design/organization and development
• Coaching of group processes in change management
• Internal versus external coaching as a building block in personal and organizational development
• Intercultural challenges in development processes

• Interdisciplinary combining of Modules 1 to 5 in practice

• Work with Peer Supervision and Teaching Supervision
• Case work in project groups

• Master thesis
• Scientifically substantiated elaboration of the project group work

Authors / Experts / Lecturers

Dr. Thomas Koditek

Professor Dr. Karl Pilny

Research unit

Internationale Akademie für Sozialwissenschaften, Organisation und Management
– World Citizen Campus – gGmbH (CCW) at ZiTA

Objectives

The research unit focuses on the scientific assessment of trends, findings and processes in the areas of coaching, leadership and change management on a national and international level and aims to contribute to the scientific foundation of the expertise of the Masters programmes offered by ZiTA Campus as well as the elaboration of a scientifically based coaching theory.

As this research area is very complex, it requires a comprehensive approach. Therefore, the research focus will be on the interdisciplinary, integrative approach from business practice and social science perspectives.

Tasks to achieve our objectives

• Conceive and implement empirical studies
• Contribute to the scientific discourse and opinion formation through scientific publications and participation in conferences and lectures
• Teaching activities within the framework of the Masters programmes at ZiTA
• Supervise the Master thesis and project group work
• Organise specialist conferences for the exchange of information and opinions on coaching, leadership and change management
• Contact person for students of the Masters programmes
• Obtain research funding through sponsoring and fundraising from the institutions of the European Union, the Federal Republic of Germany and the federal states (e.g. through the institutional support of non-university research organisations) and from interested private companies and other sponsors

Comprehensive correlation

In a globalised and interconnected world, in which both capital and technologies are abundant and available on an unprecedented scale and the resource “human being” (specialist, executive) evolves more and more into a key resource, coaching, leadership and change management are gaining crucial importance in expanding a company’s capacity for change and thus developing the decisive advantage in international competition. The professional expertise of the individual manager is relegated to the background. More important are other skills, such as agility, the ability to learn, the ability to recognize and promote talent as well as to manage dynamic change and team processes. Strategic considerations in business practice focus on establishing new, interdisciplinary concepts of “good leadership”. These are to be corroborated and utilized for a well-founded training of future managers by scientific research results, taking into account interdisciplinary links between the findings of business psychology, strategy development and implementation, general corporate governance, organisation and management, sociological theories, organisational and personnel development, project management as well as education.

Laura Sukyte-Eickmeyer

Scientific Officer

In Memorandum

Prof. em. Dr. Jürgen Zimmer †

In the most respectful and loving memory… 1938 – 2019