Teach Leadership Coaching: Earn Money by Starting Your Coaching School

Business leaders carry a lot on their shoulders. Being a leader is a challenge and, at the same time, an exciting journey. Leadership coaches can help people in leadership roles make this journey a little bit more exciting and a little less overwhelming.

Whether you are an experienced, certified leadership coach who would like to take their coach training business online or an aspiring coach considering teaching leadership skills but doesn’t know where to start, you’re in the right place.

This post covers everything you ever wanted to know about leadership coaching: coaching styles to use for effective leadership training, the most common leadership styles to explore with your client during their professional learning, and essential topics to cover.

We’ll also show you how to create your own online leadership coaching academy from start to finish!

First, let’s clarify what leadership coaching is and answer one burning question: can leadership skills be taught?

What is a Leadership Coach?

A leadership coach is a type of coach that helps leaders develop skills and personality traits they should possess and also an authentic leadership style.

Leadership is very different from business coaching, executive coaching or women leadership coaching. These two types of coaching focus mainly on the practical aspects of running a business or a team.

Leadership coaching is more about cultivating soft coaching skills and emotional intelligence so that the leader can handle complex business relationships and lead with confidence, compassion, and ethics.

Any employee can benefit from leadership coaching, though, as it boosts professional development skills like communication and resilience and helps build self-awareness and confidence – all of which are essential for a functional workplace.

Can a Person be Taught How to be a Leader?

People who showed student achievement and school leadership during high school usually pursue leadership roles in their adult lives as well.

During schooling, children who show leadership personality traits, are usually prompted by school leaders and teacher leaders to apply for leadership positions in their communities, state-level government work, or managerial roles in businesses.

There is no denying it, the role of a leader is daunting. Among other things, leaders need to balance sensitive relationships with stakeholders and employees. They also need to be the type of person people respect and admire rather than blindly obey because they have to. Add to that excellent strategic thinking and ability to weather any storm and adapt to change.

So no, not everyone is built for leadership. But if they possess some strong qualities to work with, a leadership coach can help them reinforce and use their strengths to their advantage and build the skills they lack.

How to Train a Team Leader: The 7 Best Coaching Models for the Job

The coaching process is long, and coaching relationships need their rules too. So how about adding some structure to your sessions and increasing accountability? This way, the client will know from the start how your collaboration will go, and they’ll achieve their goals faster.

There are several models you can follow for more effective coaching! We’ll do a quick recap here, but read our dedicated blog post on 6 popular coaching models if you want to find out more details.

1. GROW
2. CLEAR
3. STEPPA
4. OSCAR
5. OSKAR
6. CIGAR
7. Action-Centered Leadership (ACL)

1GROW

GROW stands for Goals-Reality-Obstacles-Way forward. It’s the most popular coaching model with a straightforward, uncomplicated structure. Coaching with GROW includes four steps:

• Identifying desired goals
• Analyzing the current situation
• Considering the roadblocks that may appear and possible solutions
• Getting the client to commit to the action plan.

2CLEAR

CLEAR stands for Contract-Listen-Explore-Action-Review. CLEAR focuses on long-term goals and aims to transpire more extensive changes than other coaching models. This makes it a perfect match for teaching leadership.

Here’s how the CLEAR model works:

• First, you set the rules for your collaboration with the client. Each time you meet, you agree on what you want to discuss during the session.
• The client shares any thoughts related to their goal and reflects on their current situation.
• The client commits to taking some action.
• At the end of each session, you review the progress made during your meeting and, if needed, adjust the plan.

3STEPPPA

STEPPPA stands for Subject-Target-Emotion-Perception-Plan-PaceAction/Adapt. This model starts by identifying the overall scope of the coaching before creating specific goals. The coach encourages the client to discuss their emotions and view their goal. Next, you need to create an easy-to-follow plan broken down into milestones. Before settling on a final plan, review and adapt.

4OSCAR

OSCAR stands for Outcome-Situation-Choices-Action-Review. OSCAR is a solution-oriented model which works like this:

• The client evaluates their current situation and sets a goal.
• Client and coach explore their choices for reaching that goal.
• They create a plan.
• They meet regularly to monitor the client’s progress.

5OSKAR

OSKAR is similar to OSCAR because both models focus on the goal and don’t analyze the current situation too deeply. It stands for Outcome-Scaling-Know-how-Affirm Action-Review. This model is particularly interesting because it prompts the client to think about how close they are to their goal and how far they can ever go – because not every goal is 100% attainable.

6CIGAR

CIGAR takes a slightly different approach from other models as it emphasizes reality vs. possibility to help the client draw motivation. It stands for Current reality-Ideal-Gaps-Action-Review. CIGAR encourages the client to:

• Picture their ideal reality with details.
• Identify what keeps them from reaching their goal and find themselves in that ideal reality.
• Draft a plan of action.
• Review the plan with their coach.

7Action-Centered Leadership (ACL)

Action-centered leadership is a three-circle model that focuses on three key areas where a leader or manager needs to excel:

Task achievement: A leader should help their teams perform their tasks more effectively through efficient goal setting, prioritization, and resource allocation.
Team building: It’s essential to build solid and unified teams that collaborate smoothly and manage conflict effectively.
Professional development: A leader should help each team member develop their skills and advance their careers.

What Type of Leader Will You Shape? 9 Popular Leadership Styles

There are several leadership styles to explore with your client. You can borrow elements that match your client’s personality to use as an inspiration to help your client develop their unique leadership style.

You’ll see for yourself that not all of these leadership styles are the recipe for an ideal workplace. Still, it’s worth discussing them with your client to pinpoint mistakes to avoid.

• Laissez-Faire (Hands-Off) Leadership Style
• Democratic (Participative) Leadership
  
• Transformational Leadership
  
• Visionary Leadership
• Coaching Leadership
• Transactional Leadership
• Pacesetting Leadership
• Autocratic (Authoritarian) Leadership
• Bureaucratic Leadership

Laissez-Faire (Hands-Off) Leadership Style

This type of leadership heavily relies on excellent delegation skills. A hands-off leadership style means that the leader assigns roles and responsibilities to their teams. This leadership style boosts confidence, promotes creativity, and allows employees to explore their abilities and take initiative. Following this style is a way leaders can help all team members develop leadership skills and cultivate accountability and decision-making.

A laissez-faire leadership style suits a leader who doesn’t like micromanaging and prefers to focus on the larger scheme of things. At the same time, they know how to provide their teams with the tools they need to function effectively and can step in and take quick action when things go off track.

Democratic (Participative) Leadership

A democratic leader values everyone’s opinion and allows all team members to participate in decision-making. This free flow of ideas and opinions promotes innovation and an inclusive workplace where everyone feels heard and valued.

Although organizing large-scale or multiple discussions is time-consuming and creates a lot of noise, this type of leadership links to higher employee satisfaction, morale, and productivity. If your client is a team player and flexible and has strong people skills, this type of leadership might be a good fit.

Transformational Leadership

Transformational leaders have the skill to inspire their teams to get on board the company mission and spark enthusiasm. They care for each team member and offer them resources to succeed.

Teams led by transformational leaders are energized, optimistic, and bonded. This leadership style suits charismatic speakers and supports individuals with a high sense of purpose and loyalty committed to delivering the company vision.

Visionary Leadership

A visionary leader is an enthusiastic and passionate leader that has innovative ideas and not only embraces but actively seeks change. With their energy and enthusiasm, they inspire their teams and boost creativity. If your client is a highly energetic person with out-of-the-box thinking, high perception, strategic thinking skills, and a passion for change, a visionary leader stands in front of you!

Coaching Leadership

A leader that follows a coaching leadership style is like a mentor: they create deep relationships with their team members, and through discussion, guidance, and proper delegation, they help them reach their full potential.

A coaching leader is patient, supportive, inspiring, and values learning. Needless to say, they have amazing coaching skills themselves. The only downside of this leadership style is that it requires significant time involvement, so it may not be the best choice for leaders with very large teams.

Transactional Leadership

A transactional leader is strongly focused on short-term goals and follows a carrot-or-stick approach to motivate their teams to achieve their goals. This leadership style also includes mentoring or training to enable employees to reach their goals and improve their performance. It doesn’t, however, promote creativity.

Pacesetting Leadership

The pacesetter leadership style is similar to transactional, as it’s about setting goals and reaching them fast. Pacesetting leadership works in fast-paced environments and is a good fit for competent, sharp individuals who work well under pressure. However, following this leadership style can quickly exhaust a team and lead to burnout.

Autocratic (Authoritarian) Leadership

The autocratic leader likes to make decisions independently or with the advice of a selected few. This style might suit heavily regulated industries, where employee creativity is not required, and there’s little room for initiatives anyway.

Other than that, it’s a rather strict and inflexible leadership style that doesn’t promote a positive workplace. This type of leadership fits clients with high confidence, critical thinking, and decision-making skills, who are also excellent communicators.

Bureaucratic Leadership

The bureaucratic leadership style resembles the autocratic in that leaders expect their employees to follow procedures and guidelines, suppressing creativity strictly.

This style, too, is more suitable for industries like healthcare, where following procedures matters the most. If your client bears a strong resemblance to Dwight Schrute, they’re born a bureaucratic leader.

9 Essential Leadership Coaching Topics to Cover

Leadership coaching is not about technical skills and textbook knowledge. It’s about building character traits and competencies.

Let’s see the topics that you shouldn’t miss from your leadership training program:

1. Communication
2. Influencing People
3. Negotiation
4. Accountability
5. Diversity and Inclusion
6. Emotional Intelligence
7. Change Management
8. Strategic Thinking
9. Self-Awareness

1Communication

Communication is at the core of effective leadership. Can you imagine a leader that feels awkward speaking to large teams and sounds hesitant and sheepish? Or one that comes on too strong?

A leader should inspire trust and respect. They need to get things done by energizing their teams with their speech and not by intimidating them. And let’s not forget that leaders need to maintain good relationships with stakeholders, external collaborators, and clients. They also need to network. And as they do that, they represent the whole company.

Focus on teaching your client how to speak with confidence and use the right tone of voice for each situation. Body language also plays a massive part in how other people perceive you, so make sure to touch on non-verbal communication.

2Influencing People

Leaders may have all the great ideas they want, but what good is it if they can’t get their teams on board? Being able to influence others is more than making people see your point – it’s making them change their views and even their way of thinking. And that’s a powerful trait that only the best leaders possess.

3Negotiation

A leader who knows how to negotiate has better chances of achieving their strategic goals and closing beneficial business deals. Negotiation skills are also essential in every business relationship and workplace situation. A masterful negotiator can maintain peace in the workplace by effectively managing conflict and delegating correctly.

Negotiation skills are complicated. They require a combination of traits and skills, like confidence, assertiveness, active listening, and even emotional intelligence. To teach negotiation skills, you will need to do many role-playing exercises with your client to see how they handle the situation when things don’t go as expected.

4Accountability

Accountability should be a two-way street in every company. Leaders are often willing to hold their teams accountable, but they don’t show the same eagerness to take responsibility for their own decisions.

Lack of accountability is perceived as cowardice and dishonesty. It’s a lack of transparency, so naturally, it creates mistrust. Apart from setting a bad example for all teams, a leader who shies away from their share of responsibility is often resented.

Accountability can set a leader apart. To develop a sense of accountability in aspiring leaders, you can use the victim vs. player framework.

According to this, a person with a victim mindset attributes mishaps and failures to external, uncontrollable factors. Someone with a player mindset recognizes their role in shaping situations and takes responsibility for their part.

The victim vs. player framework helps aspiring leaders develop accountability, assertiveness, and a can-do attitude.

5Diversity and Inclusion

The workplace has changed dramatically over the past few years. One of the changes that have occurred is that leaders have now put diversity and inclusion high on their agenda. This is part of the shift towards a more positive workplace, where employees find more respect and understanding than they did before. Inclusivity is key to retention, as people tend to stay where they feel they belong and where they matter – and employees are no exception.

Creating a truly inclusive workplace is challenging, mainly because it’s not a one-person job. Leaders can lead the way to a more inclusive workplace by creating the right environment and offering relevant training to their employees. They also need to be open to hearing their employees’ needs regarding these issues and take action.

6Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is a highly desired trait for everyone, let alone business leaders who have to interact with different teams and people and manage high-stake situations. Emotionally intelligent leaders bond with their teams, maintain the workplace’s balance and prevent friction. An emotionally intelligent leader is empathetic, but they also know how to set boundaries and objectively assess situations.

It’s not easy to cultivate these qualities in a person. Your client will need to do a lot of self-reflection, starting by observing how they feel and react to situations. Apart from a lot of work themselves, a life coach can also help a client struggling with emotional intelligence.

7Change Management

Change in the workplace is inevitable and even desirable, as it is often synonymous with progress. Ideally, leaders should keep their eyes open and be part of this change. Things out of their control will always happen, though. And when they do, they need to be agile and resourceful to help their teams to go through the transition smoother.

To handle change and challenging situations, leaders also need to be resilient. Building resilience and adaptability, both necessary to manage change, is a transformational journey that requires a massive shift in a person’s mentality. What you can do on your part is to guide your client toward positive thinking and stress management techniques to cope better.

8Strategic Thinking

Apart from keeping team morale high, leaders also move their teams forward by developing the right business strategy. This means they need to be observant and informed about their industry and the market. A leader with strong strategic thinking skills takes calculated decisions, can predict challenges, and has a plan B for any situation.

9Self-Awareness

Having self-awareness will help your clients through every step of their journey. Self-aware leaders know their strengths and weaknesses and are better equipped to deal with challenges and criticism.

Creating Your Leadership Coaching Program: 101

Now that we’ve covered the theory, let’s move on to the part where you build your online coaching academy. This process consists of three steps:

• Building your leadership development course
• Creating your website
• Promoting your online coaching school

Let’s see all this in detail.

Choose Your Coaching Platform

The first thing you need to do to start selling coaching online is choosing a coaching platform. We suggest LearnWorlds as top coaching platform for leadership coaching:

Think about how you want your online coaching academy to be. Next, look for a platform with the features you need to create your academy as you picture it.

Let us share a few ideas of what the ideal online coaching should allow you to do:

• Host online coaching sessions with your clients. Sometimes, you’ll need to have your coaching conversations online, either because the client is busy or because they are far. It should be as easy as possible!
• Reuse learning material you already have, like an eBook you’ve written or a recorded webinar.
• Host webinars and other online events to bring your clients together and spread knowledge to a broader audience.
• Create engaging new content, like eBooks, interactive videos, and quizzes.
• Create a social learning community where clients can interact and share advice and personal experiences.
• Build a mobile app, so your busy clients can access resources on the go. A mobile app also increases engagement with the course via in-app notifications. You can use notifications to communicate new content or offers and send reminders to join live events.
• Offer certificates to increase the value of your program. A certificate is an excellent marketing tool for both parties. The client can showcase their certificate on their resume as an additional qualification, and you can use it to attract more clients. It also gives you a legitimate reason to increase the price of your coaching packages.
• Build a branded and beautiful website that conveys your service quality and reflects your personality and coaching approach.
• Market your courses effectively by creating coupons and offers and via affiliate marketing programs and email marketing. SEO optimization also helps increase the visibility of your website and rank higher on search results.
• Create built-in surveys that you can use as you wish: to conduct a first client assessment, as a marketing tool to convert a website visitor, or to get feedback about your online academy.
• Monitor via advanced reports how your clients and online learners are progressing through their courses and how they engage with the content.
• Sell your coaching packages flexibly, separately, in bundles, or subscriptions.
• Accept payments via multiple payment gateways.

LearnWorlds is the course creation platform that offers all these features and many more! Design a fully branded online academy, host your online coaching sessions, and offer your clients all the resources they need to succeed, all in one place.

Develop Content

If you have the tools, you have no excuse! Using LearnWorlds, you can build an amazing leadership coaching program that includes the following:

• eBooks that you can use as lead magnets too. Giving away a free eBook on your website is an excellent way to get emails from potential customers and give everyone a taste of your knowledge. Apart from that, eBooks are a great educational tool.
• Videos for your visual learners. Unfortunately, not everyone enjoys reading books – plus, usually easier to get your point across via video than text. Enter our favorite and versatile video. Add interactive elements to your videos to liven them up, like pop-up questions. You can also communicate an offer or a related course. And, don’t forget to add watermarks to protect the copyright of your video.
• Quizzes and assignments. You can create quizzes and assignments that your clients can use more as self-reflection and self-assessment tools. For example, you can create hypothetical situations and give them several options to handle them best.
• Online events. Organize online events to better engage with your clients and build an audience. Create special offers so that clients can join your webinar with a friend. Host mastermind groups where clients can learn and get support from each other. This higher level of interactivity will breathe new life into your coaching program and help you expand your audience.
• Self-assessments. You’ll need to schedule several sessions with your client to review their progress and reevaluate your action plan. At the same time, your leadership development program should be flexible because your coachees are as busy as a person can be. Scheduling your coaching sessions online is the best way to add flexibility to your program without sacrificing efficiency.

Build Your Website

Your website is where you’ll introduce yourself to your clients and sell your online courses. Here’s how to build a professional website that is worthy of your quality services:

• Create a custom domain name that is easy to remember.
• Include a short bio. Win over first-time visitors by letting them know a little about your qualifications, the way you work, and your values.
• Optimize for search engines. Add keywords relevant to your niche on your landing pages so that clients can discover your online academy via Google searches.
• Present your courses. Your courses are the most important element of your website. Offer a quick preview and include the course curriculum with clearly defined learning objectives, so clients understand how they will benefit from your leadership coaching program.
• Create a blog. Writing a blog is an excellent way to show that you’re an experienced professional who knows what they’re doing and wants to share their wisdom with clients. If keeping up with a blog is too much work for you, you can always hire a writer.
• Offer a freebie. Usually, an eBook or even a brief course are effective ways to hook your website visitors, get their emails, and showcase your expertise.
• Use pop-up widgets. Communicate your offers via pop-ups and add a countdown clock if you want to add a sense of urgency. Promote new or upcoming courses. You can even use widgets as a prompt to schedule a free consultation or send a link with a free assessment questionnaire.
• Add testimonials. Most people like to get a second opinion, and testimonials give prospective clients precisely that. Give them reliable proof of what you can do to gain their trust!
• Connect your social media accounts. Stay connected with existing clients and prospects on social media. Even if they’re not ready to buy right now, they will be interested in having you on their news feed.

Choose How You Want to Sell Your Courses

Are you going to sell your courses as one-off products? Or would you like to create a membership site? Let’s see the options you’ve got.

• Stand-alone courses and bundles. With this approach, your client can access the courses of their choice. If you have courses that complement each other, you can offer them in bundles, which is a more cost-effective and comprehensive option for the client.
• Subscriptions. You can also create a membership site and sell courses with subscriptions. Create different subscription plans, so clients have access to more resources. This model has the added benefit of creating a recurring stream of revenue.

Market Your Online Coaching Academy

Marketing your online coaching academy is an ongoing effort. Here are a few ideas to start with:

• Affiliate marketing: Third parties can help increase your sales without you lifting a finger!
• Email marketing: Stay in touch with your prospects and let them know about offers and upcoming courses. Convert leads into customers with well-timed emails.
• Paid ads: Paid ads will also help you widen your reach fast.
• Network: Never miss a chance to join an event where you can draw potential clients, share your expertise, or meet other coaches.
• Be active on social media: Maintaining a solid social media presence is essential. Being active on social media shows you’re actively involved in your profession and have things to share.

So…Are You Going to Lead the Way?

Creating an online leadership coaching academy is an intelligent business move for a leadership coach. Offering coaching in a hybrid model, holding sessions in person and others online, will also help your clients unload their busy schedules. This way, you can reach more clients and maximize your revenue.

LearnWorlds, with its fully customizable website templates, advanced learning features, and marketing tools, allows you to create a leadership coaching academy that stands out. Reach clients everywhere and increase your profit by taking your business online today!

Further reading you might find interesting:

• 18 Amazing Outline Templates to use in Course Design [3 Downloadables]
• How to Create and Sell Profitable Online Courses: Step-by-Step Guide
• Introducing the Most Advanced Online School Site Builder
• How Much Money Can You Make Selling Online Courses?
• Women’s Leadership Coaching 101: Teach Female Executives
  
• 6 Popular Coaching Models for Your Online Coaching Business
  
• Make Money Selling Coaching Online: Your 2022 Guide to Success
  

Androniki Koumadoraki

Androniki is a Content Writer at LearnWorlds sharing Instructional Design and marketing tips. With solid experience in B2B writing and technical translation, she is passionate about learning and spreading knowledge. She is also an aspiring yogi, a book nerd, and a talented transponster.