Organizations of all sizes are investing in executive coaching to help talented managers reach their potential. Although there are many different kinds of coaches and coaching, roughly half of executive coaches have a background that includes an advanced degree in psychology or a related discipline.
I'm often asked how one can get into the field of executive coaching, both by graduate students and by clinicians who are looking to diversify their practices by consulting to the corporate world. To people who are interested in getting into coaching, it seems that there is a Catch-22 in that if one doesn't have experience in coaching, it's hard to get opportunities to coach.
My suggestions for how to overcome this hurdle are twofold- first of all, seek out training, and secondly, practice an "If you do anything well enough for free, sooner or later someone will pay you to do it" philosophy.
One place to start is to enroll in a formal coaching program coaching, offered by organizations such as iCoach or CoachU. These programs can offer a solid grounding in coaching and confer the benefit of learning from experienced coaches.
Another strategy, particularly for current graduate students, is to volunteer to provide feedback to business school students. Many MBA and Executive MBA programs provide "360 degree feedback" to their students, and some utilize executive coaches to give feedback and help the business school students understand their reports, for example, the Columbia Business School Program on Social Intelligence.
If your university doesn't have a business school, you may want to look into nearby universities that do have business schools to see if they have coaching programs that you can volunteer at. If your business school doesn't have a coaching program, you may want to try to create a feedback program, perhaps by enlisting experienced coaches in your area who would be willing to volunteer to give feedback to MBA students while simultaneously mentoring graduate students in how to provide feedback.
Finally, informal mentorships can provide opportunities to learn about coaching. Although executive coaches usually don't feel comfortable letting interns or students sit in on individual meetings, there can be opportunities for coaches to invite mentees to executive education programs where coaching is discussed in groups. By observing how experienced coaches teach groups about how to learn from feedback and to build professional capabilities, students and interns gain a foundation for doing coaching themselves.
For additional suggestions about how students in, and graduates of, psychology programs can gain experience in coaching, see this article from GradPsych.
