A growing number of organizations recognize the value in using coaching and coaching-skills training to support emerging leaders. This is a natural fit, given that respondents to a 2017 survey conducted by the Human Capital Institute (HCI) and International Coach Federation (ICF) rated coaching and developing others as the most valuable competency for first-time people managers.

An innovative program at Rice University in Houston, Texas, is introducing emerging leaders to coaching and coaching skills before they earn their undergraduate degree, laying the foundation for a coaching approach to management and leadership that will transform the way they work. The Ann and John Doerr Institute for New Leaders (DINL) at Rice University was founded with the aim of transforming how students are developed as leaders in top-tier colleges and universities. All Rice students have access to a personalized leadership development experience on a scope and scale unprecedented among major universities in the United States. Since DINL’s founding in 2015, coaching has played a key role in this experience.

DINL conducted 185 interviews with Rice students, faculty, and stakeholders and found that honoring students’ diversity and academic demands was essential. By incorporating coaching, DINL could maximize students’ control over their own development agendas.

Coaching also allows students to contextualize extracurricular activities in an educational environment by assessing available leadership opportunities, intentionally connecting them, and considering how to develop themselves into the leaders they want to be.

DINL rigorously upholds the standards established by ICF. Its largest non-salary budget item offers every student an ICF-credentialed coach. As ICF credential-holders, all DINL coaches have met stringent education and experience requirements and have demonstrated a thorough understanding of the coaching competencies that set the standard in the profession. They’re also obliged to uphold the ICF Code of Ethics.

In just 18 months, 23 percent of Rice’s undergraduate population had been coached. Coaching is also available to faculty and staff, including all senior leaders of the university.

DINL also encourages students to contribute to the growth of a strong coaching culture at Rice University. To this end, DINL developed a 60-hour coach-specific training program for students. The training is accredited by ICF, which means that it has submitted its curriculum for review and has been found to align with ICF’s Code of Ethics and Core Competencies. The program and its leaders are also obliged to follow a stringent Code of Conduct. As of August 2017, 25 undergraduate students had completed the training program and were employed by the university as Peer Leader Developers while they pursued their own ICF credentials.

Rice is a research university, so data collection has been part of the coaching initiative from the beginning. Student-clients complete pre- and post-engagement questionnaires as well as a survey after every coaching session. Coaches complete surveys after training sessions and at the end of each coaching engagement.

Since it is DINL’s mission to develop a student’s capacity to lead, the institute is always considering additional ways to measure students’ growth. DINL has begun evaluating students’ leadership goals, examining their coaching readiness and assessing longer-term impacts of coaching on students, which will be measured through their willingness to serve and ability to succeed in leadership roles at Rice and beyond. DINL also plans to survey alumni to evaluate the leadership opportunities they have pursued, professionally and personally.

In recognition of DINL’s commitment to coaching, ICF named the organization one of five finalists in the 2017 ICF International Prism Award program. The Prism Award program recognizes organizations with outstanding coaching programs that yield discernible and measurable positive impacts, fulfill rigorous professional standards, address key strategic goals, and shape organizational culture. Learn more about the Prism Award and read case studies from past honorees at coachfederation.org/prism-award.