Coaching for Impact: Dr. John Schaffner on the Future of Leadership Development
Jen Knox Shanahan sits down with Dr. John Schaffner to discuss a new Professional Coaching Certification Program being offered by Fisher College of Business and the unique value to leaders of cultivating a strong foundation in coaching in 2026 and beyond.
Jen Knox Shanahan (JKS): You’re launching a new coaching certification program. What inspired the development of this program, and why is now the right time for Fisher College of Business to launch it?
Dr. John Schaffner (JS): Leadership has always required judgment, adaptability, and the ability to bring out the best in other people. But I think those capacities matter even more now. Leaders are navigating AI, hybrid work, rapid change, increasingly complex organizations, and a workforce that is asking different questions about purpose, growth, and what they expect from their leaders.
In that environment, leaders cannot simply have the answers. They need to know how to create the kinds of conversations in which people can think, learn, and discover answers for themselves. That is fundamentally what great coaching does.
Fisher is an ideal place to build this program because coaching sits at the intersection of leadership, organizational behavior, adult development, and real-world management practice. Our ambition is not simply to teach people a set of coaching techniques. We want to develop thoughtful, evidence-based practitioners who can help individuals and organizations navigate complexity and grow.
JKS: Who is this certification program designed for, and what kinds of professionals will benefit most from completing it?
JS: We designed the program for people who want coaching to become a meaningful part of how they lead and work with others.
That includes leaders and executives who want to become more developmental in their leadership; HR and talent professionals who are building coaching capability inside organizations; physicians and healthcare leaders working in extraordinarily complex environments; consultants and organizational-development professionals; and people who want to develop coaching as a professional practice.
They may arrive with very different professional backgrounds, but they share something important: curiosity about people and a desire to become better at helping others think, grow, and move forward.
JKS: What distinguishes this program?
JS: Three things stand out: evidence, experience, and practice.
First, the program is grounded in the science of leadership, coaching, emotional and social intelligence, adult development, and behavior change. Participants should understand not only what good coaches do, but why those approaches work.
Second, this is highly experiential. Coaching cannot really be learned by sitting in a classroom and taking notes. Participants will coach, be coached, observe coaching, receive feedback, reflect on their own behavior, and try again.
And third, we are intentionally building a community of practice. Participants will learn alongside faculty and practitioners who have coached and developed leaders in business, healthcare, education, and other complex organizations. The cohort itself becomes an important part of the learning.
Our goal is to create something rigorous without making it rigid—academically grounded, deeply human, and immediately useful.
JKS: What does the curriculum look like, and how does it balance evidence-based theory with real-world coaching practice?
JS: The curriculum moves from foundation, to integration, to impact.
Participants begin by developing the fundamentals: listening, inquiry, emotional and social intelligence, establishing trust, understanding human motivation and behavior change, and learning the ethical and professional foundations of coaching.
But fairly quickly, we move from learning about coaching to actually coaching. Participants work with real clients, receive observation and feedback, participate in supervision and reflection, and gradually develop their own coaching presence and judgment.
One of the ideas underneath the entire program is a learning cycle of Observe → Learn → Practice → Reflect → Experiment. We want participants constantly moving between research and experience—trying something, examining what happened, learning from it, and returning to practice with greater awareness.
That is how expertise develops. It is not the accumulation of models. As the statistician George Box famously observed, “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” Leadership and coaching are model-rich fields. We want participants to know the models, but more importantly, to develop the wisdom to know when and how to use them.
JKS: Beyond credentials, what will participants walk away with?
JS: Beyond a well-earned credential, they will certainly leave with coaching frameworks, tools, extensive practice, feedback, and a pathway toward professional coaching competence. But the deeper outcome is a different way of engaging with people.
Great coaches learn to slow down their assumptions. They become more curious. They listen differently. They become more comfortable not immediately having the answer. And they learn how to create conditions in which another person can see something they could not see before.
Those capacities extend far beyond a formal coaching conversation. They change how you lead a team, develop talent, navigate conflict, mentor someone, work with a patient or colleague, and sometimes even how you show up at home.
Ultimately, we are not simply trying to produce more coaches. We are developing people who can create better conversations—and through those conversations, better leaders, stronger organizations, and meaningful change.
Click here to learn more about the Professional Coaching Certification Program or reach out to Dr. John Schaffner at schaffner.50@osu.edu.
