New Leipzig Talents Coaching Program

HHL alumni join NLT program as coaches

Coaching is like a “holding environment” that provides the environment to explore personal issues. Which competencies are important to me? How do I handle challenges that turn my own comfort zone upside down? Coaching gives an opportunity to pause for a moment. For anyone wishing to take the next step, it might be helpful to take the time to explore different perspectives, choices of action, and resources of growth.

The New Leipzig Talents coaching program

New Leipzig Talents (NLT), supported by BMW Leipzig and Dr. Arend Oetker, wants to provide just this space of reflection and advancement in an extra-curricular program. Many students learn about coaching as a tool for addressing self-perceived weaknesses, possible potentials or even desires for the first time during their NLT coaching. Thinking one step ahead, it can also be an impactful tool to use in a later leadership position.

Six-month program with a personal coach

NLT participants are individually accompanied by an experienced coach for over six months and participate in additional group workshops. One guide along this learning path is the Leipzig Leadership Model, which has much to say to students who are making their way into the future. The Model helps to become aware of the dimensions where a leader can make a positive difference. For example, it highlights the idea that entrepreneurial action is never self-sufficient but closely linked to challenges of responsibility and the impact on the common good.

In fall 2020, 23 students from both the Master in Management as well as the MBA programs started the NLT coaching. By now, 105 students have joined the program. NLT meets the need of many students for support on various concerns that cannot be addressed in a pure career coaching process. Looking back, NLT is seen by many as a valuable experience from their time at HHL.

A shift to online coaching

However, given the pandemic, coaching happens primarily online now. Not only is online coaching a trend today, it also offers advantages for NLT as it is very flexible in terms of location. A coach based in Munich can easily work with a coachee from, for example, a part-time class in Cologne.

And that is the great thing about NLT, it connects people who otherwise would hardly have met each other. It wants to be a place for in-depth exchange which helps people to move ahead. However, to really be able to provide this, the number of participants is limited per year. With a number of our alumni we stay in touch even after their coaching and it is exciting to see how they move on.

NLT coaches share their expertise

NLT coaches are engaged on an honorary basis and they all share the goal of allowing students to have a coaching experience. They are the ones who make the program possible and fill it with life. All of them are great personalities and we are grateful for their strong commitment to creating such an outstanding supportive learning environment.

HHL Alumni as coaches

It makes us especially proud to also have HHL alumni among our coaches. In the blog interviews, they share insights on their approach to coaching with Prof. Timo Meynhardt and Psychologist Martina Beermann, who together launched NLT in 2016.