The fall 2026 Leadership Coaching for Organizational Performance (LCOP) cohort is now enrolling!

You’ll spend 12 days over five months fast-tracking your path to ICF certification through NC State’s ICF-accredited Level 2 program, but here’s what you’ll leave with beyond the credential.

1. A cohort that becomes a network

The cohort is capped, and admission is selective, which means you spend five months practicing on and being coached by the same small group of experienced professionals. That is a design decision, not a scheduling accident. You cannot build coaching skills in a lecture hall, and you cannot build trust with a hundred strangers. What graduates describe afterward is not a class they took. It is a group of people they still call. Rachel Lieblich, who runs Sage Heart Coaching and graduated in 2024, put it this way: “It’s not a long program; you’re only together with your cohort for a few months. However, in that short period of time, my cohort developed a deep trust and respect for each other.”

2. ICF membership from day one

Because LCOP is an ICF Level 2 accredited program, you are eligible to join ICF International from your first day of class. You do not wait until graduation to be part of the professional body that governs this field. Upon completion of the program, you may join the ICF Raleigh Chapter. That is not a small distinction. Chapter membership is where referrals, mentor coaching relationships, and local practice opportunities actually live, and joining in September rather than the following February gives you five extra months of showing up as a member rather than a student. Membership dues are set by ICF and are the member’s own cost.

3. An NC State alumni network

LCOP is not a workshop run by a training company that may or may not exist in five years. It is a program of NC State University, delivered by Continuing and Lifelong Education, and completing it connects you to a university network spanning industries and decades. That matters in two practical ways. The credential carries the institution’s name when you present it to a hiring manager or a prospective client. And the people you meet through the university are not all coaches, which is exactly why the network is useful.

4. An LCOP Slack community

There is a Slack community for LCOP participants and graduates. It is the difference between finishing a program and staying in a practice. Coaching questions do not arrive on a schedule, and the ones that matter tend to show up months after the training, when you are in front of a real client, and something unexpected happens. Having a channel full of people who trained the way you trained, who you can ask that afternoon, is worth more than another module would have been.

5. Support building your coaching hours

Getting to 100 logged coaching hours for the Associate Coach Certification (ACC) credential while working a full-time job and with no obvious source of clients is where most newly trained coaches stall out. NC State will support you in facilitating coaching clients after completing the program, so you can confidently fulfill 10 hours toward earning your ACC or PCC requirements.

Ready to get started?

Learn more about LCOP by visiting our website or scheduling a one-on-one conversation with our program advisor, Betsy Arthur-Goodwin, and get started coaching with confidence today.