Positive psychology leadership coaching experience in a financial organisation
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Authors
Cilliers, Frans
Issue Date
2011
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Abstract
Orientation: Organisations are practising leadership coaching more and more from a positive
psychology perspective, yielding positive results. The current qualitative research focused
on this coaching using work engagement, learned resourcefulness, sense of coherence, selfactualisation
and locus of control as constructs. Although the researcher could find no previous
research on this combination of constructs, the findings did link to previous studies with other
constructs and combinations.
Research purpose: The purpose of this research was to describe the positive psychology
leadership coaching experiences of leaders in a large financial organisation.
Motivation for the study: The researcher addressed the organisation’s need to develop
leadership by structuring and presenting a coaching programme. He chose positive psychology
as the paradigm and experiential learning as the method to meet the organisation’s goal of
enabling its leaders to take up their roles with self-awareness, internal motivation and effective
interpersonal connections.
Research design, approach and method: The researcher used a qualitative and descriptive
research design with a case study. Leaders attended ten experiential leadership-coaching
sessions over three months. The sessions focused on work engagement, learned resourcefulness,
sense of coherence, self-actualisation values and locus of control. The data gathering consisted
of the coach’s field notes and the participants’ reflective essays, which they wrote after the last
coaching session. The researcher analysed the data using discourse analysis.
Main findings: The manifesting themes were the coaching context, engagement in roles,
understanding role complexity, emotional self-awareness and demands, self-authorisation and
inability to facilitate the growth of others.
Contribution/value-add: Although intrapersonal awareness increased significantly, leaders
struggled with the interpersonal complexity of the leadership role. Positive psychology
leadership coaching should refine the operationalisation of interpersonal effectiveness.
Practical/managerial implications: Organisations should integrate the methodology of
leadership coaching with leadership development interventions to expose leaders to better
intrapersonal awareness and functioning.
Description
Citation
Cilliers FVN. (2011) Positive psychology leadership coaching experience in a financial organisation. SA JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL PSYCHOLOGY 37(1)
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ISSN
0258-5200