Carel D. Jansen van Vuuren, Marieta du Plessis, Jose. Frantz
Abstract
Higher education (HE) is continuously changing. In this context, universities need to capacitate academics with the required skills, attitudes and resilience. The University of the Western Cape has embarked on a leadership development initiative that includes coaching to capacitate and support mid-career academics as research leaders. A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive research design was utilised with purposive sampling, as only the participants of the relevant leadership development programme were included in the study. Semi-structured interviews were used to gather the data. This paper investigated how academics experience receiving coaching and their perceived personal benefits of leadership development. The subjective cognitive and emotional learning manifested, firstly, in personality profiling and, secondly, in coaching resolving unique challenges experienced by the participants. Four distinct thematic areas of benefits emerged from the research findings, namely self-awareness, empowerment to work with others, advantages in the workplace and personal life advantages. The research contributes insights into the advantages of employing coaching in leadership development programmes. The research findings suggest distinct advantages for HE institutions to employ coaching as an integral component of leadership development.