The role of coaching in leadership and professional development at a pharmaceutical company in Cape Town

Abstract

Coaching becomes of considerable importance where organizations need to rely on the ability of their leaders to better understand the attitudes and subsequent manifested behaviours of their employees. In a climate and a context of constant change, operating in a VUCA1 world, coaching has become a modality which help employees shape the desired behaviours and guide them to flex their thinking to generate their own possibilities. Therefore, the use of coaching as a learning and development activity continues to rise in the 21st century workplace. The purpose of the present study was to assess the perceived effectiveness of coaching. 94 employees from a selected pharmaceutical organization in the Western Cape Province took part in the study. The study employed a quantitative research design. 94 employees from a pharmaceutical organization took part in the study. Convenience sampling was used to select the employees due to the nature of their jobs. Data was collected using a self-developed instrument with 10 items. Example items were: (1) My day-to-day leadership style has improved as a result of adopting a coaching approach; (2) My listening and questioning techniques have improved since adopting a coaching approach. Item and dimensional analyses were conducted using the SPSS software to determine the reliability of the self-developed instrument. The instrument was found to be reliable and uni-dimensional. Frequencies were calculated for the different responses given by the employees to determine the efficacy of coaching. The frequencies were based on their level of agreement to the statements in the questionnaire.