Orientation: Coaching has the potential to align the expectations between young millennial professionals and their organisations as coaching in a business context should result in mutually beneficial outcomes valued by both the coachee and the organisation.Research purpose: The research reported in this article explored how coaching contributes to the alignment of the psychological contract between an organisation and the young millennial professional.Motivation for the study: The work-related preferences and expectations of millennials can result in misalignment in the psychological contract between organisations and young millennial professionals, negatively affecting their level of engagement; performance and tenure. There is a paucity of research into building psychological contract mutuality and the coaching of millennials.Research approach/design and method: A phenomenological approach within a qualitative research design was followed. This included semi-structured interviews with seven young millennial professionals who had been coached and email interviews with five coaches who had coached young millennial professionals.Main findings: Coaching can enhance the psychological contract between young millennial professionals and their organisations, particularly with regard to career development. Alignment in expectations regarding career development may result in improved performance; enhanced affective commitment and lower turnover.Practical/managerial implications: Coaching is a viable strategy for organisations to engage and retain their young millennial professionals by cultivating psychological contract alignment in the employer-employee relationship.Contribution/value-add: This research supplements the limited body of knowledge on building psychological contract mutuality and coaching efficacy for young millennials.

Orientation: Multi-stakeholder contracting provides a platform for the coaching stakeholders: the individual being coached (client), the organisation (sponsor and line manager) and the coach for achieving aligned outcomes within executive coaching. Contracting is not optimally implemented by stakeholders in all three phases of executive coaching (commencement, execution and conclusion).Research purpose: The research’s purpose was to develop a guiding framework for multi-stakeholder contracting in each of the three phases of coaching.Motivation for the study: Stakeholders ensure outcomes achievement for the individual and the organisation in executive coaching. Limited research exists relating to the contractual elements and practices implemented by stakeholders during the three phases of coaching.Research approach/design and method: A qualitative, inductive, exploratory approach using purposive sampling was used to identify 12 participants, consisting of three: executive coaches, clients, line managers and sponsors from three corporate organisations. Participants were interviewed using a customised interview guide categorised into the three coaching phases.Main findings: Findings showed that contracting was included at the commencement coaching phase. The study indicated the advantages of contracting in all three coaching phases with all stakeholders emphasising phase-specific accountabilities.Practical/managerial implications: A guiding framework for multi-stakeholder contracting for each of the three phases of coaching could assist stakeholders; in particular human resource practitioners when contracting for executive coaching.Contribution/value-add: Outcomes alignment at the commencement phase, agreement on progress and results feedback during the execution and conclusion phases are enabled by implementing the guiding framework for multi-stakeholder contracting offered by this research.

Orientation: Coaching is sometimes used in organisations to assist and support people when they are promoted into senior leadership positions. These coaching interventions are not optimally designed.Research purpose: The objective of this research was to investigate how a transition coaching intervention should be designed to cater specifically for people promoted into senior leadership positions.Motivation for the study: Leaders face daunting challenges when promoted into a senior position. Coaching could offer powerful support, but very little research exists on how to design a transition coaching intervention specifically aimed at supporting recently promoted senior leaders.Research design, approach and method: A constructivist, grounded theory approach using purposeful, theoretical sampling was used to identify 16 participants (recently promoted senior leaders, coaches, Human Resource [HR] partners and a line manager) from various organisations with whom open-ended interviews were conducted on their experiences of coaching during a transition.Main findings: Transition coaching is used reactively, started too late and was not continued for long enough. Transition coaching design should take cognisance of coach–coachee matching; goal setting that includes the organisation’s goals; location of coaching session (away from the office); should include reflection and active experimentation; and use assessments and involving the line manager, mentors and the new leader’s team in the process.Practical and managerial implications: The findings of this research provide practical recommendations for applying coaching during transitions into senior leadership positions and may be useful to human resource practitioners when designing leadership support and succession planning interventions.Contribution and value added: To address the serious and real possibility of failure once leaders are promoted, and to optimise the time and money spent on coaching during career transitions, this research provides insight into the design and execution of tailor-made transition coaching interventions to help recently promoted senior leaders succeed in their new role.

Students often battle to complete the research component of postgraduate studies. This challenge may be due to postgraduate students having a primary interest in theoretical and practical knowledge rather than research in the era of credential inflation. Research leaders may embark on researcher development initiatives but unless both parties in the postgraduate supervision relationship are considered, these interventions may not achieve their aim. Student research challenges were explored from both student and supervisor perspectives using an Interactive Qualitative Analysis research design. Through conducting four focus groups and 14 individual interviews, issues emerged related to educational input, support and identity development. Findings revealed contrasting student and supervisor views on research challenges. Identification of both perspectives of research challenges led to the formulation of a framework of strategies for multi-level researcher development. These strategies could guide researcher development activities and contribute to ensuring accountability, enhancing quality, ensuring timely completion of postgraduate studies.

Purpose: There is a need for leading with integrity to contribute to sustainable effectiveness and performance in the organisational context. The purpose of this research was to provide insight into the elements that could facilitate the development of leaders’ awareness of integrity to support positive leader outcomes.Design/methodology/approach: Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was the research design, and purposive, convenience sampling was utilised to select six leaders. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with these leaders and reflective notes of the researcher as coach to explore leaders’ experience of the contribution of coaching to the development of awareness of integrity.Findings/results: Based on the experiences of these leaders, the findings suggest that even a small number of coaching sessions using a strengths-based approach contributed towards an increase in awareness of the importance of integrity. Positive leader outcomes were also identified. The study supports the use of a strengths-based approach to coaching, such as a solution-focussed cognitive-behavioural (SF-CB) approach, whilst coaching leaders.Practical implications: The findings have implications for organisations and coaches. The findings confirm the selection of coaching as a suitable intervention to develop awareness of integrity and achieve positive leader outcomes. Findings provide evidence to guide human resources professionals whilst deciding on an appropriate intervention for leader development. In addition, coaches could base their selection of an approach on the evidence supporting the use of an SF-CB coaching approach in the context of developing leaders’ awareness of the importance of integrity.Originality/value: The findings highlight the efficacy of using a strengths-based approach – specifically an SF-CB approach – to increase leaders’ awareness of integrity and drive positive leader outcomes.