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This paper aims to report on a case study conducted in a private medical partnership of more than 50 specialist physicians where the researcher applied a leadership coaching model grounded in existential philosophy. The paper asserts that existential leadership coaching can be a novel and effective means to address leadership development needs in the unique context of a professional partnership.

The qualitative phenomenological study used a bounded case study design using four purposively selected specialist physicians who were involved in four individual structured coaching sessions over an eight-week period. Data came in writing from participants in the form of reflective questions before and after the coaching, and note-taking on index cards during the coaching process. Data also came from the coach/researcher as a participant observer in the form of note-taking and a reflective journal.

Findings indicate that working with perceptions of leadership in existential coaching conversations can provide a mechanism for members of a partnership to find greater purpose, and choose how they can contribute better to leadership development in their collective. Findings indicate that the process of imaging the perceptions of fellow partners can unlock the identification of and choice for developmental actions and contributions to the collective.

For the selected qualitative design, the researcher as the participant observer provided advantages such as insider access and depth of engagement. The study was limited to a small sample in a particular time and context. Findings are thus viewed in the light of this unique case.

Such a qualitative phenomenological case study provides glimpses into the lives of real-life leaders and offers the coaching, academic and medical fraternities an insider understanding of leadership development in the case of professional partnerships.

The paper points to a mechanism which may be a means to unlock potential and facilitate leadership development in the context of professional partnerships.

There is a hidden paradox inherent in the ideal of continuing professional development (CPD) for executive coaches, stemming from the fact that the coach wishes to retain or preserve the freshness and openness of a “beginner”, whilst also acquiring greater robustness and resilience in the face of difficult assignments. The paradox reminds us of the “castle and battlefield” metaphor of Roger Harrison: on the one hand a strong container is needed and on the other vulnerability to allow the coach to be affected and even hurt by the coaching experiences. The objective of this paper is to find ways of resolving this paradox, based on what coaches themselves say about critical moments in their practice.

A total of 69 critical moments as reported by 60 coaches are content‐analysed with the help of grounded research.

In the analysis a picture emerges of doubts (instrumental, relational and existential), which the coaching process opens up for coaches, and which CPD may help them become aware of, explore and lay to rest. The most promising methodology for doing this seems to be coaching supervision, conducted in the safest possible environment.

From this qualitative research by a single researcher inter‐rater reliabilities cannot (yet) be reported.

It emerges that what coaches need most from their CPD is robustness in the face of their instrumental and existential doubts, and vulnerability when it comes to their relational doubts.

With the growth of the executive coaching profession, there is increasing interest in the value of CPD for coaches. Executive coaches are embarking on CPD in large numbers, and are asking what is most relevant to them in their ongoing development. This paper offers empirical data that may inform CPD.

The major contribution of this paper is to propose a theoretical framework to coachee success and to identify the most relevant resources for coachee success.

This article attempts to determine the constructs of coaching success through a systematic literature review. The review identified 1,048,880 papers. From these, the authors selected 39 articles for the research. From these articles, the main elements of coaching success were identified.

The main elements of coaching success are coach quality, coachee engagement, coaching process, coaching reflection, behaviors resulting from coaching and coachee success. Coach quality, coaching process and coachee are often considered as key variables to success. Coachee's behavior is linked to performance but approaches to effectful coaching vary.

Coachee success is connected with the coach's emotional skills and the formality process. Success requires communication, interpersonal relationship, planning, goal setting and progress monitoring. An interplay between the coach and the coachee's emotional skills and the formality process enables success. In business, where employees usually work in their chosen profession, coaching is a tool for education and improvement that brings positive results to the organization.

On a personal level, it can lead to greater self-knowledge and to improvement in the quality of life. Coaching as a facilitator of the coachee's success must be more than a process in itself. It is a way of allowing the coachee to make a critical contribution in a broader context to an organizational culture that values human capital.

It contributes to the understanding of the mechanisms that lead to success in coaching. This systematic review adds to the few articles found on coachee success from over a million papers analyzed. It offers a proposed theoretical framework to coachee success, through a holistic approach.

In societies marked by inequality, organizations use management techniques and business strategies for sustainability, social impact and ethical activities, with stakeholders often promoting education to effectively address these challenges. This paper establishes an original relation between the development of social entrepreneurship and a deep philosophical comprehension of human existence. Going beyond conventional management theories, the authors demonstrate that specific existential ideas and other philosophical underpinnings provide powerful guiding principles, portraying entrepreneurship as a method to address the underlying social and environmental issues driving inequality.

This study is based on an analysis of relevant articles and is supported by qualitative research on social entrepreneurship. The stories of social entrepreneurs represent good practice in applying the values and insights discussed in modern approaches.

Social entrepreneurs are relentlessly seeking innovative pathways to develop their enterprises. Their intrinsic drive for social entrepreneurship and their unwavering commitment to solidarity are undeniably more aligned with philosophical approaches to management than with the confines of traditional positivist foundations.

Leveraging philosophical approaches that intricately resonate with the ethical and value-driven compass of social entrepreneurs, as opposed to the constraints of conventional managerial methods, holds immense potential in shaping the training and skill development of these impactful visionaries.

The authors' study unveils fresh insights into how social entrepreneurs adeptly navigate interpersonal connections, handle uncertainties and address the paradoxical situations intrinsic to their entrepreneurial efforts to confront social issues.

The aim of this paper is to assess highly toxic leaders and dysfunctional organizations as presented via management consulting and executive coaching assignments.

The paper employs an action research approach via two participant observer case studies incorporating the DSM IV‐TR: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

The paper finds that the nexus of dysfunctional organizational systems may be located in “pre‐existing” leadership pathologies.

First, additional research will be needed to confirm and extend the findings of individual pathologies in leaders to dysfunctional organizational systems; second, a closer look is necessary at the applicability of the DSM IV‐TR to pathologies at the organizational level; third, due to the action research, case study approach utilized, there is somewhat limited generalizability; fourth, there are limitations re: the applicability of DSM IV‐TR as an assessment tool for management researchers due to the necessity of training in clinical psychology.

The importance of distinguishing personality disorders in leaders from toxic behaviors falling within a range of “normal pathology,” and the ability to assess individual leadership pathology within organizational systems via the clinically trained usage of the DSM IV‐TR; providing clinical assessment tools for reducing the number of misdiagnoses of leadership pathology in the workplace; encouraging collaboration between management and psychology researchers and practitioners.

This paper fills a gap in the toxic organizations research by identifying personality disorders in leaders and providing an action research agenda for incorporating the DSM IV‐TR as a means of extending the repertoire of assessment tools;

The purpose of this study is to elicit and analyze experts’ perceptions of management and leadership competence (MLC) and likely MLC developments and requirements in hospital contexts by 2030.

A three-round, web-based Argument Delphi process was used to gather critically discussed opposing perceptions of 33 Finnish experts, which were subjected to inductive content analysis to identify themes.

Current deficiencies in MLC and several trends (e.g. an ongoing shift towards collaborative management) and required improvements (e.g. a need to adopt more holistic approaches) were identified. However, there were some conflicting perceptions, regarding for example the desirability of fixed-term positions for managers.

The findings provide qualitative indications of a group of Finnish experts’ perceptions of MLC and requirements for its development, elicited using the Argument Delphi Method. Thus, they are subject to the usual limitations of the applied methodology and should be generalized to other contexts cautiously.

The identification of current deficiencies and future requirements for MLC may facilitate the formulation of robust approaches for improving it in hospital contexts.

The findings may be useful for improving MLC in hospitals, thereby enhancing efficiency, teamwork, safety and client satisfaction in healthcare settings.

The Argument Delphi Method has been rarely used in health management science studies and healthcare context. It is intended to develop relevant arguments and reveal reasons for differing views about focal issues, thereby providing deeper understanding of experts’ perceptions of MLC and its likely development.

This paper consists of a case study that reports on a pedagogical intervention undertaken among a group of postgraduate students in the area of coaching. The purpose of this paper is to design an intervention to bridge the gulf between coaching theory and practice, a gap identified by coaching research and corroborated by professional practice students on the university course examined here.

The study gives an account of how literary fiction was used with a cohort of students as a source of hypothetical scenarios used to simulate workplace problems and as a simulative context in which coaching students could apply theoretical models to make-believe scenarios. In this case study, the author evaluates the success of this innovative pedagogical methodology based on a qualitative analysis of excerpts from students’ written work.

The author advocates the use of literary fictional texts as a means of enhancing coach training and makes a case for the benefits of exposing students to literary fiction as part of a rich humanities curriculum. Reading about how fictional characters negotiate the terrain of life and work can help coaching students to create stronger, more creative narratives in their work-based projects.

Exploring how fictional characters respond to challenges in the workplace (and in life generally) will support students to formulate their own coaching interventions in a more coherent fashion. The paper contends that stories are the cornerstone of learning, and that educators can support students to explore issues of core identity, (in)coherent life themes and narrative representation in students’ professional practice by getting them to read fiction.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an integrative review of coaching research from different contexts (e.g. athletics, executive coaching, project management and sales), delineate professional sales coaching from other developmental activities and develop a research agenda for stimulating research on professional sales coaching. Professional sales coaching is considered an important sales force developmental program by both sales practitioners and researchers. Yet, research on sales coaching remains fragmented in the extant literature.

An extensive literature review of extant research and theoretical perspectives on coaching as well as insights gathered from exploratory, in-depth interviews of ten sales managers were used to develop the research agenda.

The review and research agenda identify a number of sales coaching-related topics that warrant further research. Specifically, the research agenda addresses salesperson characteristics, sales manager and coach characteristics, selling organization characteristics, sales coaching approaches, nature and effectiveness of the sales coaching process and, finally, outcomes of sales coaching. For each topic, extant research, relevant insights from exploratory interviews and directions for future research are discussed.

This paper is the first integrative review of coaching-related research in the sales literature. It offers an updated conceptualization of sales coaching and identifies opportunities for future research.

This study aimed to evaluate the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool for knowledge synthesis, the production of written content and the delivery of coaching conversations.

The research employed the use of experts to evaluate the outputs from ChatGPT's AI tool in blind tests to review the accuracy and value of outcomes for written content and for coaching conversations.

The results from these tasks indicate that there is a significant gap between comparative search tools such as Google Scholar, specialist online discovery tools (EBSCO and PsycNet) and GPT-4's performance. GPT-4 lacks the accuracy and detail which can be found through other tools, although the material produced has strong face validity. It argues organisations, academic institutions and training providers should put in place policies regarding the use of such tools, and professional bodies should amend ethical codes of practice to reduce the risks of false claims being used in published work.

This is the first research paper to evaluate the current potential of generative AI tools for research, knowledge curation and coaching conversations.