Does Management Education Need a Facelift? The Intersection of Managing, Leading, and Coaching. Part I

This paper continues the exploration of management education and its value to workplace preparation. The purpose of this research path is to ensure that management education remains cutting edge and relevant to the needs of organizational leaders and to our students’ professional goals. At the 2021 NBEA conference the author set the stage for a multi-phase research agenda. In part I of this series the author discussed who defines premier business education, the growing profession of leadership coaching, and higher education’s responsibility to relevant workforce preparation. In this paper, titled, Part II, the author reviews the theoretical foundation for this exploration and reintroduces the IRB approved study designed to explore the attitudes of the stakeholders of business education; this includes senior leaders/employers, business faculty, and former students. The research questions explore the interest, the process, and the potential benefit of integrating coaching skills, theories, and knowledge into management education. This Part II paper explicitly reports on the insights gained from senior leaders as the future employers of our business graduates. A primary outcome of this Part II research was the insight into what employers expect of us, as business educators, as we prepare our students to become their future leaders.