Aligned to the most unprecedented quit history in the U.S., great resignation, great migration, and quit culture, this chapter aims to present a postulate based on a literature review, theoretical framework, and historical precedence connecting the intersectionality of leadership coaching and its application for use as a retention strategy. Conversely, the gap in research and leadership literature specifically for leadership coaching and its applicability as a retention strategy invites continued research for the organizational management and leadership community. A call to action for scholar-activists to conduct action research to provide evidence supporting the normalization of leadership coaching as a retention strategy is included in the conclusion.
TopIntroduction
Retention has always been challenging for U.S. organizations (Ban et al., 2003; Cameron et al., 2004; Nasir & Mahmood, 2018; Singh, 2019), with the pre-and post-pandemic organizational retention rates spiraling out of control (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2022; 2023), long-term and sustainable strategies are critical to the new normal work culture and the retention of leaders and employees. The terms The Great Resignation, The Great Migration, and quit culture were coined to express the severity of the current retention problem (Balcioğlu & Artar, 2023; Sheather & Slattery, 2021; Tessema et al., 2022). Furthermore, organizations must consider different strategies to sustain employees with new terms like quiet quitting (Lee et al., 2023; Mahand & Caldwell, 2023; Scheyett, 2023). A literature review confirms the unprecedented loss of retention and the effect of this loss on organizational stability (Audrain et al., 2022; Moberly, 2022; Poindexter, 2022).
Leadership coaching offers a potential solution to the problem of leaders in the U.S. finding strategies to retain employees in U.S. organizations (Colwell, 2019; Taib, 2019). Employee empowerment, motivation, well-being, and purpose were listed as characteristics that leadership coaching can promote and enhance (Peláez et al., 2020; van Nieuwerburg et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2021). Uncertainty about future retention rates across the United States necessitates strategies like leadership coaching. With limited research regarding the impact of leadership coaching as a retention strategy (Barhate & Dirani, 2022; Klar et al., 2020), this chapter’s literature review, theoretical framework, and call to action aim to facilitate the enhancement of leadership development and organizational effectiveness via the intersectionality of leadership and coaching while adding to the body of research for leadership studies.
The Severity of the Retention Problem
Workplace turnover research has recently been an area of concentration for social sciences, organizational development, human resources, and industrial and organizational psychology (Bolt et al., 2022; Causa et al., 2022). With today's unprecedented workplace quitting, organizational leaders are concerned about employee retention (Jeffrey & Sposato, 2023; Kazda et al., 2022; Schlosser et al., 2022). This is a dramatic increase from 2021, when the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) revealed that 47.8 million people quit their jobs (Bayraktar, 2022). With no definitive signs of increasing retention rates, U.S. organizations are seeking strategic solutions (Cage, 2021; Ignatius, 2022).
Strategies that quickly reverse this current workplace quitting trend are needed. Leadership coaching as a retention strategy may effectively cultivate and sustain employees long-term. Limited research on leadership coaching as a retention strategy identified a gap in the research literature (Fox, 2022; Islam et al., 2022; Knowles, 2020; Tessema et al., 2022). Any evidence that supports the use of leadership coaching as a retention strategy would facilitate increased knowledge and growth for U.S. leaders suffering from retention challenges within their organizations.