Investigating Coaching Leadership Among Departmental Heads in Sabah, Malaysia: An Empirical Study on Lecturers’ Perceptions

The purpose of this study was to examine lecturers’ perceptions of coaching leadership among department heads in Sabah, Malaysia. The sample comprised 56 lecturers from three private colleges in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, who responded to a structured questionnaire on Google Forms. Data were analyzed by using SPSS 29.0. Results showed that a low number of lecturers tend to perceive their department heads as coaching leaders (only 48.2 to 60.7 percent). On the other hand, nonparametric tests showed that there were no significant differences by way of gender, age, and job experience in perceived coaching leadership. Additionally, Wilcoxon signed rank test based on a hypothesized value of 3.5 showed that all coaching leadership items were significant at p < 0.001, having medians that were significantly different from the test value, and were likely to indicate strong disagreement. Lastly, in light of the findings, several recommendations were made for department heads to incorporate coaching leadership as part of their management to increase organizational productivity, job motivation, and organizational commitment amongst staff.