Leadership-as-Practice Development Coaching: Work-Based Leadership Learning and Development Practice in Civic and Organizational Leadership Contexts

This innovation in practice paper describes an approach to adult leadership learning that combines video conference technology and leadership coaching to advance meaningful work-based civic and organizational leadership development. This paper is organized into three sections. First, we operationalize Leadership-As-Practice (LAP), Leadership-As-Practice Development (LAPD), and Collaborative Leadership Learning Groups (CLLGs). These constructs are essential to understanding our innovative adult learning practice. Second, we describe an innovation in adult leadership learning that combines individualized leadership coaching, group-based CLLGs, with video conferencing technology, Zoom, to overcome barriers to adult learning and create conditions that situate leadership learning and development in real-world, civic and organizational leadership challenges and contexts. Lastly, we discuss future possibilities and limitations for emergence-based adult leadership learning and studying work-based leadership learning with “naturally occurring data.”