Managerial Coaching: Investigating the Mediating Effect of Role Clarity on Employee Turnover Intention

Abstract

State and local governmental agencies are challenged by the turnover of capable employees. Consequently, human resource practitioners and agency heads must develop effective organizational strategies that will retain the workforce. Managerial coaching is a new leadership approach that is popularized as a way of developing, empowering and retaining employees in organizations. However, few empirical studies have examined the linkage between managerial coaching and its potential impact on employee attitudes such as turnover intention. More specifically, limited research exists in the area of mediating factors that could potentially influence the relationship between managerial coaching and its presumed outcomes. Analyzing data collected fro 372 state governmental employees, this study investigated how managerial coaching was mediated by role clarity that contributed to turnover intention. The research results found that managers' coaching behaviors were directly related to employees' improved role clarity and indirectly related to lower turnover intentions via role clarity.