I reflect on my recent teaching for an undergraduate module Human Resource Management (HRM). HRM can be dry and technical, looking at recruitment, selection, onboarding, performance appraisal, leadership training and development, reward management and so on. Bombarded by many of these functions, people often forget that HRM is about the human.

Teaching about virtue strengths was not part of the module. However, as I approached the 90 undergraduate students, I wanted to give them something closer to their hearts. I decided to do group coaching sessions focusing on leadership as a virtue strength.

Coaching and virtue strength

There have been many studies linking coaching and virtue strengths. A recent article by Ryan Niemiec and Danielle Casioppo (2024) argued for its “Inextricable Interconnection,” and outlined several points for the use of virtues in coaching:

1. assess, understand, and explore your top 5 virtues (you can find yours in this link)
2. expand your use of top virtues through new and wider uses and personal applications
3. help you use any of the 24 virtues, not just the top ones
4. group multiple virtues for you in order to achieve your specified positive outcome (e.g., happiness), and
5. ask powerful questions related to your personal virtues

They also conducted surveys to determine why people choose coaching. Over 67,000+ participated, and the following are the main reasons:

• coaching to use virtues as pathways to reach an aspiration/goal (69%)
• coaching to explore virtues to deepen self-knowledge/self-understanding (67%)
• coach to provide accountability on goals (64%)
• coach as a non-judgmental, empathic listener (64%)
• coaching to help spot virtues (63%)
• coaching to offer new/fresh ways to look at challenges (63%)

Many of the reasons for coaching are directly related to virtues. So it is clear that coaching can help to maximise a coachee’s virtues.

Leadership coaching for students

I recently decided to conduct five (5) group coaching for undergraduate students taking my HRM module. It included a component of coaching and mentoring, so it would be good to let the students practice being coached. Specifically, the coaching session was to focus on their individual leadership virtue.

The 1-hour group coaching session started with an introduction to virtue generally, followed by the 24 virtue strengths presented by the VIA Institute of Character. Then, I encouraged all the students to take the FREE SURVEY to find out about their personal virtue strengths. The students expressed their excitement over their newfound tool to understand more about themselves.

Then, I redirect their attention to their personal leadership virtues. Many do not feel that they have any leadership qualities whatsoever, so this outcome of this survey planted the seed of leadership virtue. Some of the key lessons I included are:

• Leadership as a virtue means “to be compelled to organize people to get things done and accomplish shared goals.”
• It as a virtue is linked to the everyday-leadership-activities, rather than to a particular official position.
• It is a rare virtue strength, and can be trained over time.
• It can be combined with other virtues to form unique leadership styles, e.g., kind leader, fair leader.

There were several findings from the collective students who participated:

• Only 5 out of the 90 students have leadership as their Top 5 Virtues.
• The students’ top virtues were Kindness, Honesty, Fairness and Appreciation of Beauty.

Towards the end of the coaching session, I encouraged the students to come up with ways to practice their unique leadership styles. For example, “kind leadership” is argued to be “the strongest kind of leadership”! It was an eye-opening experience for many, and towards the end, some students are still not convinced that they have such capabilities. However, I hope that the seed of leadership has been planted in their hearts.