Peer coaching in a leadership development program: the role of developmental relationships

Notwithstanding the increasing widespread of the peer coaching technique for leadership development in the business settings, there is a remarkable scarcity of theoretical and empirical research on the adoption of this technique and on the measurement of its effects, especially in the higher education. This study describes the implementation of peer coaching in a leadership course delivered in a public Italian University to Master’s degree students and presents two scales to measure the effectiveness of and the satisfaction with this technique. The results from the adoption of these scales and the students’ reflections on their learning experience provide suggestions on how to encompass developmental relationships within the design of a leadership learning journey in the higher education context.