2026 Theses Doctoral

Exploring the Role of Coaching in Managing Emotional Job Demands and Developing Self-Efficacy for Black Male Principals: A Qualitative Case Study

Brewster, Willie

This qualitative case study explored how Black male principals experience coaching, specifically examining its role in managing emotional job demands and developing self-efficacy.

Using a multiple perspective interview approach, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with nine participants: five current Black male principals, three coaches, and one founder of The Fellowship, a national leadership development organization. The study addressed three research questions examining the types of coaching received, how coaching helps manage emotional job demands, and its influence on self-efficacy development. Data analysis incorporated multiple sources including interviews, organizational documents, and Principal Self-Efficacy Scale responses, revealing four major themes that demonstrated coaching's multifaceted impact on Black male principals' leadership experiences.

Findings revealed that Black male principals experienced two fundamentally different developmental structures: true executive coaching that operated as inquiry-based, empowerment- focused support versus school-based supervision using coaching techniques while remaining compliance-focused. This distinction addressed widespread role conflation where coaching, mentoring, and supervision terms were conflated. Executive coaching served as a transformational intervention. Through The Fellowship's 5-Square Emotional Intelligence Framework, executive coaching provided systematic identity-affirming support that enabled participants to navigate racialized leadership challenges, process cultural taxation, and develop authentic leadership approaches while building self-efficacy across management, instructional leadership, and moral leadership domains.

The study's theoretical contributions include a proposed Developmental Structure Framework that organizes support along technical-to-adaptive and management-to-leadership dimensions, extending existing coaching theory to emphasize culturally responsive practices as potentially essential rather than optional for Black male principals. The research repositions executive coaching from optional professional development to critical infrastructure for supporting leaders from marginalized backgrounds, with findings suggesting that race-conscious, identity-affirming coaching addresses fundamental needs that other support structures fail to meet. The study extends the Job Demands-Resources Model by positioning coaching as both an emotional resource and sanctuary that provides therapeutic support within a professional development framework. Implications for practice, policy, and research emphasize the need for coach preparation programs to integrate racial literacy, organizations to create clear role boundaries between support types, and policy makers to recognize executive coaching as an evidence-based strategy for principal effectiveness and retention.