Maastricht University — Leadership Coaching in a Complex Academic Context

1. Client question
Pasas has delivered leadership training for decades across very different contexts. Together, Saskia and Pascal bring a combined 53 years of experience in leadership development, with work for organisations such as PwC, Deloitte, Umicore and INSEAD. We met each other as leadership trainers for AXA High potentials in an Outward Bound Programme. A strong recent example is Maastricht University, where the initial request came through an open-subscription group leadership programme we facilitate, complemented by an individual executive coaching trajectory tailored to the academic context.

2. Pasas approach
Saskia designed and delivered an individual leadership coaching trajectory. The process combined intake, coaching, alignment with the coachee’s line manager and a final evaluation of progress in behaviour, attitude and perspective.

Our group and individual leadership trajectories are never standard. We always design them in function of the developmental goals. In some cases, the emphasis is more individual, with the group serving as an environment for experimentation and learning. In other cases, team development becomes the main focus, while individual growth is embedded within that wider process.

3. Impact

• The individual trajectory translated the learning from the open leadership programme into concrete behavioural goals in the coachee’s day-to-day academic context.
• The involvement of the line manager helped align the coaching goals with the expectations of the role and the wider leadership environment.
• The coaching strengthened the coachee’s confidence and effectiveness in collaborative work settings, with more clarity on how to show leadership with impact.
• It also created a stronger bridge between leadership learning in the group programme and sustainable behavioural change in the workplace.