Abstract
This paper presents a transferable methodological process for developing sector-specific leadership profiles, originally applied in the South African retail sector but intentionally designed for replication across industries. Rather than foregrounding sector-bound findings, the paper focuses on the process architecture used to translate qualitative insights into evidence-based leadership profiles that can inform curriculum design, leadership development, and skills alignment in diverse contexts. The study employed a qualitative multi-method approach to map leadership skills required by young adults against organisational leadership development practices and existing Advanced Diploma curricula at Public Higher Education Institutions. Central to the process was the application of the Leadership Development Process Maturity Index to assess the maturity of leadership development systems, alongside thematic analysis of qualitative data to surface capability expectations and developmental gaps. Three methodological design principles underpin the transferability of the process. First, the structured integration of skills mapping with leadership development maturity assessment enables contextual depth while preserving comparability across sectors. Second, the introduction of a confidence-based procedure for determining qualitative data saturation at a 5% confidence level enhances methodological transparency and supports replication. Third, the responsible use of artificial intelligence tools for preliminary coding and the generation of composite persona narratives demonstrates how AI can be incorporated as an analytic accelerator without displacing researcher judgment. The output of the process is a set of composite leadership profiles, representing current, ideal, and future role incumbents, that function as boundary objects between research, pedagogy, and practice. These profiles enable stakeholders to visualise leadership readiness, diagnose curriculum misalignment, and prioritise developmental interventions. The paper concludes by articulating a stepwise, sector-agnostic framework for transferring the profiling process to other industries, positioning it as a practical and theoretically grounded contribution to leadership development, curriculum innovation, and applied qualitative methodology.