Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Organizational Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1445643
This article is part of the Research Topic Identity Work in Coaching: New Developments and Perspectives for Business and Leadership Coaches and Practitioners View all 5 articles

Exploring Identity in Coaching -Insights into Coaches' Understanding and Approach

Provisionally accepted
Alex Lazarus Alex Lazarus *
  • Henley Business School, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This research project is in response to a recent increase in identity theorising across academia, in business and in politics as a reaction to times of the tumultuous socioeconomic climate found to have direct ramifications on people’s identities. In consideration of the fact that striving to attain a positive identity is fundamental to all human beings, given the role of coaches as societal agents and through identifying that the concept of identity is becoming one of the key themes in HRD, this paper placed attention to identity from a perspective of individual coaches and on behalf of the coaching industry. Subsequently, the aim of this paper was to contribute new insights about the theme of identity in coaching based on findings drawn from empirical research specifically about coaches’ knowledge, awareness and understanding of identity in the process of coaching. The paper also set out to explore coaches’ choice of methodology and tools when coaching on issues of identity and it posed questions related to coach education in relation to the theme of identity. In the absence of theory and past research on identity coaching recognised in the literature review, this qualitative experiential research project was conducted through semi-structured interviews with fourteen experienced executive coaches. This study has highlighted that the nature of executive coaching had the capacity to move towards a whole-person approach enriched by an increasing more explicit introduction of themes brought to coaching which reside at deeper psychological levels and are concerned with people’s identities. Based on the findings, the research put forward recommendations with regards to rethinking what executive coaching is, introducing a more systematic approach of identity coaching, improvement to coach education and future research to create a body of knowledge that will enable the coaching practitioners to be effective at coaching at the level of coachees’ identity.

    Keywords: Identity, self, identity coaching, Identity work, coaching

    Received: 07 Jun 2024; Accepted: 23 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Lazarus. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Alex Lazarus, Henley Business School, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.