Exploring the Link between Identity and Coaching Practice

Abstract

This paper explores the beliefs and assumptions that executive coaches hold about their coachees’ identities and how they perceive that this impacts on their coaching practice. The research explored how coaches approach the construction of personal identities through the life narrative. The methodology adopted was Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith, Flowers, Larkin, 2009). The findings indicate that coaches recognise that their coachees hold multiple and shifting identities including professional, social and personal identities. Coaches tended to see identity as a “subtext” to their coaching practice.

Keywords

• Identity
• coaching practice
• life narrative