Understanding the importance of gender and leader identity formation in executive coaching for senior women

Abstract

Within the principles of constructivist grounded theory this study investigates the developmental factors involved in executive coaching for women in senior roles. The paper presents an analysis of the unique experiences of eleven senior women in their executive coaching engagements in Australia. The findings support recent discourse suggesting the need for a gender perspective in coaching senior women – an area currently underexplored in the research literature. The formation of a professional identity as a female leader was a core theme that emerged from the data. Analysis of semi-structured interviews led to the identification of several enabling factors that contributed to their leader identity formation and helped to mitigate the impact of male norms of leadership evident at senior levels. These included the coach as role model, managing motivation at senior levels and leading with authenticity. These enablers were salient in the analysis and reinforced the gender dynamics implicit in the participant's organisational contexts. The emergence of professional identity formation and the relevance of gender-related aspects of this formation process suggest that executive coaches need to explicitly recognise leader identity formation, and the potential implications of gender, in order to optimise executive coaching for senior women.

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