University of Hertfordshire Research Archive

        JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

        Browse

        All of UHRABy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitles

        Arkivum Files

        My Downloads
        View Item 
        • UHRA Home
        • University of Hertfordshire
        • PhD Theses Collection
        • View Item
        • UHRA Home
        • University of Hertfordshire
        • PhD Theses Collection
        • View Item

        Executive coaching as the differentiating patterning of power

        View/Open
        Download fulltext (PDF, 8Mb)
        Author
        Lee-Clarke, Andrew
        Attention
        2299/14332
        Abstract
        Executive Coaching is now widely applied in organisations to bring about improvements in performance through individual focussed development. Coaches work with their clients to agree outcomes for their work together and then use their skills in a structured conversation to bring about change. The change they write of is an unfolding of the limitless human potential that resides within each of us, which is accessed by removing obstacles or interferences. The view that I present in this portfolio is significantly different to this predominant thinking and makes an important contribution to the practice of coaching, as a coach, client or line manager. I see the change that can happen in coaching, or indeed in any conversation, as occurring as movements of power. Patterns of power-relating, I argue, differentiate individual and collective identities. Coaching then, is the patterning of power-relating that has the potential for further differentiating and so transforming the identities of all those involved in the coaching process. I perceive power as ongoing patterns that paradoxically form and are formed by the processes of relating between human bodies. I argue that the complex patterning of power, that enables and constrains the actions of each person, creates identity. Identity is therefore a socially created phenomenon, simultaneously forming and being formed by the processes of relating. The differentiating patterning of power transforms identity through changes in our experience of inclusion and exclusion. From this perspective, the change that occurs in coaching assumes transformative causality instead of the dual rationalist and formative causalities that underpin the predominant approaches to executive coaching. This portfolio explores the nature of change in organisations, focussing more intensely, in each paper, on conversations as organisational change, culminating in the exploration of executive coaching as conversations initiated to create change. Through the methodology of participative inquiry, this research provides a way of understanding executive coaching that is informed by the concept of complex responsive processes and the sociology of Norbert Elias rather that the humanistic and cognitive psychologies that are at the root of the work of most executive coaching.
        Publication date
        2003
        Published version
        https://doi.org/10.18745/th.14332
        https://doi.org/10.18745/th.14332
        Other links
        http://hdl.handle.net/2299/14332
        Metadata
        Show full item record
        Keep in touch

        © 2019 University of Hertfordshire

        I want to...

        • Apply for a course
        • Download a Prospectus
        • Find a job at the University
        • Make a complaint
        • Contact the Press Office

        Go to...

        • Accommodation booking
        • Your student record
        • Bayfordbury
        • KASPAR
        • UH Arts

        The small print

        • Terms of use
        • Privacy and cookies
        • Criminal Finances Act 2017
        • Modern Slavery Act 2015
        • Sitemap

        Find/Contact us

        • T: +44 (0)1707 284000
        • E: ask@herts.ac.uk
        • Where to find us
        • Parking
        • hr
        • qaa
        • stonewall
        • AMBA
        • ECU Race Charter
        • disability confident
        • AthenaSwan