The Coach as Conformist or Reformist: a Critical Study of Group Coaching in Women-in-Leadership Programmes across Europe

This thesis explores my work as a group coach in women-in-leadership development programmes across Europe. As organisations increasingly turn to group coaching as part of leadership development programmes aimed at women, in pursuits of gender equity goals for 2026, the practice of coaching is itself being critically contested. Surprisingly little research has been done on the practice of group coaching within these programmes and even less from the view of the group coach. Drawing on my own experiences over three years, I explore how strong emotions, resistance and power dynamics play a constitutive role in the ethical dilemmas that arise in these interventions. I argue from the perspective of pragmatist philosophy, process sociology, complex responsive processes of relating, group analytics and critical feminism that the experience of group coaching in these programmes is not simply a facilitating process of following sequential process steps. Rather, I see it as an ongoing negotiation of inclusionary and exclusionary power dynamics that are reflected as part of everyday organisational life. As a result of these dynamics, the group coach is often caught up in competing ethical dilemmas which are shaped by ongoing claims of fairness, inclusivity and some of the assumptions implied by gender diversity. Rather, than assuming group coaching to be a neutral, or technical process, this study engages with a more critical view of the complex, relational and contested role of the group coach, especially in women-in-leadership development programmes. As a contribution to practice theory and the current debates on the purpose of coaching and gender diversity programmes, this thesis provides a new way of thinking about the ethical challenges that emerge. I conclude with an argument for group coaches, clients, coachees and researchers to become more reflexive and to take a critical view of what social order is potentially being reproduced by these interventions. Ultimately, I am suggesting taking micro-moments of resistance seriously within coaching groups, which can foster an alternative emergent ethical view of the possibilities of reform within group coaching in women-in-leadership programmes, rather than reinforcing dominant established norms.