Abstract:

Managerial coaching is increasingly framed as both behavioural competence and identity development. However, existing scholarship largely assumes that once coaching is learned, it can be enacted. Drawing on an interpretive phenomenological study of 28 Malaysian public sector managers, this developmental paper challenges that assumption. It argues that in hierarchical bureaucratic systems, coaching identity is not simply adopted but regulated in enactment. Managers calibrate how coaching is expressed so that authority remains recognisable and legitimate under institutional scrutiny. Anchored in sensemaking theory and identity development scholarship, this paper introduces the concept of identity regulation to explain how plausibility, power asymmetry and legitimacy concerns shape coaching practice. By reframing managerial coaching as calibrated enactment under hierarchical visibility, this study contributes to identity scholarship by showing that identity growth does not automatically translate into unfiltered expression within organisational contexts.

Please choose your submission type: Developmental Paper

Primary Track: Identity

Keywords: Identity work;Identity regulation / control;Identity construction;Qualitative

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Mrs. Wan Aina Wan Yahaya

Biography