There’s a version of leadership we talk about publicly – composed, decisive, forward-looking. And then there’s what many leaders actually experience when organisations are going through significant change: self-doubt, disorientation, and a quiet but persistent question of who am I supposed to be in this?

This gap – between the leader others see and the internal experience of leading through uncertainty – is where some of the most important development work happens. And it’s where executive coaching, done well, can make a genuine difference.

In this article, I draw on two peer-reviewed studies – Bennett (2021) and Mosala & Bennett (2024), both published in the International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring – to explore what the research tells us about how leaders navigate personal uncertainty during organisational change, and what this means practically for those of us responsible for leadership development.

The Personal Side of Organisational Change

Leaders are often expected to hold steady for their teams during turbulent times – to model confidence, provide direction, and absorb uncertainty so others don’t have to. But leaders are also human beings navigating the same disruption, often without a script.

Leaders must constantly adapt and set the tone for others whilst experiencing personal uncertainty themselves. Research shows that change events – role transitions, restructures, shifts in reporting lines, new strategic mandates – don’t just challenge leaders professionally. They challenge leaders personally, touching on something psychologists call leader identity: how a leader thinks of themselves in the role, and how they are perceived by others as a leader (DeRue & Ashford, 2010).

Leadership identity has been found to evolve over time, suggesting that leaders work on their identities as a means of adapting (Miscenko, 2017). When organisational change disrupts that sense of identity, leaders experience personal uncertainty – a form of self-doubt rooted in identity questions. In their qualitative study with senior executives, Bennett (2021) found that leaders described this experience using words like anxious, excluded, inadequate, disillusioned, and unsettled.

These questioning voices can influence how we view ourselves as a leader and have a consequent impact on confidence. They can also be a catalyst for personal growth (Epitropaki et al., 2017).

Four Things That Spark Personal Uncertainty in Leaders

Bennett’s (2021) research identified four common triggers of personal uncertainty in the experiences of the executive leaders interviewed, each of which through an identity lens can be understood as destabilising a leader’s sense of who they are in their role.

Recognising these can help coaching and development practitioners spot when a leader may need more targeted support:

1. Role transitions. Being promoted, moving into an interim role, or joining a new organisation can leave leaders feeling caught between who they were and who they are expected to become. The COVID-19 pandemic offered a vivid illustration of this at scale. Mosala & Bennett (2024) found that leaders forced to transition suddenly to virtual leadership of remote teams experienced significant personal uncertainty.

2. Being criticised or targeted by stakeholders.  When leaders feel their competence or position is being questioned, or perceive themselves as being actively targeted by key figures such as a new CEO, peers or a board, they can experience identity threat (Petriglieri, 2011): the perception that events or relationships are causing harm to their identity as a leader, provoking intense emotions as a result.

3. Conflicting role mandates.  When the expectations of a role shift, leaders can experience a devalued identity and diminished personal agency. In Bennett’s (2021) research this was the experience of one leader whose role mandate changed entirely when a new CEO arrived.

4. Dissonance in the leadership role.  Some leaders experience a persistent tension between how they are expected to lead and how they want to lead. This has been described as a struggle between organisational and societal “scripts” and a leader’s own ideal or possible self (Ibarra et al., 2014).

What Leaders Actually Do: Sensemaking and Identity Work

When leaders experience personal uncertainty, they may more consciously try to make sense of their situation and adapt. Bennett (2021) found that this personal uncertainty energises two interconnected processes that researchers call sensemaking and identity work. Understanding these has significant implications for how we design and deliver coaching and broader leadership development.

When we encounter novelty or disruption, we naturally start asking: What is going on here? What does this mean for me? What should I do next? (Vough & Caza, 2017).

When faced with a new, uncertain, or disruptive event, leaders may try to make sense of this experience by searching for clues (known as mental frames) such as past experiences, or assumptions to develop a plausible (not accurate) picture of what’s happening and how to respond. This cognitive process of sensemaking may be hindered when accompanied by intense negative emotions, for example feelings of overwhelm or exhaustion (Maitlis et al., 2013; Conroy & O’Leary-Kelly, 2014).

In Bennett’s (2021) research, leaders’ sensemaking involved three interconnected approaches:

* Regulating their emotions – through self-talk or by seeking emotional support from trusted others so they could think more clearly

* Seeking understanding – by reading the situation closely, having conversations with people they trusted, and reflecting more deeply on their own assumptions and contributions

* Articulating a plausible narrative – a working story about what was happening, what it meant for them, and what they should do next, often anchored in personal values and a sense of purpose

This sensemaking narrative that’s plausible rather than accurate then becomes the springboard for action.

Identity work, as defined by Sveningsson & Alvesson (2003), refers to the ways individuals engage in forming, repairing, maintaining, strengthening or revising their identities to achieve a sense of coherence in uncertain contexts. It is an evolving process that is shaped by both a desire to make the role personally meaningful, and the contextual influence of how the role is perceived by others.

Identity work may involve experimentation through different role crafting strategies and conversations and feedback from colleagues.

In Bennett’s (2021) research, leaders focused particularly on their relational identity – how they were perceived by peers and by people more senior – and worked deliberately to influence those perceptions. For example, taking deliberate steps to negotiate and influence upwards, or clarify roles and expectations with peers.

Vough et al. (2020) describe sensemaking and identity work as interwoven – sensemaking forms the foundation from which identity crafting actions are taken, and the results of those actions feed back into further sensemaking.

Why This Matters for Coaching Practice

Both studies point to the same conclusion: identity work is already happening in coaching – it just isn’t always named or designed for.

Mosala & Bennett (2024) found that when leaders who had received coaching during the pandemic were asked whether their coach had explicitly used the term “leader identity,” most said no. Coaches tended to frame conversations around “leadership approach” or “leadership style.” This echoes the earlier finding by Butcher (2012) that executive coaches acknowledged identity issues as prevalent in coaching but treated identity as a ‘sub-text’ rather than an explicit lens.

Yet the coaching still made a difference: leaders reported a stronger sense of identity in their role and a shift towards more people-centric leadership, becoming more collaborative, more empathetic, and more present. The question the research raises is how much more value might be unlocked if identity work were made explicit.

This has practical implications for coaches, coaching supervisors, and the L&D and HR professionals who commission and design coaching programmes.

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For coaches

Sensemaking is the key leverage point (Bennett, 2021). When a leader is stuck and cycling through the same story, unable to act, or acting impulsively, what’s often happening is that their sensemaking is limited. They may be working from a narrow mental frame, overwhelmed by emotion, or missing perspectives that would shift their interpretation.

Hammond et al. (2017) propose that coaching can improve sensemaking by revealing and reinterpreting an individual’s restrictive viewpoints, and Bennett (2021) built a practical framework around this insight.

Some pointers grounded in the research:

* Hold space for emotion first. A leader whose confidence has been knocked needs to feel that their experience is understood before they can think clearly. Coaching creates this safe space for leaders to explore feelings of personal uncertainty and, when equipped with the right tools, can help leaders to move towards more positive adaptability.

* Invite deeper reflection. Surface reflection rarely shifts mental frames. Questions that surface why a leader interprets a situation as they do, and what assumptions underpin that interpretation, generate the self-awareness needed for real movement.

* Help leaders build their narrative. Coaching can help leaders develop a plausible, personally meaningful account of what is happening and what they are going to do about it, offering agency and developing self-efficacy. Connecting to values and purpose sustains motivation through ongoing uncertainty.

* Work with stakeholder relationships explicitly.  Leader identity is socially constructed and shaped by interactions within the organisational environment. Coaching that helps leaders think deliberately about key relationships, and how they want to show up in those relationships, is doing identity work even when it doesn’t use that language.

For HR and L&D professionals

When scoping coaching engagements, especially for leaders in transition or in organisations undergoing change, it may be worth exploring whether the coaching engagement will include identity work.

To support this, brief coaches on the organisational context: what has changed, what tensions the leader is likely to be navigating, and what stakeholder relationships matter most. Consider also the timing and sequencing of coaching. The iterative nature of identity work means that a single programme at the start of a transition may not be sufficient – ongoing access to a coach, or structured check-ins, may better support the adaptive process over time.

Finally, think about what success looks like. Traditional coaching outcome measures focus on behaviour change or performance improvement. studies reviewed here suggest that shifts in leader identity – increased confidence, stronger agency, a more values-aligned leadership approach – are meaningful outcomes in their own right, and worth naming explicitly in coaching briefs and evaluations.

A Note on Complexity

The research also surfaces something that leadership development practitioners must be clear about: identity work is not equally straightforward for everyone.

For leaders navigating intersecting identities such as gender, race, or other dimensions of difference, the complexity is greater, the barriers more significant, and the risk of not resolving their personal uncertainty is higher.

Yip et al. (2020) suggest that complex identity work should focus on integrating a leader’s identity with other valued identities, and that a high trust coaching relationship is especially important.

This is also a reminder that coaching is not a substitute for inclusive organisational cultures. Lanka et al. (2020) note that identity work takes place at the interplay of the individual and the organisational context, and that identity claims can be restricted or enabled by stakeholders. Coaching works best when the environment supports it.

In Summary

Leadership through change is never just about skills or strategy. It is about who leaders are, who they are becoming, and how they make sense of the gap between the two.

When we understand the psychological processes that underlie adaptive leadership – sensemaking, identity work, emotional regulation, and building a plausible narrative – we are better placed to design coaching and development interventions that work with these processes rather than around them. The evidence from Bennett (2021) and Mosala & Bennett (2024) offers both a conceptual framework for understanding what leaders go through and a practical basis for coaching practice.

Personal uncertainty, understood through the lens of identity, is not a weakness. It is often the beginning of growth. The question for those of us in leadership development is whether the leaders in our organisations have the support they need to move through it.

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References

Bennett, K. (2021). Leaders’ adaptive identity development in uncertain contexts: Implications for executive coaching. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 19(2), 54–69.

Butcher, J. (2012). Exploring the link between identity and coaching practice. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, Special Issue 6, 119–129.

Conroy, S. A. & O’Leary-Kelly, A. M. (2014). Letting go and moving on: Work-related identity loss and recovery. Academy of Management Review, 39(1), 67–87.

DeRue, D. S. & Ashford, S. J. (2010). Who will lead and who will follow? A social process of leadership identity construction in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 35, 627–647.

Epitropaki, O., Kark, R., Mainemelis, C. & Lord, R. G. (2017). Leadership and followership identity processes: A multilevel review. Leadership Quarterly,28(1), 104–129.

Hammond, M., Clapp-Smith, R. & Palanski, M. (2017). Beyond (just) the workplace: A theory of leader development across multiple domains. Academy of Management Review, 42(3), 481–498.

Ibarra, H., Wittman, S., Petriglieri, G. & Day, D. V. (2014). Leadership and identity: An examination of three theories and new research directions. In The Oxford Handbook of Leadership and Organizations (pp. 285–300). Oxford University Press.

Lanka,E., Topakas, A. & Patterson, M. (2020). Becoming a leader: Catalysts and barriers to leader identity construction. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 29(3), 377–390.

Maitlis, S., Vogus, T. J. & Sonenshein, S. (2013). Sensemaking and emotion inorganizations. Organizational Psychology Review, 3(4), 222–247.

Miscenko, D., Guenter, H. & Day, D. V. (2017). Is being a leader a part of who I am? A longitudinal study of leader identity development. The Leadership Quarterly, 28(2), 255–273.

Mosala, T. & Bennett, K. (2024). Leader identity and identity work: Enhancing coaching of leaders in changing contexts. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 22(2), 115–129.

Petriglieri, J. L. (2011). Under threat: Responses to and the consequences of threats to individuals’ identities. Academy of Management Review, 36(4), 641–662.

Sveningsson, S. & Alvesson, M. (2003). Managing managerial identities: Organizational fragmentation, discourse and identity struggle. Human Relations, 56(10),1163–1193.

Vough, H. C. & Caza, B. B. (2017). Where do I go from here? Sensemaking and the construction of growth-based stories in the wake of denied promotions. Academy of Management Review, 42(1), 103–128.

Vough, H. C., Caza, B. B. & Maitlis, S. (2020). Making sense of myself: Exploring the relationship between identity and sensemaking. In A. D. Brown (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Identities in Organizations (pp. 244–257). Oxford University Press.

Yip, J., Trainor, L. L., Black, H., Soto-Torres, L. & Reichard, R. J. (2020).Coaching new leaders — A relational process of integrating multiple identities. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 19(4), 503–520.

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