Accepting the challenge of leadership: a hero's journey

This paper aims to describe a powerful coaching intervention for leadership development.

The paper is based on the writer's experience as an executive coach working in leadership development.

The Hero's Journey intervention is especially powerful for work at the level of identity, for clients who feel at a deep, personal level that a new (or existing) role is not “really them”.

The tool will make it easier to promote staff within an organisation. It will help people with potential, but who have “attitude problems”, to accept responsibility. As a formal process, it needs to be carried out by a professional coach or trainer, though the implications of it are of interest to anyone managing others through (or themselves undergoing) a process of personal change.

The process itself is not original to the author, but its use in business coaching is still uncommon. The point of the paper is to stress its ease of use, power and wide range of applications, and to make it more commonly used.