Role analysis

What does role analysis offer?

It gives clients space to explore the relationship between themselves, the role they occupy and the wider organisation. Rather than treating the client as an individual with a list of skills to develop, we consider them as a person-in-role, working within a living human system.

Together we explore the expectations placed on that role, the authority a client is carrying, and what may be getting in the way of using it fully.

What perspective does the Tavistock Institute bring?

Our approach draws on systems psychodynamics, which looks at organisations as both rational and emotional systems, carrying anxiety, rivalry, loyalty and hope alongside their plans and structures. The aim is to increase curiosity and restore the client's capacity to think clearly under pressure.

Is role analysis always about finding hidden emotions in the system?

Yes and no: we don't assume every difficulty has a hidden cause. For example, a team's resistance to a new structure might simply reflect flaws in the proposal but there might also something about identity or loss happening that is harder to discuss.

Consultant and client develop hypotheses together and test them against experience. Even what arises in the room can be useful information: if a consultant notices themselves feeling rushed, excluded or confused, that impression may echo something in the client's organisational world, held tentatively rather than as fact.

Is there a fixed process for role analysis?

No. There's no standard sequence or format. A session might involve mapping stakeholders, thinking through a difficult meeting, or examining how a client is using, or avoiding, their authority. What stays constant is our attention to role, authority and the wider system, and enough restraint not to impose an interpretation the client hasn't arrived at themselves.

Role and authority

A role is more than a job description. It carries formal authority and task, but also expectations from colleagues and stakeholders, and the client’s own experience of what the role demands. These do not always sit together comfortably: a director may be held accountable for change without being given the authority to deliver it, or a newly appointed leader may find themselves carrying expectations left behind by a predecessor.

Role analysis for our clients

This work can run as a stand-alone intervention or as part of a wider programme of consultancy or leadership development, shaped around the client’s role and organisation from the outset.

It is particularly valuable when:

a leader is moving into a new role, or a significantly changed one
accountability has been given without matching authority
a familiar difficulty keeps recurring and its cause isn’t obvious
a leader is expected to provide certainty in a genuinely uncertain environment
competing expectations from different stakeholders are hard to reconcile
a boundary needs to be renegotiated or strengthened.

If your interest is closer to coaching, supervision or therapy in the more traditional sense, our Coaching, Supervision & Therapy pages set that out separately.