Angela Passarelli, PhD, is driven to understand how coaching can catalyze change within leaders that positively impacts those around them. Her work draws on such disciplines as organizational behavior, psychology, and neuroscience to yield nuanced, actionable insights on effective leadership development.

Dr. Passarelli’s scholarship and practice are part of her larger commitment to advancing the science of coaching. Given the field’s rapid and ongoing expansion, rigorous analysis becomes all the more imperative. A five-year member of the Institute of Coaching’s Scientific Advisory Council, Dr. Passarelli now serves as the Institute’s Director of Research. In this role, she leads the Council’s grant selection process and spearheads other research-related activities at the Institute. Her goal is three-fold: to grow the global capacity for coaching research; strengthen the quality of such research; and increase practitioners’ engagement around the findings to enhance their own coaching.

As a 2012 Harnisch scholar, Dr. Passarelli uniquely understands the Institute’s potential to cultivate scholarship that can advance the field. Now an Associate Professor of Management at the College of Charleston, she has published widely on the dynamics of intentional change in leadership development; experiential learning; emotional intelligence; organizational neuroscience; and women’s leadership development. She applies insights from research in her teaching, using peer, team, and leadership coaching as pedagogical strategies.

Dr. Passarelli is also an affiliate research fellow with Case Western Reserve University’s Coaching Research Laboratory, and a board-certified coach. She specializes in working with leaders in transition – whether entirely new to the role, moving from operational to strategic responsibilities, or considering issues of legacy near the end of their careers. Her clients include executives in financial services, health care, education, and manufacturing.

Select Publications:

Passarelli, A.M., Trinh, M.P., Van Oosten, E.B., & Varley, A.M. (2020). Can You Hear Me Now? The Influence of Perceived Media Richness on Executive Coaching Relationships. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2020.155. In Guclu Atinc (Ed.), Proceedings of the Eightieth Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management.

Jack, A., Rochford, R., Friedman, J., Passarelli, A.M., & Boyatzis, R.E. (2019). Pitfalls in organizational neuroscience: A critical review and suggestions for future research. Organizational Research Methods, 22(1), 421-458. doi: 10.1177/1094428117708857.

Taylor, S., Passarelli, A.M., & Van Oosten, E.B. (2019). Leadership coach effectiveness as fostering self-determined sustained change. The Leadership Quarterly, 30(6), 101313. doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2019.101313

Angela's Harnisch Grant summary: The Heart of Helping: Psychological and Physiological Effects of Contrasting Coaching Interaction