Exhausting management work: conflicting identities

Purpose – The primary purpose of this paper is to critically explore managers' experience of work identity in the National Health Service (NHS). Design/methodology/approach – This paper is unconventional in that it uses an auto‐ethnographic approach and poetry as the empirical data from which the conceptual framework evolves. The concepts of identity, power and self are analysed in relation to the narrative utilising a post‐structuralist, critical management lens, particularly drawing from Foucault. Findings – The paper reflects and critiques the challenges of undertaking auto‐ethnography, not least the publication and exposure of a “vulnerable aspect” of the author but also identifies this as a powerful method to explore how one uses narrative to create meaning and constitute oneself; the challenges of such textual representation and the various ways one adapts, resists and survives the challenge of the “multiphrenic” world. Originality/value – The contribution this paper makes is an “outing” of the dynamics of being a manager in the NHS and an opening of a debate on current management discourse and practice. The further value of this paper is the experimentation of critically evaluating an auto‐ethnographic approach to researching management identity work.