http://www.carolkauffman.com/

http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=mapp_capstone

Sheila

http://www.wellcoach.com/

I’ll be back later to include more thoughts about certification…

Sheila

At the same time, there are other potential assignments that would fall into a grayer area for me, and I’m sure we can each imagine potential assignments where we might have ethical qualms.

I imagine there are at least 4 possible decisions when faced with an assignment that appears to conflict with our personal values or morals:

- take the assignment, as we are coaching a person and will help them

- take the assignment and try to influence the person toward our own moral position

- refuse the assignment without clearly specifying any moral grounds

- refuse the assignment while clearly stating a moral conviction

Thanks for an interesting and provocative discussion.

Jonathan

Thanks for extending my explanation. I agree with your comments.

I think the difficulty with this concept is that it makes sense in theory but in practice it might be very difficult to implement. This is, to me, one of the very enjoyable aspects of coaching: to be expanded continuously by our clients to withhold our judgments and use a bigger perspective while staying true to ourselves.

My example would be a client (imaginary) who wants to improve their leadership and is doing that by increasing the sales performance of a cigarette company (or arms company, or even luxury goods …whatever you would label as ‘bad’). While I might not support the products this client is promoting, I believe that developing leadership skills in humans (including raising personal awareness) is inherently good, and so I could focus on that ‘good’ that I’m supporting while assuming the rest is somehow ‘perfect’ even though I may not know how.

So that is the edge we have to walk all the time: the edge between our own moral compass and our ability to trust in a bigger perspective. As usual, it’s a paradox, and the more we do of both the more successful we are.

But it’s tricky to take a moral stand in a coaching conversation. I think the easier way to exercise our moral compasses is in the way we attract clients. As we create our own businesses, we are free to support those whose success we believe will have the biggest impact on what we care about.

Cheers,
Angela

Welcome to the conversation, and thank you for being willing to enrich it by taking a challenging point of view!

First let me say that not so long ago I strongly agreed with your point of view, Sheila, but have come to change my mind. As recently as a year and a half ago, I argued vehemently at a meeting of the International Consortium for Coaching in Organizations (ICCO) that coaches should absolutely not promote a social agenda in their coaching.

My thinking has evolved since then to something very much like your viewpoint, Angela. I certainly can’t speak for the log-burners, but I can tell you where I see it. I think to act agenda-less is not authentic because we are not agenda-less. To take it to the extreme, I don’t think any of us would coach our clients to be great murderers or child molesters, if that was their agenda. What we’d probably do in that case, at the very least, is withdraw from the relationship, and I’m not sure even that would fully meet our social responsibility in that absurdly extreme case.

In the case of most social responsibility issues, it is not that balck-and-white. I am not advocating at all that we decide what is “right” or “wrong”. But I am advocating that we hold the client to the standard of their best selves, however they see their best selves. In almost all cases the client’s vision of their best self is a socially responsible one, and I think we need to coach them to that. However, if the client’s image of their best selves truly is a socially harmful one, I couldn’t possibly coach them to that. If the client wanted help being more effective at an endeavor that involved dumping toxic waste or exploiting child labor in foreign countries, it would be an incompatible relationship and I would feel ethically responsible to withdraw from that relationship.

Does that align with what you were saying, Angela? Is that still something you would strongly disagree with, Sheila?

And thanks again for taking the conversation into an interesting new direction.

Lable

Like Sheila, I also disagree, and at the same time I agree. Let me try to explain.

If the coach tells the client what to think or do, it diminishes the power of the coaching relationship by reducing the coach’s trust in the client and the client’s responsibility for themselves. This is not coaching and is not effective.

There is also a bigger perspective whereby the coach does hold an agenda that enhances the coaching relationship and the value of what is created in the relationship. It goes like this.

The coach believes that the client is always making choices based on their fears and desires, and that when the client transcends their fears to make rational and intuitive choices based on their highest desires, then those choices are for the highest good of society and the planet.

The coach’s agenda is therefore to have the client make choices based on their highest self.

Is this what the group of original log-burners intended?

Do other coaches share this belief?

I could not disagree more. Perhaps being completely agenda-less is difficult; however, it is in the striving for this that ennobles the coaching process. The client is aware of his/her own responsibilities to their society based on their own unique values and desires and what they wish for their society. It is not our place to tell them “what to think or do – ever!” How did the coach become a moral authority?

Interesting discussion…..

Sheila Mikulin, M.A.
http://www.lifevisioncoachingllc.com
sheila@lifevisioncoachingllc.com

Welcome to the conversation. You’re right – it has been way too long, and the admiration is definitely reciprocated. I think you are bringing up a key point. Is our relationship with the client limited by the title of Coach? Do we need to give up the title in order to bring our total selves fully to the client interaction, or can we retain the distinction “coach” and still bring all of our knowledge, wisdom, and guidance to our clients?

Thanks.

Lable

Thanks for sharing Lable’s words, a man I admire and have not heard from in too long.

I see a “good” fire here and I am ready to toss a log on.

Thanks.

Lable