Coach Neutrality? Really?

Neutrality just isn't good enough. It’s Time to Take a Stand

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” — Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Like most people on the left, I’ve been dismayed by the anti-progressive developments in politics over the last decade or so, culminating in Donald Trump’s re-election in November and his inauguration last month.

It’s bad enough that a convicted criminal and sex-offender stood for re-election, and shocking to acknowledge the reality that millions of voters didn’t seem to care about this when it came to polling day.

But what’s been even more disheartening and depressing since then has been to see companies like Facebook rowing back on their equity, diversity and inclusion policies, and to read that the largest banks in the US have abandoned their commitments to net zero. The last couple of weeks have seen the scrapping of EDI initiatives across the US Government and inside corporate America, and, just as I was finishing off this piece, I read that the British company, BT, is following suit.

When I first saw the news about Facebook, one of the things that came to mind was the quote attributed (erroneously, as a quick fact-check – another thing Mark Zuckerberg has turned his back on - reveals) to Groucho Marx – “these are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others”.

I know I have very strong reactions to such things — disgust, anger, and a sense of betrayal as those very principles of fairness and equity so loudly proclaimed over the last few years are being ditched almost overnight. These cynical about-turns are a reminder of the stark truth that corporations, for all their rhetoric, don't really care about anything other than profits; this is the doctrine so plainly articulated by Milton Friedman – that the only real aim of capitalism is to maximise the profits of share-holders.

However, after my initial emotional responses and ranting once again at the injustices of capitalism, I try to remember that capitalism isn’t really immoral, but amoral; it’s not a moral system, but a financial one. ?And inside that system, values like equity, diversity and inclusion, and climate justice, etc., are not valued as ends in themselves, but supported for the most part only when they serve financial goals.

Of course, not all companies have caved in – or at least not yet; some organisations, like Apple, still seem committed to broader social issues, but the trend towards abandoning social goals is undeniable, in so many areas of life. I’m old enough to remember the international sporting boycott against apartheid South Africa, and yet now, forty plus years on, the World Cup is awarded to Saudi Arabia, a country with an appalling human rights record and which practices gender apartheid.

In that light, it’s reasonable to conclude that doing the right thing (or even simply paying lip-service to doing the right thing) on contributing to a better world is only being espoused by corporates and institutions when it’s expedient to do so, and not because they actually care about these principles.

What does this have to do with coaching?

When I talk about these issues and concerns with coaches, I sometimes get push-back, along the lines of “What does EDI have to do with me/coaching?”, or I am told that coaches should be neutral and only be there to serve the client’s agenda.

I reject that presumption.

If we were to simply be ‘neutral’ as coaches, only serving the client’s agenda (something of a sacred cow in coaching), then we would have no moral voice; we would simply be amoral automata serving and perpetuating an amoral system. And if that system were morally bankrupt or making the world a worse and less inclusive place for its citizens, well so be it: “Nothing to do with us, guv.”

Really? Is that really the best our profession can do? Wash our hands over the bigger moral issues and just follow the money?

This is, it should be remembered, is the profession that, since its inception, has been making high and lofty claims about the possibility of coaching for humanity, with avowals that “Coaching can change the world!” and “Coaching will make the world a better place for everyone.”

Well.

It’s hardly changing the world to keep on reinforcing the status quo, especially when that status quo is clearly not working for most of the people in the world, nor for the survival of the planet itself.

I believe passionately that we have to stand for something.

I’ve written before about coaching as a spiritual vocation. Part of the role of coaching for me is much like the role of the Church of England in the 1980s, speaking up about the inequality and suffering caused by the pro-market policies of the government of the time. The Church was often rebuked for its stand, but it was a voice of conscience, and demonstrated the possibility of institutions to use their platform for moral leadership that can go beyond the merely expedient or profitable.

More recently, of course, The Right Reverend Mariann Budde, has been a voice of conscience calling on Trump to “have mercy on those in America, particularly immigrants and members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community, who are currently afraid.”

In much the same way, coaching can help clients to connect (or re-connect) to their values in the face of pressure to abandon those principles in pursuit of success, or to fit in with those around them.

In addition, I believe that coaching needs to challenge unethical behaviour and speak up more. If a client wants to pursue an exploitative course of action, should we just go along with that and support them without question? If a client expresses views that dehumanise others, should we merely act as neutral facilitators and enablers?

Take, for example, the case of a ‘top banker’ quoted in the?Financial Times, after companies started to reverse their commitments to equity, diversity and inclusion: “I feel liberated… We can say ‘retard’ and ‘pussy’ without the fear of getting canceled. It’s a new dawn.” Should we, as coaches, just respect this perspective as valid? Or should we challenge such views, not because we want to impose our values, but because we recognise that such language perpetuates harmful and intolerant ideologies?

Part of what’s difficult about this is that we are hemmed in by the idea that we should respect all views, that all views are equally valid. But, if all opinions were truly equal, then why would we advocate for anything? We would have no conviction and be compelled to accept every view, however abhorrent, as legitimate.

I try to be kind and open towards others who have different political views to mine, and to try to understand why they might think the way they do, of course, but I never want to respect, or give any kind of legitimacy to, the views of the banker above, nor to the views of Facebook’s owners Meta, whose new training materials will permit such views like, for example, “Immigrants are grubby, filthy pieces of s**t”.

How might we respond if we heard one of our colleagues, or someone at the gym, expressing a view like this or like that of the ‘top banker’ in that FT piece? Would we just let their views pass without comment? And, then, how would we respond if one of our coaching clients expressed such views? Why would it be any different?

Of course, it isn’t always easy to navigate this. We have to respect our coachees as we should all people, but we can make a distinction between respecting individuals and not respecting obnoxious views. Our position could be along the lines of “you (my colleague, or my coaching client), are welcome, but intolerant views or offensive language are not.”

This doesn’t mean that we shut down conversations or fail to understand where such views come from. We’re all steeped in narratives that make us biased, as Verna Myers talks about in this powerful Ted Talk, and it’s important, especially for coaches, to be curious of course. But that’s not the same as giving moral equivalence to all viewpoints. If all opinions were truly equal in value, then we would be compelled to accept everything as legitimate - and in doing so, we would lose our ability to advocate for anything.

It's not always easy to tread this line, I know.

But it is important that we engage with this dynamic and its messiness so that coaching can be a force for change in the world. It requires reflection, on-going learning and supervision, as we try to calibrate, but it starts with us being willing to stand for something.

Coaches need to engage with the question posed my colleague, Rebecca Jones in her recent post, “Do we want to be part of the problem or part of the solution?”

If coaching is to be a force for good in the world, it’s not enough to be neutral. To borrow a phrase from Ibram X. Kendi, we must be?anti-racist—not merely non-racist. Similarly, in coaching, we must stand for something. We must stand for values that we believe in, values that go beyond mere convenience or neutrality, even when the world pressures us to compromise.

There is a spiritual dimension to coaching that can help people think beyond the merely contingent—that is, the pressures and compromises of the moment. We can all be tempted to abandon our values in the face of societal drift, but if we don’t stand for something, what are we doing? How can we guide our clients in holding their moral ground if we haven't first grappled with our own?

Conclusion

These are complex issues, and there are no easy answers. But as coaches, if we don’t wrestle with them and find ways to hold our own moral compass, how can we expect to help our clients do the same? If we fail to maintain our own ethical stance, we become part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Coaching can be a transformative, positive force in people’s lives—if, and only if, we are willing to stand for something that goes beyond personal gain and profit, something that challenges the amoral drift of our times. Without this, our profession risks becoming just another tool of a system that prioritises profit over people, power over justice, and convenience over truth.

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