Ethical case studies - One to one coaching
Wendy-Ann Smith
Founder | Ethics & Wellbeing Authority | Coaching Psychologist | Pioneer in Positive Psychology & Coaching Integration | Educator, Speaker & Consultant
Editors:
Chapter 3
Theme: One to One Coaching
Case Study 1
Coaching the “Boss from Hell".?
Author: Haesun Moon
This case study highlights the challenges faced by a coach in a situation where the client expects them to "fix" the organization's leadership and employees. The misaligned definitions and expectations of coaching, as well as the implicit power dynamics between the client and coach, create ethical implications around confidentiality, transparency, and power dynamics.
Reflective questions for discussion include how a coach can navigate situations where stakeholders' understandings of coaching are opposing, how to handle a situation where the coach has biases towards or against the client, and how to respond to multiple stakeholders wanting the coach to take a side.?
These multiple points of tension eventually resolved in a useful and productive way in the actual case, and this case study presents one of the moments that the coach experienced at the beginning of the project.
Case Study 2???
Just because a coach can coach, should they coach??
Author: Annalise Roache ??????????
Coaching is built on the bedrock of trust, where the client's agenda is prominent, and the coach serves the client's needs and development. Adding to the foundation of trust is the principle of beneficence, "acting in the best interests of the client…it directs attention to working strictly within one's limits of competence and providing services on the basis of adequate training or experience" (Jarden et al., 2021, p.13). In this case study, the reader will be asked to explore how trust and beneficence extend beyond professional expertise and training to that of personal beliefs. Van Nieuwenburgh (2014) refers to 'ethical moments of choice' (p. 172), which coaches face throughout any engagement.?A point of decision about which path to take. In this case study, we explore such a choice. Can a coach, and should a coach, detach from deeply held personal beliefs that do not align with the clients? Can a coach provide safe, dignity-enhancing quality service when they do not understand their client's worldview? We extend this quandary to explore the challenges of using third-party providers to deliver coaching services and ask if enough is done to safeguard that?accurate information is provided during the matching process. The reader will be asked to reflect on a profoundly challenging 'ethical moment of choice', just because a coach can coach, should they coach?
Case Study 3????
Death of a parent: Coaching or therapy??
Author: Yannick Jacob
The?coaching client?approached the coach for a 6-session engagement focused on navigating away from a toxic work environment.?Two?weeks ahead of commencing the coaching, the coaching client?informed the coach via email that her mother had passed away. With the coaching client?adamant to start the coaching relationship, with an awareness that bereavement can throw a spanner into the works of coaching, and left with lots of assumptions as to the actual state of mind of the coaching client, the coach had to decide whether to go ahead with meeting the client, whether coaching would be the right intervention, and how to navigate the ethical questions that emerged in the process.?
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A carefully considered email response acknowledging the coach’s concerns, and attempting to ensure that coach and coaching client?continue to co-create the space, was followed by an initial chemistry call in order to ascertain the resourcefulness of the coaching client, as well as the extent to which coach and coaching client were willing and able to engage in coaching at this time. Bracketing assumptions about what death means to people and to what extent it may be in the way of engaging in coaching, was key in this scenario.?
Case Study 4????
Protecting Boundaries: One Coach, Two Clients.?
Author: Dr. Charline Russo
Coaching multiple members in an organization can be challenging. Having discussions with the clients, clarifying boundaries, confidentiality and maintaining trust does not always mitigate critical points of tension for the coach. Ethical dilemmas and conflicting agendas can still challenge the coach and the coaching process. Some challenges can present themselves in the moment, requiring immediate decisions. An executive coach has been asked to coach the CEO and CHRO (who is also the Point of Contact for the coach and the organization) of a start-up biotech company. The critical points of tension for the coach in this case were the coaching conversations concerning the disconnect between the CEO and CHRO on the timing of the COO transition and how to maintain boundaries, confidentiality and trust while not withholding critical information that could seriously affect the company. Consideration of what might have happened if the coach wasn’t coaching both of them is one of the many?“what ifs…”which contribute to the difficult ethical dilemmas. How can a coach demonstrate how to look out for clients without breaching the coach-client contract??
Case Study 5????
Focusing on the Whole Person: Co-creating Successful Coaching Outcomes in Organizations.?
Authors: Alissa Manolescu & Sasha R.
Many coaches working in corporate contexts will be guided to focus on organizational objectives and, sometimes, to address a performance problem for a particular person. There is often an expectation that the coach will produce results for the contracting (and presumably funding) party in line with their organizational goals.?
If?this?happens, is there a bias towards focusing on the problem as perceived by the organization, rather than on the person being coached? Can organizational goals be met if the whole person is not attended to??
What if the organization is in part responsible for the very problem they brought the coach in to solve???
Industry experts maintain, clients’ intrinsic aspirations can induce meaningful change (Boyatzis, et al., 2013). Boniwell, Smith and Green (2021) argue that focusing on individual well-being is fundamental to organizational health. At the same time, Roche and Passmore emphasize that coaching must “address the systems that are the source of the problem” (2021, p.15).
The authors propose that focusing on the whole person first — including the systems that shape them —??allows space for the goals and desires to emerge from within the coaching client that, in turn, enable?overarching organizational outcomes to be realized.?
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The case studies sound so powerful many of them!