Read this before you appoint a coach!

Before we begin it should be noted that too many people appoint their coach with little or no knowledge of what qualities and skills a coach should have. Often a coach may be appointed because they have convinced their client that they have some secret sauce or special power to unlock the coachees life.

The first thing to do... always look for a reputable qualification ideally from ILM, CIM, CIPD etc. who's coaching courses are regulated under Ofqual (The Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation; regulates qualifications, examinations and assessments in England).

In an age where you can buy a coaching qualification on Facebook for ￡19.00 or less it is worth your while to research carefully and ensure your coach is qualified and experienced. As a professional coach I hope for the day where the industry has a singular professional standard of practice, however until then you must be vigilant.

When reviewing the skills and behaviours required for ethical practice in coaching or mentoring at a senior or strategic level there are some recognised coaching skill sets. However, ethical skill sets are harder to find definitions for.

So let us explore together before you part with your cash what you should look for in how your prospective coach presents their skills and behaviours.

Typically coaching skill can be categorised as follows:

Building rapport and relationships

Different levels of listening

Using intuition

Asking effective questions

Giving constructive feedback.

These 5 skills are rightly highlighted as fundamental to good coaching practice however they do not give insight into the equally important area of ethical practice. If we take the current definition of the word ethics, we can use that as a point to begin investigating why critically reviewing this area is problematic. Putting the word into a search engine returns the following;

‘Ethics; moral principles that govern a persons behaviour or the conducting of an activity’.

The problem with ethics is that each person’s ethical compass points to a definition driven by individual belief and perspective. Whereas coaching skill is fairly well defined and agreed upon in various literature on the subject.

While there are many different approaches such as Peter Bluckert’s *‘Desirable proficiencies for psychologically orientated coaching’ In coaching we strive to understand the coachee so we can remove individual ethical nuances and deliver a set of considerations that should allow a repeatable standard. I use the following three headings to define an ethical framework for myself in my coaching practice;

Confidentiality; Ensure that all parties involved in the interaction understand the use of information arising from the interactions.

Key Principle; During interactions you should not discuss or disclose information about any work conducted with (or to be conducted with) any company, person, situation or security you may be engaged with.

Restricted Information; Restricted Information is defined as any information that the coach has a contractual, fiduciary or other legal duty not to disclose to third parties. Restricted information has 3 main sub categories your coach should be aware of:

Material Non-public Information (referred to as MNPI)

Confidential & Proprietary Information

Client’s Information’.

The coach should also acknowledge their professional boundaries and where relevant refer the coachee to providers of services which would assist the delegate but fall outside of their skill set. This is a critical stance as a good coach must recognise when their abilities to help may in fact hinder.

For example when dealing with mental health problems it is best for the person suffering to seek medical expertise before any coaching begins. This is often referred to as signposting. Signposting is designed to direct the delegate to the most appropriate help or advice.

Coaches that take on clients who have signalled challenges that the coach is not qualified to resolve or support are in my humble opinion of no worth. I'm being mild here. A good coach would know to signpost this situation.

Example

During a coaching interaction a delegate describes suicidal feelings. The coach gently stops the session from proceeding further explaining to the delegate that the nature of the exchange is beyond the boundaries of the Coaches skill, qualifications and remit.

The Coach would provide information on other professional bodies who are experts in the field of suicide prevention. If the coach had been employed by a third party to deliver this imagined session then the coach would also have to address their duty of care to the third party by way of professional integrity. The coach would be expected to communicate clearly to the coachee that the coach is bound to discuss the exchange with (if applicable) the delegates HR department as apart of their professional obligation.

In all circumstances a qualified expert coach is expected to treat all involved with the interaction with professional courtesy and respect.

Best practice; A coach should view their own ability and skill as an element of their drive toward the highest ethical standards. Simply put being at your best to give your best is a duty not a choice.

Or as Dr Covey puts it in his book ‘The 7 habits of highly effective people’; ‘Sharpen the Saw’. Staying up to date with current thinking, methods and theory is important to the coach’s personal growth in skill and knowledge.

An expert coach increases their knowledge and translates that into experience through practice. They will over time remove what doesn’t fit and retain what they believe works for them. This must be a consistent process for the coach’s evolution, to not embrace this is to risk intellectual stagnation which is likely to translate into a crystallisation of technique and method that becomes inflexible. This leads the coach to their own performance plateau where the mirage of high performance runs dominant and the nourishment of challenge and growth are neglected.

Continuous learning and performance curiosity is important for many reasons and to go into them here would require more space and time than I have. The key point here in relation to ethics is to help your client get the best out of themselves and to do that you must be at your best.

In his work ‘Psychological Dimensions of Executive Coaching’ (2006) Peter Bluckert quotes on page 145 from ‘On Intimate Ground: A Gestalt Approach to Working with Couples by G Wheeler and S Backman (1994)’;

‘to change behaviour, in any lasting and organised way, we have to change our awareness of what the possibilities of satisfaction are in the world, and what the possible and permissible goals and feelings are for ourselves’.

Ethically therefore coaches should ensure that they nurture their curiosity surrounding their skill and knowledge as to grow themselves helps others grow in return.

Authenticity and trust; Much is made in the last 5 years of the importance of authenticity as a coach. It should be noted that a coach should not adopt authenticity as a shield toward critique and feedback.

The week before writing this a coach told me that a client of hers had ceased the contract they had with her as she swore too frequently and the client had feedback saying that a coachee had found it unprofessional and uncomfortable over the sessions the coachee had participated in. The coach told me that she had spoken to other coaches and asked;

‘why would a client want to end the sessions just because I swear? They obviously don’t know what high end coaching looks like.’

She then went on to tell me that her peer group agreed and applauded her authenticity. She asked me for my feedback which I gave. Despite the work she had put in to pave the way for my agreement and bring me into the tribe I did not share the same ideology as her previous group.

I stated to her that while it is good to be authentic as a coach that the authenticity should centre on the coaches wish to be a positive force. If feedback is given by the coachee that demonstrates something about the coaching approach that the coachee is uncomfortable with then the coach should at least try to adapt to the coachees needs.

If the coach finds it to hard or feels compromised in their skill and ability to provide a ‘best practice’ service by the adaptation then, authenticity in truth would mean the coach bows out and possibly refers to someone they feel can support the coachees needs, be they stylistic or not.

I explained that her stance of ‘I’m being me so its ok’ is not what positive authenticity relates to and in fact the mentality that reinforces this thinking as a ‘good’ thing is the same thinking that leads to a lack of personal growth for the coach and inflexibility in approach.

I suggested that her take on authenticity may be flawed as it was not producing positive results for her or the coachee effectively expecting the coachee to adapt to her lack of adaptability or willingness to change. I went on to direct her to the work of Daniel Goleman with specificity in his efforts within the field of emotional intelligence to help her see that authenticity is being authentic about purpose, passion and utility.

I offered my support and mentorship, at which she told me to attempt breeding and progress on my journey or words to that effect. At least she was being authentic.

The problem with authenticity is that there really isn’t a definition for it in practice. We can review it in operational context, and we can read about it. But there are as many references to it as there are perceptions. Authenticity remains an intangible that fluxes in its consensus of agreed interpretation. The example I used shows this clearly.

My personal definition of authenticity for coaching is simple:

‘Authenticity in coaching is being true to the utility of your purpose and wanting to deliver the best servitude you can’

Trust is a simpler quality to define for coaching. Trust generates from a triad of beliefs they are as follows:

I believe this person can help me

I believe this person will not harm me

I believe this person will not betray me

Providing the coach delivers against these factors then there is fertile soil for trust to grow. If the coach provides negative results in any of them then trust dies and is extremely difficult to rebuild.

By contracting, setting clear boundaries etc we build an environment for trust to start. It is through repeated practice and the perception by the coachee of results that we maintain it and grow it.

An expert coach reflects often and is haunted by the question 'what can I do better?'

Reflection and Judgementalism: Of the behaviours required in coaching reflection and judgementalism (or to be precise in the case of judgementalism, lack of it) are critical.

The ability to review yourself, being able to accept failures and wins as a learning process designed for growth forged in the crucible of intellectual introspection cannot be overvalued.

Knowing yourself is the key to so many areas of new found performance and reflection. After all the function of reflection is to effectively self-coach and self-mentor. Tools such as meditation and performance journals allow us to track past experiences and evaluate.

Reflection is a life skill that allows us to see the possibilities that once lay before us and question the ‘what if’. Reflection helps us learn by exploring outcomes that, while the opportunity to take them may have passed us by, may present themselves again in our future.

Through reflection we hope to grow so the actions we were triggered to take can be changed to allow for better outcomes.

I hope you found value in this article, please share it on. I hope you consider it when appointing your coach or coaching team.

Mark Casey, Executive Director

www.thewaytosuccess.co.uk