#156 Coaches: Know Thyself! Ethics, Values and Virtues in Coaching

We are our values

There is a common understanding among experienced practitioners that professional values are less relevant to practice than the professional bodies might wish. We choose to abide by others' codes when they align with our personal values. However, we are our values, that is, they are an expression of our needs. So, there appears to be a hierarchy, whereby some values are more important than others. Intuitively, this makes sense.

What is virtuous?

Personal values trump professional values every time … because humanity trumps professionalism. Understanding our values and authentically living them is of the utmost importance in personal and professional life. We all carry influences that were taught to us (eg, societal, cultural and familial norms), which we then cognitively process to decide for ourselves what is virtuous.

Taking an intentional stance

In our personal and professional lives, we then take an intentional stance. I have adopted the naturalistic fallacy that there are no absolute standards of correctness. In my professional life - supervising others’ coaching practices – this stance manifests as ‘anything goes as long as it is “coaching supervision”,’ and, for the definition of supervision, I use my own research, which found that the primary purpose of supervision is to encourage and enable reflective practice. As such, I take as ethically neutral a position as possible, unless I cannot.

Crucially, when exploring values with my supervisees, I seek to help them understand whether their values are authentically theirs or relics from childhood; either, in TA terms, introjected prejudice (from the Parent Ego State), or archaic delusions (from the Child Ego State). To integrate our Adult Ego State, we must examine our societal, cultural and familial frame of reference and expand it, deciding for ourselves what is virtuous. This is best done as early as possible in our coaching careers, so we can understand who we are and choose our own direction of travel towards who we are becoming.

And the best place to do that is in supervision.