Advancing Executive Coaching: Setting the Course for Successful Leadership Coaching

Chapter Nine

ETHICS IN COACHING

Jonathan Passmore and Lance Mortimer

Though less discussed than models and theories, ethics is a critical aspect of leadership coaching. Despite its critical nature, it is rarely featured in research papers or in coaching conference papers when compared with evaluation of programs or coaching models. Its relatively low profile in the coaching literature and in conversations between coaches may be because by its very nature ethics is unclear and ambiguous. Almost everyone thinks he or she is acting ethically. We suspect that this view applied equally to many of the people at Enron and Worldcom, where ethical mismanagement led to corporate disaster.

Professional bodies in coaching (for example, International Coach ...