Executive Coaching - A Guide For The HR Professional.pdf

44 EXECUTIVE COACHING
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Information Sharing. When being coached, the client will share
delicate private and corporate information with his or her coach in
order to explore developmental opportunities. Naturally, this situation
may cause concerns from the client’s perspective as well as
from the coach’s perspective. A client might wonder who else has
access to the information. How can he or she be assured that the
information is not shared with someone he or she doesn’t trust?
Who knows that he or she is being coached? Will the information
shared have an impact on promotion or salary?
The coach, who is usually paid by the client’s organization, faces
a different conflict: Am I obliged to share a progress report with my
client’s supervisor, Human Resources, or the sponsor? If so, how
much do I go into detail? Who in the organization has to be informed
if my client shares information about illegal wrongdoings involving
either the client or other organizational members? All these concerns
are legitimate and must be addressed in the contracting stage before
attempting to build a trusting, open relationship.
If the client believes that the coach is sharing private information
or if the coach feels caught up in an organizational power struggle,
the relationship is likely to crumble. Confidentiality is therefore
both an ethical and a practical issue.
Ethical Standards. Whereas doctors, lawyers, and priests, whose professions
require dealing with personal information, are bound by the
law to apply certain ethical standards, there are no explicit laws in
that regard applicable for coaches. For those coaches who are
psychologists, the ethical standards concerning disclosures in the profession
of psychology apply. Although the coach has to try to make
every effort to honor the client’s confidence, the coach can not provide
a guarantee. Clients need to be informed that their information
is not privileged under law.
Best Practice. In order to avoid conflicts, the coach is well advised
to discuss the issue of confidentiality up-front with the client. By
making the client aware that there are usually other stakeholders