Ethics and Integrity in Business

Feb. 9, 2016 - PRLog -- Ethics are most often recognized as the rules of conduct in respect of a particular group or culture, or the moral principles of an individual. Ethics is known as the branch of philosophy dealing with values which relate to human conduct (Webster’s, 1983).

Professional bodies define the values, standards of competence and ethical benchmarks to which their members are held accountable. In the future, a key prerequisite will be that business coaches and mentors conform to organizational demands, aligning with the specific ethics, supervisory framework, standards and competences of those organizations. In South Africa we have already seen several examples of corporations who are beginning to define their own standards of assessment to regulate of internal and external coaches.

“Integrity” is an uncompromising adherence to a code of values. For a coach/mentor to act with integrity means intentionally acting from a personal vision that is values-based. This includes understanding what you, as a practitioner, want out of your life and work. It also means adhering to an agreed set of core organizational, or client, values that are aligned with your own personal values, no matter what challenging situations confront you daily.

It takes courage to act from integrity and be continually aligned with your core values, especially in times of stress. For the executives, apart from environmental factors such as lack of resources, an important cause of stress is when their individual and organizational goals are not in alignment with their personal and professional values. This can create anxiety, interfere with self-confidence, and prevent a leader from making decisions, managing relationships, or working effectively within the system.

The Worldwide Association of Business Coaches (WABC) requires members to adhere to its Code of Business Coaching Ethics and Integrity, which includes WABC’s “Business Coaching Definition”, “Principles”, and “Safe Harbour Conciliation and Adjudication Process”. The code tries to address the diverse range of business interactions faced all over the world by members, and has established a process to handle ethical dilemmas and issues.

Yet, the one competence that has been often neglected in the coaching and mentoring fields is ethics. One of the reasons that it is crucial to belong to a professional body is that this commits practitioners to the ethical code of that body. Because coaching is not yet a profession, and therefore not yet regulated, it is still up to each individual coach/mentor practitioner to uphold their own individual, or their professional body’s ethical standards.

The importance of an ethical code is that it identifies the core values, standards and fundamental principles with which coach/mentor practitioners align themselves and their work. Also, an ethical code provides a benchmark against which individual practitioners agree to be assessed.

As we know, human behaviour is always complex. And, a key difficulty with an emerging profession is that there are no precise guidelines for ethical behaviour – which is what the international coaching bodies are gradually trying to build into their ethical member codes.

The European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) states in its Code of Ethics that, “a coach/mentor must maintain a relationship with a suitably qualified supervisor, who will regularly assess their competence and support their development”. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) in the UK cites guidelines for buyers of coaching and recommends that practitioners articulate what formal supervision arrangements they currently have in place.

The purpose of COMENSA’s Code of Ethics and Revised Code of Ethics is to “set the ethical standards for South Africa in the fields of coaching and mentoring”. The COMENSA Revised Code of Ethics defines its “core values” as autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice, and its “guiding principles” as inclusivity, dignity, competence, context, boundary management, integrity and professionalism.

Which ethical dilemmas and issues of integrity have arisen for you in your practice? It is useful in your supervision sessions to discuss any ethical issues that arise. For example, it is recognized that there are circumstances where the coach may have two “clients”, the individual being coached and the organization who may have commissioned the coaching.

Who is the actual client? Is it the organization that hires and pays the coach’s fees to help with a business need? Or, is it the individual who is seeking to grow, develop and move forward in their career? To whom does the coach owe loyalty?

This is a dilemma that I have mentioned in a previous column: the difference between clinical and commercial practice. In clinical practice, clinicians look after their client’s interest. These interests are the hub of the contract, and the arrangement is a cooperative one. However, in business there is a proprietary culture based upon a competitive market philosophy. Coaches and mentors need to navigate these two cultures. One is a business culture, where profit is the motive, and the other is the ethics of care for individual clients. A coach/mentor practitioner needs to understand the point of view of the organization and find a way to integrate the cooperative and the competitive points of view. This can often present the practitioner with issues of integrity that challenge their ability to be loyal to both the organization and the individual client.

It is critical that the coach develops self-awareness with the ability to self-regulate. Awareness of the ethical situations that arise is a first step; the second step is to manage them with integrity. Without self-awareness, integrity and the ability to manage complexity, ethical decisions may prove difficult or even remain in the unconscious. Personal lives, careers and organizations are often at stake and there is a high moral responsibility in this interpersonal journey. Bonds of trust, openness, fragility and honesty are developed at high levels and these need to remain honoured and deeply respected.