The idea that many people find ethics a dull topic bothered Lise Lewis and Julie Allan, as they set out to write a chapter on ethics in supervision. So they sought out views. In this two-part series, they explore the results.
Part 1: What coaches and supervisors told them
Although our chapter specifically concerned the less explored area of ethics in supervision, we thought it important to enquire into the wider coaching context. What range of opinions might exist? And if ethics was indeed found to be an unattractive topic, could we find ideas to improve the situation?
We devised a short questionnaire on what should excite us all about ethics in supervision and invited participation from coaches and supervisors via the usual online professional association channels. Our purpose was simply to test the temperature and include wider voices. The questionnaire received 165 individual responses and of these 49 (around one-third) answered from their perspective as supervisors and 116 from their perspective as a coach.
We were glad to find – spoiler alert – that unremitting dullness wasn’t the main tone of the responses and there was plenty of food for thought. Below we share some responses to six of the multiple choice and free response questions concerning: their overall relationship with ethics in supervision; support available; confidence; largest challenges faced; aspects of ethical maturity (Carroll & Shaw, 2013); and looking after their own wellbeing in relationship to ethics in supervision.
Overall – exciting or something else?
The majority of respondents (around 70%) view ethics in supervision as ‘a way to explore possibilities’, while a further 22% ‘enjoy the challenge of finding a solution’. There were 12 coaches who aren’t sure what ethics in supervision is, two who respond ‘ethics doesn’t really excite me’, and one supervisor who responds that they avoid the topic. So this was on balance encouraging, with potential questions around the reasons behind the less frequent answers.
Availability of support
The majority view here (around 60%) is a combination of ‘neither a little nor a lot’ and ‘a little’, with a higher percentage of coaches than supervisors. A small number (6%) think ‘next to nothing’ while the remaining responses are a combination of ‘quite a lot’ or ‘a great deal’ – selected by a higher proportion of supervisors than coaches.
Supervisors name resources or guidance available from professional bodies including the AC, AOCS, BACP, BPS, EMCC and the Global Code of Ethics that has 12 signatories. Others mention online searches, virtual and in-person meet-ups and supervision, and publications, as well as conferences. Says one, “It’s out there if people choose to engage with it.”
On the other hand, a variety of perceived gaps or insufficiencies are highlighted, in comments including: “There isn’t yet much literature available about it”; “It is a topic that only recently has been addressed”; “In my supervision training it was addressed without depth” and “I’m thinking it’s rather left to supervisors to hold this as there is no mandated training with agreed elements even though ethical practice is of course fundamental. So, it could get reduced to parroting rules about confidentiality and so forth.”
For coaches, supervision is mentioned as one main support, and it is also noted that support for coaches is more evident than support for supervisors, with insufficient practical advice: “Each coaching body has a code of ethics which is reasonably clear as an outline, but the grey areas are not often discussed and ethics questionnaires like the <name of body>’s free one test for rote learning and not for a lived understanding of the nuances of ethics.”
For us, questions arise about who knows what resources are available, and what coaches and supervisors find truly supportive in practice.
Feeling confident?
While the question of support has mixed views, supervisors and coaches indicate confidence in navigating ethics in supervision (very or fairly confident). More coaches than supervisors state they were ‘very confident’ (34%/24%), with a higher percentage of supervisors than coaches being ‘fairly confident’ (67%/52%). Fewer supervisors than coaches are sitting on the fence or on the unconfident side, although
numbers are small (four supervisors and 16 coaches).
Coaches, more than supervisors, name supervision as supporting confidence, as well as drawing on experience from a prior career. Coaches also mention reliance on personal morals more frequently than did supervisors.
Supervisors report confidence being underpinned by experience, training, receiving supervision and having co-supervisors and colleagues. Comments from the supervisor group contained more nuance about situations faced and a sense of humility about not-knowing and being alert. Several mention cultural sensitivity as part of ethical practice.
Comments include:
“I only ever want to feel ‘fairly’ confident as that keeps me seeking other perspectives that will challenge my thinking or help me see things I may have missed.”
“I ‘see’ far more ethical issues now than I did when I was first a coach”, and
“I nearly put ‘fairly confident’ but time and again I come up against new things, eg, money laundering where both myself and my own supervisor have to work it out between us. There are often no clear lines and because individual values are key (outside legalities) each decision feels like it has to be made afresh each time.”
Context is also mentioned as troubling to confidence, particularly about behaviours in businesses, and a question as to whether coaching and supervision itself is in general an ethical arena: “Hard to be very confident as you never know what the next challenge will be! But I have taken this topic seriously and have some years of experience. That said, is the profession itself always behaving ethically, if it is a profession. . . hard to sort that one out?”
A few comments from coaches reflect on confidence in the supervisor or support for supervisors:
‘I am unsure whether there is sufficient support through the voluntary associations and professional bodies when it comes to what is required of a supervisor”, and
“I feel confident about making decisions on whether a supervisor is behaving unethically. For me, it is simple, the question is whether I believe they are acting in my best interests in supporting my development and my practice in a way that is in accordance with the <membership organisation> code of practice for coaches.”
Questions arose for us in reviewing the responses about whether there is enough rigour around approaches to ethical practice and decision-making in coaching and supervisory practice, and whether there is a gap between the resources available and people’s experience in application.
Ethical challenges
Carroll’s framework of ethical maturity (Carroll & Shaw, 2013)
1. Sensitivity: alertness to ethical issues arising and your own moral base
2. Discernment: ways to consider |explore and decide about ethical issues arising
3. Action: ways to competently take forward what you’ve decided concerning an ethical issue
4. Conversation: explaining to yourself and others the reason for actions taken
5. Peace: ability to live with actions taken or not taken
6. Learning | Developing: growing through the experience of the process of approaching an ethical issue
Responses to ‘What are the largest challenges you find about working with ethical issues in supervision?’ attracted views ranging from not seeing ethics as a challenge to feelings of being judged. We’ll expand on these and other views in part 2 as well as the type of ethical issues generally raised in supervision.
The area of uncertainty is reflected in different ways, from stating that there are always various ways of looking at things, to cultural differences, lack of clarity from guidance and how to navigate conflicts of interest. All Carroll and Shaw’s (2013) categories (see above) are represented except for Peace. Sensitivity, Discernment and Action attract the most comments and only one overtly references the need to keep the space one of learning rather than conflict (Learning/Developing).
One encouraging response, given its foundational role, was that just 3% of respondents (all coaches) find ‘sensitivity to ethical issues’ ‘very difficult’, although as this is a self-report things may not be going as well as believed. The same might apply to the fact that the largest percentage of all responses on each of the ethical maturity aspects indicate they are ‘fairly easy’ or ‘neither difficult nor easy’ in the experience of the practitioners.
Overall, the responses suggest supervisors have concerns regarding the ethical alertness of those they coach, that sometimes supervision itself is the concern, and that there’s an interactive effect here around suitable contracting, especially with organisations.
Ways to wellbeing
When invited to respond to how they look after their wellbeing related to ethical situations they’d faced, supervisors report multiple ways: external support, self-reflection and proactive wellbeing including time in nature. Responses from coaches tend to be less complex (“get supervision”; “I have a value system”) but not entirely so, with some coaches reporting different approaches to combining internal reflection with external support.
A small number of respondents report relying entirely on their belief system or spiritual discipline for their sense of wellbeing (and in their ethical decision-making). Given that one of the elements common to many ethical frameworks is to achieve some degree of transparency and visibility, this gave us pause for thought.
Where are we now?
Well, call us optimists, but we think that some of the topics raised by respondents are certainly worth staying awake for. We might consider how best to support, encompass and mutually learn from different perceptions, worldviews, or experience perspectives. We might grow our ability to examine our own values and expectations – is our model of ethics about wrong versus right, is our ethical stance culturally determined and limited? We might ask, how inclusive does professional practice need to be when 14% of respondents aren’t subscribing to a specific professional body code and are identifying alternative approaches:
• Biblical
• Workplace codes
• Personal code of ethics referencing confidentiality, empathy, honesty, humanistic, integrity, kindness, moral, open communication, professional competence, responsibility, soul, trustworthiness, “I teach people to do better”.
What responses are available to the question of whether coaching as a profession is being organised/conducted ethically?
The survey outcome of two-thirds of respondents having supervision – and mostly appreciating its benefits – is encouraging, given that past research (Hawkins & Schwenk 2006) suggested a low take-up in supervision for coaches and Hawkins & Turner (2017) found that while there has been enormous growth in the percentage of coaches having supervision, there’s diversity across geographical areas and a great variety of arrangements in receiving supervision, its frequency and its cost. When one of us was asked to ‘spread the supervision word’ through webinars for EU coaching organisations (2021-23), responses from those attending included curiosity, an expressed belief that supervision is essential, and a view that supervision being an overhead is not engaged with. Exploring ethical case studies in practice stirred interest.
The difference is waiting to happen
We asked a final question – what more needs to be done about ethical practice to support you and your clients? This generated clear signals from practitioners that ethics is fundamental to practice and that more information, dialogue and learning opportunities would be welcomed.
- Next issue: In part 2, we’ll explore some of the suggestions, and questions around nuance, variation and outliers suggested in this article. We’ll also include provocations to encourage a dialogic curiosity and perhaps willingness to engage with discomforts about how we work with ethics in our coaching and supervisory practices.
References
- Carroll, M., & Shaw, E. (2013). Ethical Maturity in the Helping Professions. Jessica Kingsley Publishers
- Hawkins, P., & Schwenk, G. (2006). Coaching Supervision. A paper prepared for the CIPD Coaching Conference: CIPD.
- Hawkins, P., & Turner, E. (2017). The Rise of coaching supervision 2006-2014. Taylor & Francis Online. Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 10(2), 102-114. Published online: 26 Jan 2017.
About the authors
- Lise Lewis coaches leaders, supervises, trains coaches, mentors and supervisors and writes. ESIA Supervisor and EIA Master Coach accredited with EMCC Global, Fellow of CIPD, MBA and a Professional Doctorate in Executive Coaching. Immediate past President of EMCC Global and currently Global Special Ambassador.
- Julie Allan coaches leadership, supervises, facilitates and writes. Trained in supervision with the Bath Consultancy Group and CSTD, she holds BPS charterships in occupational and coaching psychology, is an APECS master executive coach, fellow of the ISCP and a former member of the BPS ethics committee.