Drawing the Triangle: How Coaches Manage Ambiguities Inherited in Executive Coaching.

AutorPliopas, Ana
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Introduction

Executive coaching is a leadership development intervention frequently found in contemporary organizations (Sherman & Freas, 2004) that has gained considerable popularity since the 1980s (Feldman & Lankau, 2005; Grant, 2014; Stelter, 2009; Western, 2012). The International Coach Federation (ICF, 2016a) found that coaching grosses USD 2.3 billion annual business revenues worldwide, with 13,895 registered coaches.

There are multiple approaches to executive coaching, and different authors have inspired our definition: executive coaching is an organizational development process (de Haan, Duckworth, Birch, & Jones, 2013) conducted by a professional coach (Bozer, Sarros, & Santora, 2014), consisting of individual interactions (Reissner, 2008; Reissner & Toit, 2011), and aiming at providing meaning-making (Reissner & Toit, 2011), and, from this, a change in executives' attitude (Bluckert, 2006) and/or action (Joo, 2005).

In executive coaching, there are at least three stakeholders: the person receiving coaching, or coachee; the person external to the organization hired to conduct the coaching process, the coach; and those representing the organization, typically the coachee's manager and a Human Resources professional. Other people from the organization may also be involved, like the coachee's peers and subordinates, or even members of the board of directors.

In an ideal world, organizational and executive developmental goals are congruent, and the coach, by supporting the coachee's development, supports better performance and thus achieves organizational objectives. But this is not always the case, as organizations may have intentions quite different from the expectations of the coachee (Skinner, 2012). For example, a coachee may be interested in relating better to his/her manager, while the manager hopes the coachee will relate better to his/her peers. There also may be different agendas in executive coaching processes (Louis & Fatien-Diochon, 2014): organizations may hire a coach as a last resource before firing an executive, but the decision of dismissal has already been made. The main stakeholders in executive coaching (coachee, coach, and organization) form a triangular relationship (Louis & Fatien-Diochon, 2014). Between the stakeholders there might be different objectives, agendas, and conflicts of interests, and when objectives are not congruent, decisions must be made about what is right or wrong, and issues of ethics and morality may emerge.

Ethics inform individuals in practical aspects so they become virtuous and good (London, 2001) and "ethos means customs or usages belonging to one group as distinguished from another" (Shapiro & Stefkovich, 2016, p. 10). Moral and ethical concerns are not central in an organizational context (Ghoshal, 2005) and executive coaching, as an organizational development intervention, is no exception: ethical concerns are most of the time restricted to coaches agreeing to a code of ethics (Carroll & Shaw, 2013; Fatien-Diochon & Nizet, 2015).

Formal coaching codes of ethics are necessary but not sufficient in supporting coaches faced with ethical dilemmas and deciding the best action (Gray, 2011). Aiming to provide structure to ethical decision making in coaching, Duffy and Passmore (2010) proposed a sequential, yet non-linear, model for coaches. Carroll and Shaw (2013) proposed a more comprehensive reflective perspective for executive coaches to make decisions, learn from ethical dilemmas, and live with their decisions, continuously developing ethical maturity. Ethical maturity is not a stage to be reached, but a path of continuous development. Duffy and Passmore (2010) and Carroll and Shaw (2013) agree that the first step to deal with an ethical dilemma is to be aware of it.

The coach, who is responsible for conducting the coaching process (Stern, 2004), may give an impression of being neutral, as argued by some authors like Rocha-Pinto and Snaiderman (2011); other authors, though, reinforce the idea that executive coaches are not impartial, exempt (Critchley, 2010), or detached from issues in executive coaching processes (Louis & Fatien-Diochon, 2014; Skinner, 2012). Instead, coaches engage with coachees in a relational process, where meanings are created (Reissner & Toit, 2011). Coachee and coach influence one another (Critchley, 2010) and are influenced by the wider context of the organization (Reissner & Toit, 2011). In short: coaches are not neutral and take part in relational processes that they also conduct; in such processes, there may be conflicts of interests and ethical dilemmas.

Since coaches are responsible for conducting executive coaching processes (Stern, 2004), and in such processes there are triangular relationships prone to ethical dilemmas (Fatien-Diochon, 2012; Fatien-Diochon & Nizet, 2015; Louis & Fatien-Diochon, 2014); and the first step to a reflective perspective path to ethical maturity requires coaches to be aware of the existence of ethical dilemmas (Carroll & Shaw, 2013; Duffy & Passmore, 2010), a research gap exists: there is a need to further understand how coaches perceive triangular relationships in executive coaching and if and how they reflect on possible conflicts of interest in executive coaching. This study draws on the principles of social constructionism to address this problem.

Social constructionism is a theoretical movement concerned with the ways knowledge is historically located and inserted in cultural and values practices (Burr, 2015; Camargo-Borges & Rasera, 2013). It also emphasizes that meanings and knowledge are created in relationships and dialogues (Cunliffe, 2008; Gergen, 2009; McNamee & Hosking, 2012). From this view, the research objective is to expand the options of understanding the phenomenon (Camargo-Borges & Rasera, 2013). This way, by understanding meanings executive coaches attribute to triangular relationships, one can expand the possibilities to understand executive coaching; pondering if and how coaches reflect on possible conflicts of interest in executive coaching, expands perspectives for coaching theorists and practitioners.

The research strategy employed here is a combination of semi-structured interviews and visual data methods, more specifically the participant-produced drawing technique (Kearney & Hyle, 2004). Nine executive coaches were interviewed and invited to draw a representation of the relationships between the coachee, the organization, and the coach in executive coaching processes. The thematic analysis allows us to propose there are coaches who understand executive coaching as being a harmonious and congruent process (naive coaches); among coaches who acknowledge different agendas may exist, there are coaches who perceive themselves as neutral and deal with conflict of interests in a prescriptive way (procedural coaches); and there are those who see themselves as part of the process, being influenced and influencing the system (suspicious coaches). Empirical material analyses suggest there is room for an integrative model that prompts coaches to reflect critically about ethical dilemmas. This study adapted a perspective from the ethics of the profession view proposed by Shapiro and Stefkovich (2016). Because of this, this paper contributes to the field by expanding understandings of triangular relationships in executive coaching, and offers an integrative perspective to prompt coaches to reflect critically.

Theoretical Framework

This section comprises three parts: social constructionism is the theoretical lens which informs the research as a whole; ethical coaching relates to ethics in general, and more specifically in executive coaching; and triangular relationships in executive coaching, the phenomenon studied in the research, are presented. The section finishes with an integration of the three theoretical perspectives, orienting the analyses of the empirical material.

Social constructionism

Social constructionism is concerned with understanding the processes by which people describe, explain, and account for the world in which they live, including themselves (Gergen, 1985). Traditions such as sociology, social philosophy, and sociology of knowledge have influenced social constructionism (Cunliffe, 2008), and its basic idea is "man constructs his own nature, or more simply, that man creates himself" (Berger & Luckmann, 2002, p. 27, our translation). In other words, what is considered to be real is subject to people agreeing to such truth, which depends on interactions between people. Thus, the way meanings are constructed, or the building of accounts and the building of the world, orient people's actions (Hepburn & Wiggins, 2005).

Gergen (2009) presents assumptions at play in the social constructionist perspective, among which two are most relevant to this research: the ways in which we describe and explain the world are outcomes of relationships; and reflection on our taken-for-granted worlds is vital for our future well-being.

If we assume that the construction of meanings occurs in relational processes, understandings about the world are then reached by coordination between people: negotiations, agreements, and compared visions, for example. In social constructionism, relationships precede everything that is intelligible, and nothing exists as a comprehensible world of objects and people until there are relationships. If we seek certainty, something to count on, and a sense of grounded reality, it can only be achieved through supportive relationships (Gergen, 2009).

The other assumption from social constructionism particularly relevant here is: what are regarded as good reasons and good values are always within a certain tradition. Constructionism thus celebrates critical reflexivity: questioning our own assumptions, suspending the obvious, listening to various framings of realities, and grappling with the comparative outcomes of multiple standpoints. This...

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