Advancing Executive Coaching: Setting the Course for Successful Leadership Coaching

Conclusions

In reviewing professions parallel to coaching, ethical codes offer both benefits and also limits to how we think about ethical decision making in coaching. Alternatives include developing ethical sensitivity through scenarios and ethical decision-making models. We have argued that subtle differences can lead to confusion. Further ethical standards are also only guidelines for action and do not lead us to be able to make ethical decisions. In the final section we offered a model for ethical decision making in coaching—the ACTION model, which aims to offer a specific tool for decision making for those working in leadership coaching. The model takes into account previous research and models developed in parallel domains and seeks to ...