With the assistance of their executive coach, the leader/client can move to Perry’s fourth (and final) stage—which is Commitment in the Midst of Relativism. As in the case of a shift from Dualism to Relativism (through Multiplicity), there is a grieving process that accompanies the shift from Relativism to Commitment in Relativism. We “mourn” the loss of sideline status. To use a somewhat worn out sports metaphor, we must now enter the playing field and take all the hits if we are to reach the goal-line. Our coach can help us with both the playmaking and the recovery from bruising hits. At this level, the matter of cheating should no longer be primary. Rather, attention should focus in executive coaching sessions on the best ways in which to move forward in an ethical manner.
We must keep several things in mind with regard to our own ethical behavior as an executive coach (or any type of coach for that matter). First, we must remind ourselves that our own unethical behavior in some settings can creep into our coaching perspectives and practices. We must confront our own cheating if we are to be of assistance to a leader who is addressing the complex challenges of cheating and ethical behavior in an organizational setting—otherwise we are likely to have blurred vision regarding the challenges being faced and a biased attitude regarding which pathways should be taken.
Second, we must recognize the need for confidentiality in setting where cheating is being addressed. If they are to share their own concerns about cheating with us as their coach, then we must honor this trust by keeping our knowledge of the cheating to ourselves—that is unless the cheating can do harm to someone or if the cheating leads to a felony (in which case ethically – and sometimes legally – we are required to report the felonious cheating).
Third, while we are encouraging our client to explore alternative perspectives and practices, it is important that we do the same—especially if we chose to work with a coaching client who has been engaged in sustained and potentially destructive cheating. This is not a time to “go it alone.” We might wish to find someone with whom we can share our coaching experience (while preserving confidentiality). We all need a bit of supervision—regardless of the extent and diversity of our coaching experience. We also might want to make use of techniques and methods that other coaches (and organizational consultants) have found to be of value. We turn now to several of these “helpful hints.”
Techniques and methods for coaches and consultants
We offer two general approaches that we have found to be effective when working as a coach with someone who is cheating. We follow these suggestions with several strategies that can be engaged when assisting clients who wish to reduce or eliminate their cheating behavior.
Listen to stories: It is often easier for a consultant working on a large-scale project in an organization to identify embedded incidents of cheating or lying than a coach who may have a charter to work with an individual leader. For example, one of us [KW] worked on multiple projects with an international technology company. One of the techniques he used was to arrive at project meetings early, and socially interact with attendees when they arrived and waited for others (particularly the meeting leader) to arrive. Anecdotal stories told during these casual interactions provided great insight into how leaders, managers and team members think and behave (this technique is called organizational ethnography). These anecdotes need to be analyzed and documented to ensure that a one-off comment is not taken to be an organization-wide cultural phenomenon.
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