“In a world where everyone shows and tells everything…. I value privacy and discretion.” Sonya Teclai
In order for the relationship between executive coach and executive to be effective, the executive must be able to openly discuss personal feelings and concerns regarding their jobs, their leaders and colleagues, the organisation and its strategy and many other issues which may include personal issues.
Confidentiality, is the necessary foundation to building trust in any coaching relationship. Without it, the executive coach will be unable to fully understand the executive's challenges sufficiently. Therefore, it is paramount that clear ground rules regarding confidentiality are agreed upon between the executive, coach, and client during the contracting process.
As with any ethical situation, there is rarely a clear-cut answer to issues of confidentiality. However, at Great Leaders Matter™ we expand our ethical curiosity in order to influence our ability to think, reflect and consciously avoid ethical blind spots. Ethical awareness around confidentiality, is the necessary foundation to building trust in any coaching relationship. Without it, we would be unable to fully understand the executive's challenges sufficiently.
The GLM Executive Coach will never share any content, unless it has been specifically agreed in advance in the Great Leaders Matter™ Executive Coaching Services contract. There are, however, two key circumstances when the executive coach must consider the breaching of confidentiality boundary. These are:
- Where there is compelling evidence of serious danger or harm to the client or others, including minors if information is withheld from an appropriate third party.
- When the executive coach has compelling evidence that the client or others are assisting or colluding in conduct which is dishonest, unlawful, or discriminatory.
Under these circumstances, which are clearly defined in the Great Leaders Matter™ Executive Coaching Services contract and the Great Leaders Matter™ Privacy Policy, the executive coach is under obligation and duty of care to disclose the information to the appropriate authority or third party. In the first instance, the client would be encouraged to make the disclosure themselves, and the executive coach support the client to do this in an agreed manner and timeframe, which clearly should be immediate if there is an issue of harm, child protection, or unlawful behaviour.
As part of our step-up, step-down business model, with consent and in appropriate cases, we may share some client information with psychologists on our team. Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the lawful basis we rely on for processing this information are for enhanced clinical support only where necessary.
At GLM we believe it is counter-intuitive to “name drop” any publicly recognisable client in order to gain credibility or business.
When administering assessment tools, we have strict rules about how we set the parameters for access to client information. This is strictly limited to one person within our organisation.
