November 18, 2019, from 8:00-9:00 Pacific Time Zone
Presenter: Kees de Vries
This webinar wants to offer a forum for dialogue on ethics in coaching supervision. A key theme here is ethical dilemmas, your own role in them and your experiences with them.
But if you don’t mind, I will start by sharing some of my ideas and thoughts about ethics with you, briefly.
- What is ethics? Sartre suggested that existence precedes the essence. After him, I want to suggest that relationships precede ethics. What this means is that ethics is not something that we impose on supervision relationships: it is already there. Ethics is not like a manual for your washing machine or PC. Ethics is in anything we do. Ethics is giving the best of yourself in the present in service of the relationship with the other, the supervisee and the wider context, as I define it.
- How do we understand and manage ethical dilemmas? What is a dilemma? Dilemmas are critical moments in a relationship where there are uncertainty and unsureness. Does a dilemma ask what is needed in the relationship? Dilemmas put you at a crossroad – what do you choose as the best way forward? How do you decide? What helps you decide: your welfare, the welfare of the supervisee, the client, the context? Your supervisor? And what is at the heart of your ethical decision making? Codes? Relationship?
Our webinar is a dialogue (thinking together in a relationship) where we share ideas and experiences around ethics and dilemmas. In the zoom room, those present will be divided into smaller break-out groups. I will put out a question, the small groups of three will look into that question (or questions) for ca. 10 – 15 minutes each feeding back to the main group after being retrieved and brought back.
Short Bio
Kees de Vries is a CSA accredited coach supervisor and a PCC certified coach. He is also a Registered Psychologist NIP/W&O (Dutch Institute of Psychologists/Work & Organization Psychology). For 8 years he was active in ethics for ICF Global in the Independent Review Board, 3 years as chair. His most recent work and summary of his views on ethics can be found in “Coaching Supervision: Advancing Practice, Changing Landscapes “ chapter 9: Moving from Frozen Code to live vibrant relationship: Towards a philosophy of ethical coaching supervision” (Edited by Jo Birch and Peter Welch, 2019: Routledge: London)
