Confidentiality in internal coaching

Today, many modern organizations have an internal coaching pool to support their employees. This has many benefits: Internal coaching pools are cost effective, the coaches will be familiar with the organizational context, it is possibly easier to access an internal coach than an external one, organizational culture is enhanced if more people are trained as coaches and possibly there is also an effect on the retention of employees. So: all in all, a really good idea!

Now, as with all good ideas, there are some drawbacks for internal coaches. The main one is dealing with ensuring confidentiality to one’s clients. It sounds so simple: Internal coaches should make sure they don’t coach anyone in their own environment and limit their services to people they effectively don’t know.

As clear cut as this may sound, here is why this does not always work: First, Coaching is personal, so internal clients may not want to be coached by a person they don’t know. They want to be coached by a specific internal coach precisely because they do know and appreciate them. Secondly, organizations are in constant flux and a person who you are not connected to in the organization today may be your direct report or superior tomorrow.

What can internal coaches do in these situations? Here are some considerations:

Define confidentiality with your client

Internal coaches and their clients can take care to create a more thorough understanding of how they recognize confidentiality at the beginning of the coaching relationship. What should the coach pretend they don’t know, what could be communicated to whom, what may the client share about the coach to whom?

When “touchy matters” appear, be transparent

It also helps to clarify from the onset what both would like to happen when touchy matters appear. For example, an internal coach might learn that a part of the organization will be closed down, yet, they have friends in that department. It makes sense to talk about “what will happen when we start talking about things that I, as coach, would rather not know about”. Of course, ethically, the coach cannot share anything to anyone. I think, however, that the coach is well advised to take their own wellbeing into account: which secrets are they willing to bear and which not?

Have a supervisor at hand

Internal coaches really benefit from supervision. Group supervision can be helpful to fight loneliness and individual supervision can be a place to talk about how to keep confidentiality in a way that does not burden the coach.

Know thyself

If you know that you do not have a poker face and that you are not good at keeping secrets, maybe the role of internal coach is not for you. This is sad, on the one hand, as most people who are open and interested in other people are good at a lot of coaching skills – in this case, reflect on how unhappy bearing secrets would make you and decide wisely.

I would love to discuss how you deal with “confidentiality” in your coaching practice: why not join one of our free meetups and exchanges to do so?

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