Below are two codes of Practice/Ethics. One for a life coach, chosen as it clearly demonstrates the more personal approach adopted by most professional in this field, and one public speaking which conversely illustrates the slightly more regulated/corporate view.
Ethics in Life Coaching
Your life coach will:
• Always conduct herself to the highest levels of ethics, integrity, accountability and responsibility.
• Treat all clients and potential clients with absolute dignity, confidentiality and respect as free and equal individuals.
• Uphold and maintain the good representation of the profession of life coaching.
• Comply with both the spirit and the letter of any agreements made with her clients, potential clients and other professional colleagues.
• Make any commercial agreements with clients and potential clients that are fair and respect all parties to such agreements.
• Clearly state to clients and potential clients, the terms of any commercial agreement.
• Represent true levels of status, title, competence and experience in order not to mislead, misrepresent or defraud.
• Make no un-realistic claims or implications of the services provided.
• Obtain written permission from any client or potential client before releasing their names as referees.
• Respect the absolute rights of clients' confidentiality except as expressly permitted by the client or potential client in writing or as required by law.
• Recommend different coaching, professional advice or resources when these will be more appropriate to the client's needs.
• Not offer professional information or advice that is known to be confidential, misleading or where accuracy is beyond her competence to assess.
• Not knowingly coach anyone below the age of 18 years without the express written consent of parent, guardian or teacher as appropriate.
• Comply with all laws and bye-laws of the UK and the country of residence where the client is based if that is not within the UK.
• Ensure that all advertisements and promotional materials, whether verbal or written, are legal, decent, honest, truthful and in compliance with the UK Advertising Standards Authority.
Make a copy of this Code freely available to all clients and potential clients, and if requested to any other interested parties.
Ethics for Public Speakers:
The purpose of this Code of Professional Ethics is to establish and maintain our brand, reputation and public confidence in the professionalism, dedication, and integrity of not only the individual member of NSA, but also of the Association itself.
The characteristics of honesty, leadership and stewardship are integral to the success of both NSA and the individual professional speaker.
Therefore, all members of NSA subscribe to this Code of Professional Ethics as a condition of membership, with the firm belief that each member will strive to uphold the values, reputation and legacy of NSA. By doing so, members recognize the necessity to preserve and encourage fair and equitable practices among all who are engaged in professional speaking.
Violations of this Code are determined in accordance with the bylaws, policies and procedures of NSA. Any disciplinary action instituted by NSA shall be binding and final upon the NSA member and without recourse to the Association, its officers, members or staff.
Article 1 – Representation
The NSA member has an obligation to oneself and to NSA to represent oneself truthfully, professionally and in a non-misleading manner. The NSA member shall be honest and accurate in presenting qualifications and experience in the member’s communication with others.
Article 2 – Professionalism
The NSA member shall act, operate his/her business, and speak in a most professional and ethical manner so as neither to offend nor bring discredit to oneself, the speaking profession or one’s fellow NSA members.
Article 3 – Research
The NSA member shall exert efforts to understand each client’s organization, approaches, goals and culture in advance of a presentation, in order to professionally apply one’s expertise to meet each client’s needs.
Article 4 – Intellectual Property
The NSA member shall avoid using – either orally or in writing – materials, titles or thematic creations originated by others unless approved in writing by the originator.
Article 5 – Respect & Collegiality
The NSA member shall maintain a collegial relationship with fellow members that is based on respect, professional courtesy, dignity and the highest ethical standards.
Article 6 – Confidentiality
The NSA member shall maintain and respect the confidentiality of business or personal affairs of clients, agents and other speakers.
Article 7 – Business Practices
The NSA member is obligated to maintain a high level of ethical standards and practices in order to assist in protecting the public against fraud or any unfair practice in the speaking profession and shall attempt to eliminate from the profession all practices that could bring discredit to the speaking profession.
Article 8 – Diversity
The NSA member shall not participate in any agreement or activity that would limit or deny access to the marketplace to any other speaker, to a client, or to the public. This includes, but not limited to, economic factors, race, ethnicity, creed, color, sex, age, sexual orientation, disability, religion, or country of national origin of any party.
The two terms, Code of Practice and Code of Ethics, seem to be used quite interchangeably by most. I’m assuming because to most of the general public, as I too demonstrated in my statement at the end of Task 5A, “at the moment, they mean the same”.
However, on further investigation, I began to uncover distinct differences.
As far as I can gather, most people are of the opinion that a code of Practice/Regulations/Conduct relates to your actions/behaviour where as the code of Ethics embodies more the concepts of right and wrong, your beliefs.
They are very strongly linked as your Practices are generally lead by your Ethics. Most people understand that sexual harassment, bulling is not acceptable behavior whether set out in the Codes of Practice of not. However if a company decides that employees should not make personal calls at work and they do, the act of making a phone call, which is not normally considered an immoral act, becomes one, as it conflicts the set out terms of practice.
The Codes of Practice seem also to be something that sets out clearly and plainly the moral expectations of the individual. Your own personal Codes of Ethics could be something that you default back to in situations unclearly governed by the terms stipulated in the codes of practice. This could also work just as easily in reverse. Leading me to believe that they are both a guide and back up for individuals in times of decision.
These findings are not a million miles away, although infinitely more comprehensive, from my initial thoughts in Task 5A. The main differences as far as I can see are the definite difference between Practice and Ethics. Before they seemed the same to me and, as I’ve discussed above, although they are very strongly linked, they are too, very different.
My initial ideas on the fields not being too heavily weighed down by restrictive legislation still hold true but I can see that a clearly defined list of do’s and don’ts (all be mostly common sense for most people) can be used as a back up to aid and support in times of need.
Stay safe - Phil
No comments:
Post a Comment