The Ethical Lens Framework™
What Is the Ethical Lens Framework™?
The Ethical Lens Framework™ is a practical decision-making guide for coaches, leaders, and coaching supervisors to navigate complex, high-stakes, and often ambiguous ethical situations.
It is grounded in the ICF Core Values and ICF Code of Ethics, helping you slow down, think clearly, and choose actions that promote good — not just avoid harm.
It is called a lens because ethics is not just about what we see, but how we see. In moments of tension, perception can be clouded by bias, urgency, personal history, or cultural conditioning. The Ethical Lens Framework™ invites you to consciously choose to see through a professional coaching lens — one that brings clarity, consistency, and courage.
Why “Lens”?
A lens does more than magnify — it shapes perception.
Focus – Brings critical details into sharp relief.
Filter – Reduces glare, noise, and emotional distortion.
Shift – Allows you to zoom in for specifics or zoom out for systemic context.
“In ethics, clarity isn’t found by looking harder. It’s found by deepening our understanding better.”
Personal Lenses vs. Professional Lens
We all carry personal lenses:
Moral lens – shaped by upbringing, faith, and philosophy.
Cultural lens – shaped by social norms, traditions, and collective values.
Experiential lens – shaped by personal history, trauma, and achievement.
While valuable in daily life, these lenses can distort or conflict with professional obligations.
Example:
In some cultures, harmony is preserved by avoiding direct confrontation — but the ICF Code may require naming a breach of agreement directly.
In some personal value systems, loyalty to an individual outweighs loyalty to a group — but confidentiality and fairness may take precedence professionally.
The Professional Coaching Lens is anchored in the ICF Core Values and Code of Ethics. It ensures that while our humanity remains present, our professional commitments guide our actions.
The Four Steps of the Ethical Lens Framework™
Step 1: Pause & Presence
Purpose: Create mental space before reacting.
Why it matters: Urgency, emotion, or pressure can lead to hasty, biased decisions. Presence creates clarity.
How to do it:
Take a slow breath, ground your body.
Ask: “What exactly is happening? What am I feeling?”
Notice impulses to defend, fix, or side with someone prematurely.
ICF Alignment:
CC2 – Coaching Mindset
CC5 – Maintains Presence
Scenario Examples:
Leader: In a crisis meeting, a senior executive pressures you to approve layoffs with immediate public announcement. You pause, breathe, and request time to assess the impact, ensuring any action balances urgency with humane consideration.
Coach: Mid-session, a client reveals plans to resign abruptly. You feel tempted to validate their frustration but instead pause to stay neutral, then ask how they want to shape their legacy in leaving.
Team Coach/Supervisor: A conflict in a team session escalates into personal attacks. You pause, ground yourself, and invite everyone to take a breath before continuing, re-establishing psychological safety.
Do Good principle: Pausing is not passive — it creates space to protect dignity, uphold safety, and open possibilities beyond immediate reaction.
Step 2: Map the Values
Purpose: Identify which values — especially the ICF Core Values — are relevant and at stake.
Why it matters: Values act as a compass. Without naming them, we can drift toward comfort instead of integrity.
ICF Core Values:
Professionalism
Collaboration
Humanity
Equity
How to do it:
Ask: “Which values are being upheld? Which might be compromised?”
Distinguish personal values from shared professional values.
Scenario Examples:
Leader: A friend applying for a leadership role asks you to influence the hiring decision. Loyalty to friendship conflicts with professionalism and equity. You choose to maintain impartiality to protect fairness.
Coach: A client offers an expensive gift. You express gratitude but explain your professional boundary on gifts, offering instead to honour their progress through a reflective summary of achievements.
Team Coach/Supervisor: A sponsor asks for details of individual contributions in a team session. You propose sharing themes without attribution, balancing collaboration with confidentiality.
Do Good principle: Mapping values ensures your decisions actively strengthen trust, fairness, and dignity, not just comply with the minimum rules.
Step 3: Check the Code
Purpose: Ground your decision in the ICF Code of Ethics.
Why it matters: Intentions can still lead to breaches without a shared standard to guide us.
How to do it:
Open the Code — keep it accessible.
Identify relevant clauses.
Ask: “What does this standard require here?”
Scenario Examples:
Leader: You’re invited to view employee performance data including private health details without consent. You request anonymised data instead, aligning with privacy protection.
Coach: A client approaches you for coaching but already has an arrangement with another coach in the organisation. You choose transparency, offering to facilitate an informed conversation between all parties before proceeding.
Team Coach/Supervisor: A supervisee plays a client recording without written consent. You halt the review, explain the consent requirement, and help them establish a stronger agreement process.
Do Good principle: Checking the Code is not just risk-avoidance — it’s a way to protect dignity, reinforce transparency, and model ethical behaviour.
Step 4: Choose Courage
Purpose: Take the path that promotes good, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Why courage matters:
Ethics often involves navigating dilemmas (two goods) or trilemmas (three goods). Courage is choosing integrity when it is inconvenient, unpopular, or personally risky.
“Courage in ethics is not the absence of fear. It’s the decision that integrity matters more than comfort.”
Scenario Examples:
Leader: Before a major product launch, you discover harmful sourcing practices. You raise the issue, risking delay and pushback, to protect community welfare.
Coach: A client plans to resign without notice, potentially harming their team. You invite them to explore how they want to be remembered, opening space for a more considered and ethical exit.
Team Coach/Supervisor: Senior leaders dominate a session, excluding junior voices. You intervene, inviting contributions from all members, even if it disrupts existing power dynamics.
Do Good principle: Courage transforms compliance into leadership. It actively shapes conditions for fairness, inclusion, and long-term trust.
Why Courage Is the Heart of the Lens
Bridges knowing and doing – Knowing the Code means little without the will to act.
Protects trust – People respect consistent principled action.
Sustains integrity – Each courageous choice strengthens your ethical presence over time.
How the Ethical Lens Helps Coaches and Leaders
Brings clarity in complex situations.
Builds confidence in ethical decision-making.
Creates consistency between values, principles, and actions.
Provides a shared language for discussing ethics with clients, teams, and peers.
Reflective Questions
When have I avoided harm but missed the chance to promote good?
Which personal lenses most influence my ethical decisions?
How do I respond under time pressure — do I pause or rush?
Which ICF Core Value do I find most difficult to uphold in high-stakes situations?
How can I build my capacity for courage in dilemmas and trilemmas?
Discussion Prompts for Groups
Use the following questions in your ethical coaching group discussions:
Share an ethical tension you’ve faced — how could the Ethical Lens Framework™ guide you differently?
Which step is most challenging for you, and why?
How can leaders and coaches create environments where “Pause & Presence” is the norm?
“We do not see the world as it is; we see it as we are — through the lens we carry. The Ethical Lens Framework™ invites us to change the lens, so that what we see and choose as coaches is guided not only by who we are, but by the shared values and commitments of our profession.”
