Weeknotes #50: Moral Anchoring
‘Sometimes we forget that most of the time we are stumbling around in the dark.’ - Spotlight
You are reading Coaching Weeknotes by Roxana Bacian: explorations at the intersection of inner-growth, coaching practice and organisational change-work:
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Over the last five years coaching hundreds of leaders and a number of organisations in the social impact space, I’ve had the chance to learn alongside incredible clients and colleagues. Throughout these years and conversations, I’ve noticed a recurrent motivational core to my coaching interventions; and that is moral anchoring. By that I mean supporting teams and individuals to operate from their highest moral purpose as they navigate difficult ethical terrain in organisational work and life.
In doing this work, I’ve seen grantmakers discern how to embed equity in funding criteria and company directors decide approaches to designing policies on long-term employee illness. There are no straightforward solutions to these types of problems. There isn’t either a step-by-step process that will guarantee a perfect resolution. What is clear, is that the values we hold personally are not enough in and by themselves to make us act how we might want to act when we are under pressure.
In moments of high pressure and ethical challenge, what makes us act true to our principles, is rarely anything other than other people; our commitment to them, each other and our growth.
‘Sometimes we forget that most of the time we are stumbling around in the dark.’
- Marty Baron, in the movie Spotlight
This is a quote from Spotlight, a movie about a team of journalists in the States who are working to expose abuse in the church. Throughout their investigation they all realise that both in their personal and professional lives they had missed opportunities to learn more about and challenge this abuse. They realise they were complicit not only through silence but in directly ignoring the issue when it was raised to them repeatedly over the years.
It’s hard to imagine a world in which we haven’t been that person, in one way or another. However, I think that can be a good thing. Actually, I think precisely because that’s the case, it speaks to how difficult it truly is to live and work ethically. And how in the process we need to reckon with our own growth and development, as we seek to influence our teams and organisations. The quote invites a compassionate look towards these moments, and a humbling recognition that we are falliable.
And yet, there perhaps has never been a more vital time in our lifetimes to tune into the responsibility we have to each other, to always do better. As we’re coming close to the end of the year, I’m looking forward to starting new conversations and work partnerships with colleagues and clients who are confounded by similar themes around ethics, morality and organsational development.
If you are a leader, team, organisation or consultancy in the social impact space, I would love to connect with you. And if you know someone who would enjoy this blog post, please share it with them. Thanks as always for reading.
Roxana
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I am an associate accredited coach with the International Coaching Federation. I’ve previously designed public services with leaders and teams in Scotland whilst working at Snook. In the last two years, I’ve been working on OrgBuilders with NEON, supporting organisations to navigate significant transitions in their strategy, culture and operations. You can get in touch with me on LinkedIn or on my website.
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E-mail: roxanabacian@gmail.com
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