Coaching and the Whistleblowing Dilemma

Critical theory in general has the capacity to generate a range of new perspectives about both the organization and her place within it for the coachee, becoming a means by which she can maximize the opportunities open to her for personal development. It expands the coachee’s intellectual resources and gives her a greater depth of understanding as to the operation, both formal and informal, of her organization. But what if that understanding suggests that whistleblowing is in order? We conceded in Chapter 6 that whistleblowing might be an extreme implication of the radical coaching process, in that the coachee, having been imbued with a sceptical outlook (thus significantly reconstructing her professional identity), might feel justified in resorting to this tactic in certain circumstances. Radical coaching aims to counter the effect of group-think, which at its worst can lead organizations into the abyss – as patently happened in the case of the banks and finance houses in the recent international credit crisis, where, as we noted in Chapter 6, any opposition to neoliberal economic practices tended either to be suppressed or just simply ignored altogether by the management class. It would seem defensible for an individual to want to draw attention to such a problem and try to prevent it, both for the organization’s and the public’s good.