Coaching Multiple Clients in One Team or Organisation

4 March 2024

I often get asked, “Is it OK to coach multiple clients in parallel from the same team or organisation?”

The answer is yes, but the coach needs to manage the sensitivity and confidentiality that comes with coaching clients in parallel who interact with each other and talk about the process and each other in their coaching.

The International Coaching Federation’s ethical standards say a coach should be “sensitive to the implications of having multiple contracts and relationships with the same Client(s) and Sponsor(s) at the same time in order to avoid conflict of interest situations.”

What does this mean in practice and what are the pros and cons of coaching multiple clients in parallel from the same team or organisation?

Like many things in life, the devil is in the detail in this, so when coaching multiple clients in one team or organisation the coach needs to consider topics such as:

Relationships between the clients: a classic example is whether it is OK to coach a manager and their direct report in parallel. This depends on a number of factors, such as; do they have a bad relationship? If so, is the coach going to be “piggy in the middle” between the two? In this situation it might make sense for a second coach to coach one of the clients.
Contracting with sponsors and clients to check everyone understands the coach will also be working with peers/colleagues, etc.; that confidentiality will be maintained, and that everyone is OK with that (a no surprises approach).
Whether the sponsor/s want the coach to share back any insights they gain from working with multiple clients in the business; such as common development areas or frustrations, in an anonymised fashion and contract with the clients that they are OK with this feedback loop.
An agreed process for raising any conflicts of interest that may arise, who they will be raised with in the organisation and how they will be managed.
A common coaching process, so that sponsors and clients have a similar experience that helps develop an awareness of the coaching process between sponsors and clients, which can help sponsors play a more effective role in supporting the process.

So once the practicalities have been addressed, what are the pros and cons of coaching multiple clients in parallel from the same team or organisation?

The pros include:

The coach can develop a system-wide view of the team/organisation by hearing from multiple clients as to the culture, relationships, processes, challenges, key stakeholders and risks, etc. This multi-dimensional rather one-dimensional perspective (if only coaching one client in a team or organisation) can help the coach bring system-wide insights into the coaching conversations to challenge a client’s perspective on a particular topic.
If coaching includes team coaching or other leadership development programmes, the coach may get to observe their 1-2-1 clients interacting with colleagues in the workplace, which can be valuable so as to see the client in their “natural habitat” and how they behave in that space. This is rich information that the coach may use “holding up the mirror” for the client when exploring coaching goals that relate to how they show up, etc.
Working with multiple clients in parallel to encourage them to be more self-reflective and think more deeply on particular topics, which may encourage a more open, reflective and supportive culture with the team or organisation.
Working with multiple sponsors and clients in a team or organisation can also help to develop a coaching culture, where people start to use a common coaching language, share their coaching journey experience and learning and potentially start to think about how they could use their learning to support one another in a peer coaching approach.

The cons include:

Conflicts of interest for the coach in working with clients who have dependent relationships.
Managing confidentiality – not inadvertently sharing with client A something that client B told them.
Remaining impartial and non-judgemental with client A, despite what clients B and C may has said about them.
A client feeling aggrieved or concerned that the confidentiality of their coaching may risked by the coach working with their colleagues.

A good coach is well equipped to mitigate these risks and contract with all parties to ensure everyone understands how confidentiality, conflicts of interest etc., will be managed and maintained.

In 2023, I worked in three organisations in which I coached multiple clients in parallel:

At Robert Walters as an internal coach, coaching peers and colleagues in 1-2-1 coaching, team coaching and other leadership development programmes. This was a great example of how observing 1-2-1 clients in other leadership development settings can bring rich information back into their 1-2-1 coaching. This was also a good example of agreeing with a coach colleague, that one of us would coach a line manager and the other coach their direct report, when the two clients’ 1-2-1 coaching overlapped.
A charity as an external coach, coaching peers in a senior leadership team as they prepared for and explored what they individually needed to develop in readiness for an ambitious new strategy. With the CEO as the common sponsor for all the clients, this was good example of how, as coach, I developed a system-wide view of the team and the organisation and how a coaching process and culture started to develop within the leadership team.
A charity as an external coach, coaching peers and colleagues at different levels in the organisational hierarchy. Again, as coach I developed a system-wide view of the organisation, but also with appropriate contracting I coached two leaders and their respective direct reports in parallel, which was very helpful for me as coach to have a 360 view of the relationships involved.

I hope this blog demonstrates that it is OK to coach multiple clients in parallel from the same team or organisation, as long as the necessary measures are put in place to manage the potential risks. I also hope it also demonstrates that there are real benefits in coaching multiple clients in parallel as the coach develops a more holistic understanding of the team or organisation and can then use that to the benefit of the clients’ coaching experience.

As always, if this blog raises any questions for you, please get get in touch.

From the author:

As coaching is not an advice-giving service, these blogs are not written with the intention of proposing solutions to common leadership challenges. Instead, they are thought pieces with the aim of prompting the reader to think more deeply about the topic and reflect on whether it warrants further exploration, with or without a coach.

If you would like to hear more about coaching and how to make it work for you, feel free to subscribe to my newsletter and to share this blog with anyone that might be interested in learning about executive coaching, how it works and whether it could be of benefit to them.

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