Anti-racism in coaching: a global call to action

Abstract

This article is based on original qualitative research involving key stakeholders from across the coaching eco-system and advances a call to action inspired by a growing vanguard of coaching practitioners, researchers and thought leaders seeking to deploy coaching in support of the global movement for racial justice and equity. The research, using focus group discussions and one to one interviews, gives primacy to the marginalised voices of Black, Indigenous and Other People of Colour (BIPOC) who work as coaches in the industry and their communities. This research is the result of a global collaboration with participants from the U.S.A., U.K., Kenya, South Africa and New Zealand (Māori). Our findings confirm that colour-blindness dominates across the coaching eco-system, and we argue for a shift to a colour/race-conscious stance that is the prerequisite to adopting an anti-racist approach. We take as our point of departure for analysing the data the Global Critical Race and Racism Framework which contextualises our research participants within the legacies of imperial colonialism, and the history of resistance against it. The article presents a 14-point manifesto drawn from analysis of the data, as a call to action to the coaching professionals and the industry they serve.