Race and the future of executive coaching – a three-part series. Part 3: From awareness to action – starting the journey toward racial equity in coaching. Bernice Hewson reports
“This work should not be experienced by the critical gaze outside.
It concerns you. It concerns us.
It concerns your mind and your body as much as it concerns mine.”
George Yancy (2017)
In the first two articles of this series, we began by naming what’s often left unsaid: that the coaching profession, like all institutions, exists within systems shaped by race
and racism.
We examined how the coaching field’s silence around race limits our capacity to be truly inclusive, and we invited reflection on how whiteness functions not only in society but within coaching itself – its competencies, assumptions and claims of neutrality.
In this third and final article, we turn our attention to the role of knowledge and the power of critical and racial consciousness. We ask: What do we need to know – and unlearn – in order to see inequities more clearly, understand our roles in upholding them, and move toward systemic change?
Why is race still seen as ‘outside’ of us?
Race work is often perceived as something external – a subject to be studied, a story that belongs to someone else. In coaching, where relational neutrality and non-directiveness are prized, we may convince ourselves that our intentions, ethics and values already place us on the right side of history.
Yet, as George Yancy reminds us, this work is not a matter of watching others wrestle with difficult truths – it demands something from each of us. It’s not just a cognitive exercise; it’s a full-body, full-self reckoning.
This matters because racism is frequently framed at the level of individual attitudes or behaviour: someone says something offensive; someone else responds. When racism is confined to this interpersonal sphere, the solution, too, becomes individualised: we must ‘unlearn’ our racism, ‘educate ourselves’, ‘be better people’. While these are important steps, they remain insufficient.
They don’t disrupt the systems – the institutions, norms, policies, and power structures – that quietly sustain inequity, even when no overt harm is intended.
Role of institutional whiteness
As we explored in the second article in this series, institutional whiteness refers to the mechanisms, norms and logics through which whiteness is maintained as the unmarked standard. In coaching, this can be seen in the competencies we measure, the frameworks we valorise and the silence around race in our training programmes and ethics codes.
Too often, equity efforts mimic corporate DEI strategies – targeted workshops, one-off training, representational goals/KPIs – without ever addressing the embedded power structures that create exclusion in the first place.
Institutional racism might expose coaching’s inaction, but institutional whiteness shows us how inequity is actively reproduced, often under the guise of professionalism or objectivity.
This is why we must not stop at awareness. Before action, there must be critical reflexivity.
Why reflexivity alone is not enough
Reflexivity is a core practice in coaching – a way to explore our biases, assumptions and emotional responses. But in a field where whiteness has shaped what counts as legitimate knowledge, I suggest reflexivity risks becoming yet another tool of self-assurance rather than a mechanism for systemic transformation.
As Ann Cunliffe writes, critical reflexivity involves questioning “normalising, disciplining, hegemonic, and exclusionary ideologies, practices, policies, and language in organisations” (Cunliffe, 2004). Without a critical and racial lens, however, reflexivity can remain self-contained – reflective, but not disruptive.
We mustn’t only reflect on how we think, coach and train, but also on what we’ve come to know as ‘truth’ – and whose knowledge we’ve learned to trust.
Knowledge is not neutral
Dominant coaching paradigms often reflect a narrow slice of global epistemology, prioritising Eurocentric traditions rooted in Enlightenment rationalism and neoliberal individualism. These knowledge systems present the self as autonomous and bounded, yet overlook the relational, cultural and systemic dimensions of identity and experience.
Here, a deeper question arises: Whose knowledge has shaped our coaching practice and whose knowledge has been excluded? As Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2012) reminds us, “The ways in which scientific research is implicated in the worst excesses of colonialism remains a powerful remembered history.”
It’s in the taken-for-granted assumptions – what is considered ‘evidence-based’, what is professional, what is ethical – that inequity is often most powerfully maintained. These are the systems that normalise exclusion and marginalisation. To break these cycles, we must develop both critical consciousness and racial consciousness.
What is critical consciousness?
The concept of conscientisation (conscientização) comes from the Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire. It’s the process of becoming critically aware of the social, political and economic forces that shape our reality – and taking action to change them.
Freire writes: “Learning is a critical process which depends upon uncovering real problems and actual needs” (Freire, 1970).
Critical consciousness isn’t just intellectual; it’s also emotional, embodied and deeply relational.
It asks us to:
- Examine how power, privilege and oppression shape our institutions, relationships, and identities.
- Question dominant narratives, especially those that naturalise inequality (eg, meritocracy, neutrality, individual responsibility).
- Take collective and sustained action to challenge systems of inequity.
It is, in the words of Shawn Ginwright and David E. Kirkland, “the antidote to inequity and the prescription needed to break the cycle” (Jemal, 2017).
What does it mean to be racially conscious?
While critical consciousness helps us understand how systems of power operate more broadly, racial consciousness brings race into specific focus – asking us to examine how racialisation shapes identity, structures relationships and informs the distribution of power in society.
For coaches, racial consciousness involves:
- Understanding how one’s own racial identity influences perceptions, decisions, and relational dynamics.
- Recognising how race operates in systems and institutions, including coaching.
- Actively engaging with the work of disrupting racial inequities in one’s practice, profession, and sphere of influence.
Racial consciousness isn’t simply about knowing more about racism or being aware of difference. It’s about recognising how our identities have been formed through social, political and historical processes, and how those identities come into play in every coaching conversation. This kind of awareness isn’t abstract; it directly informs how we build trust, hold space and navigate power with our clients.
Yet, this work remains largely absent from mainstream coach education. While many training programmes emphasise tools, models and behavioural competencies, far fewer prepare coaches to reflect deeply on who they are, how they are racialised, or how power operates in and through their practice. The result is a profession that prioritises technique over the substance of the self.
As Tatiana Bachkirova writes (2016): “The depth of the practice comes from the depth of the practitioner.”
In this context, depth isn’t about credentials or performance, it’s about how well we understand ourselves as the instrument of our practice. It’s about developing the capacity to locate ourselves in the wider social landscape and respond to complexity, difference and inequity with intentionality and care.
If coaching is to meet the demands of an increasingly complex and inequitable world, racial
consciousness cannot remain peripheral. It’s foundational to ethical, inclusive and transformative coaching practice.
Consciousness as a collective commitment
The development of critical and racial consciousness isn’t a solo endeavour. It requires community, dialogue and courage. It calls us to notice the patterns we’ve internalised, assumptions we’ve inherited and ways we’re positioned in relation to systems of power.
This isn’t simply about being better informed. It’s about being more awake to the ways coaching has been shaped by dominant norms – norms that exclude, silence, or marginalise certain ways of knowing, being and belonging.
When we begin to see this more clearly, we recognise that coaching isn’t separate from the world – it reflects and reproduces its values, inequities, and silences. By understanding ourselves as participants within these systems, we begin to grasp our shared capacity – and responsibility – for change. This deepens our work, inviting us to see coaching not merely as a set of skills, but as a site of ethical reflection, relational accountability and social responsibility.
Towards systemic change
Developing racial and critical consciousness isn’t about being more knowledgeable in a narrow sense. It’s about becoming more awake, more attuned to the ways coaching has been shaped by systems that exclude, silence, or marginalise.
It’s about disrupting the comforting story that coaching is inherently ethical or good – and instead writing a new story, one that aligns our practice with justice, dignity, and belonging.
The future of coaching depends on this.
About the author
- Bernice Hewson is an accredited EMCC senior practitioner, a racial equity scholar and an anti-racism educator. As the visionary founder of Raising Racial Consciousness, she’s committed to advancing understanding of power, oppression, and racial equity in coaching and organisational practices. She delivers accredited coach education training and partners with coach training providers and leadership teams to deepen their knowledge and implementation of these critical topics within their curricula and organisational frameworks.
- To learn more, visit www.raisingracialconsciousness.com
- Bernice will facilitate a Coaching at Work masterclass on 30 September, 10am-1pm UK time, online, on Coaching Across Difference: A taster masterclass. Begin your journey toward a more racially conscious, inclusive, and empowered coaching practice.
Roundtable for Race Equity in Coaching
- Bernice and fellow panellist Will James spoke on overcoming individual and collective resistance to change at the Roundtable for Race Equity in Coaching on 15 January, hosted by Coaching at Work editor Liz Hall: https://bit.ly/437EIrj
- Bernice was also a panellist with Rita Puri at the Roundtable on 11 March: discussing addressing cultural and societal barriers and practices to DEIB, including around Race: https://bit.ly/3D9uY5h
References
- Bachkirova, T. (2016). The self of the coach: Conceptualization, issues, and opportunities for practitioner development. Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 9(1), 32-43. https://doi.org/10.1080/17521882.2015.1043836
- Cunliffe, A. L. (2004). On becoming a critically reflexive practitioner. Journal of Management Education, 28(4), 407-426. https://doi.org/10.1177/1052562904264440
- Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed Herder and Herder.
- Jemal, A. (2017). Critical consciousness: A critique and critical analysis of the literature. The Urban Review, 49(4), 602-626. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-017-0411-3
- Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples (2nd ed.). Zed Books.
- Yancy, G. (2017). Backlash: What happens when we talk honestly about racism in America. Rowman & Littlefield.
Final invitation
Take a moment for critical reflexivity:
- What have you begun to see differently?
- What might you now question in your own coaching practice?
- What is one small step you can take toward racial equity?