Cultural Competency in Coaching Flashcards

A coach notices that a client from a culture with strong gender role norms consistently avoids leadership language when describing themselves. The culturally competent coach should:

Answer: Explore how gender identity and cultural expectations are shaping the client's self-narrative

Coaches should create space to explore how cultural gender norms shape self-perception without imposing the coach's own cultural values about gender.

In the IAC competency framework, which principle most closely supports the coach's responsibility to examine their own cultural biases?

Answer: Maintaining coaching presence

Maintaining coaching presence requires coaches to manage their own internal state, including biases and assumptions that could cloud their perception of the client.

A coach trained primarily in Western positive psychology frameworks is working with a client from an East Asian background. The client resists goal visualization exercises. The coach should:

Answer: Explore whether alternative approaches better align with the client's cultural learning style

Evidence-based tools developed in one cultural context may not translate universally, and coaches must adapt their toolkit to fit the client's cultural orientation.

Which of the following best defines 'ethnocentrism' as a coaching barrier?

Answer: Judging a client's cultural practices against the standard of the coach's own culture

Ethnocentrism occurs when coaches unconsciously evaluate clients' behaviors through the lens of their own culture as the standard, which distorts understanding.

A client from a culture that views emotional restraint as strength begins to cry during a session. The coach's culturally sensitive response is to:

Answer: Acknowledge the moment quietly and follow the client's lead on how to proceed

Coaches should honor the client's cultural relationship with emotional expression by responding with quiet acknowledgment and allowing the client to lead.

A coaching client mentions that their family would 'lose face' if they changed careers. 'Face' in this context refers to:

Answer: Social reputation and honor tied to cultural expectations

'Face' is a concept prevalent in many East Asian and other cultures referring to social honor and reputation, and its loss can carry significant communal consequences.

Which coaching behavior would MOST undermine cultural competency in a session?

Answer: Assuming a client's silence means the same thing as it would in the coach's own culture

Projecting one's own cultural interpretations of silence onto a client from a different background is a direct failure of cultural competency.