Exploring the Updated 2025 ICF Core Value, Equity
As I continue to reflect and explore the newly released (April 2025) ICF Code of Ethics, the value of Equity stands out as both a call to action and a deepening of ethical presence in our work. More than just a principle, it's an invitation to examine the world, the assumptions we carry, and the ways we partner with our clients.
The 2025 Definition of Equity (ICF) - A commitment to use one's power, privilege, and resources to create opportunity and to dismantle barriers, within self, coaching, systems, and society. Equity honors individuals' rights to be seen, heard, and valued for their humanity, identity, and lived experiences.
This update is not subtle; it's transformative. It shifts Equity from a passive ideal to an active ethical commitment. It's no longer enough to say we "believe in" Equity. It is now a call to embody it, live it, and challenge ourselves and our perspectives toward it.
What Does This Look Like in Practice?
🔹 Using Power with Awareness
Are we aware of how our language, frameworks, or silence may uphold systems of inequity? Coaching with Equity means pausing to ask: Am I creating room for this person's entire experience, or am I filtering it through my lens of comfort or normalcy?
🔹 Honoring Identity and Lived Experience
Do we partner in a way that respects, not dismisses, a client's expression of personal identity? Equity in coaching isn't neutrality; instead, it's a commitment to seeing our clients fully, including the layers that may be invisible in dominant spaces.
🔹 Creating Opportunity & Dismantling Barriers
How do we use our platforms, practices, and pricing to open doors rather than reinforce privilege? Equity is lived not only in sessions but also in how we design our offerings, how accessible we are, and how we use feedback to grow.
Equity Is Not Comfort. It's Courage.
Equity challenges the notion that ethical coaching is neutral coaching. It asks us to stand for, not just stand by. To listen with openness when we've misunderstood.
As coaches, we are being called to stretch into ethical maturity, not to be perfect, but to be brave, reflective, and responsible.
Equity can be seen as 'sameness,' but I believe that view misses the mark; equity isn't about treating everyone the same, it's more about honoring what makes each person unique. It's a value I strive to live by, and it emerges through how I hold space, listen, and co-create safe, brave, human-centered spaces where individuals are invited to bring all that they are.✨
My Final Thoughts
Whether it's offering flexible access, embracing neurodiversity, or softening my certainty to hear what's unspoken, equity calls me to lead with humility, curiosity, and care. It reminds me that transformation doesn't happen in sameness, but in spaces where all voices, identities, and experiences are held with dignity and presence. This is the heart of my work and life, and the foundation I continue to embrace and expand.
Where in your coaching practice and life does Equity already live? What are some areas that are calling for growth?
Let's continue to coach with presence, humanity, and courage, together.
With Love,
Marilyn ox
✨If you would like to explore further:
✔️ ICF Ethics Updated Course: HERE
✔️ ICF Update Code of Ethics: HERE
✔️ ICF Core Competency Bootcamp, July 22, 2025: HERE
✔️ Next Live Morning Coaching, The Coach’s Mirror: August 14, 2025: HERE
🗓️ Schedule a time to Chat → HERE
