The Uncomfortable Responsibility of Ethical Communication
Two sentence summary of this post:
Ethical communication in marketing is not a problem to solve once and move on from; it's a tension to hold, especially when your profession is built on trust. This post explores what it means to market honestly as a professional coach, and what a room full of strangers taught me about a question I hadn't asked myself yet.
You see the intro periodically: “here’s what nobody talks about” then goes on to talk about something straightforward or uninspiring. Here’s my take, but please do let me know if this is uninteresting to you: no one talks about the morality of ethical marketing.
This is going to be a self-reflective piece my perspective who happens to be a formal economist who graduated with a major in marketing.
Last Friday I sat in front of 80 marketing professionals and handed them a moral problem. If you’re interested how it all started, the story began with me preparing for the event by exploring the fear of shame earlier.
Not a campaign. Not a funnel. Not a growth hack. I brought them a conflict I had been talking about with everyone within my circle lately: how do you write engaging marketing communication as a professional helper, without exploiting the very pain you are trying to help someone solve?
I went there to test my idea in a real room. What I got instead was a question I wasn't ready for: “What am I afraid of?”
The Tension That Keeps My Head Spinning
Marketing, in its most functional form, is about capturing attention. And the most reliable way is to induce emotions by pushing a pain point. Plainly: I see what hurts you. Here's the solution.
You know how it works. That's the uncomfortable part.
As a coach, I believe in the humanistic approach. I believe people are their own best experts. I believe true growth comes from within, not from being sold something, especially if you don’t need the service. So, the moment I sit down to write, I run into a wall.
If I press on pain to earn a click, am I helping, or am I doing the opposite of what I stand for?
You see there’s a difference between you pushing that pain in marketing when someone’s reading that wherever and asking a thoughtful question around said pain point gently in a session. The session is designed to sit with pain; random scrolling isn’t.
This isn't a theoretical question. It's a practical one I face when I communicate about my work online. And I haven't figured it out completely. That's exactly why I walked into that meetup.
Went In Willingly for the Slap
After presenting my challenge I got reassured, my question was a valid one. Everyone else brought funnel problems, so I’m sure it made the room think differently for 18 minutes.
Someone in the room asked me: "What are you afraid of?"
It made me pause for seconds. Not that I had no answer to the question, but because I’m afraid of pushing on pain points too heavily. I paused because I understood how differently we looked at the same problem; I was immediately out of my comfort zone. And that’s why I went there.
To be properly challenged.
The question pointed out the fear I had, that marketing and professional coaching built on solid ethical foundations might be in conflict with each other. To grow a business, I might have to make decisions that contradict why I started my practice in the first place.
And that's not a problem you solve in front of a crowd. It's a tension you carry around to talk about almost constantly. My friends and family are certainly waiting on a new topic to arise, that’s for sure.
What Ethical Communication Actually Looks Like
Here's where I’m at currently.
I do have to figure out a gentle and self-aware way to talk about pains that are relatable, but at the same time, won’t push the reader too far alone. That’s trickier than one might think, and I know for a fact, professionals face struggle solving it.
The difference, as I see it, is the intent and use of words.
There's a version of marketing that manipulates; you're broken, and I have the fix. That version treats the reader as a problem to be solved and the coach as the hero of the story. Whether the reader is doing something wrong or not enough.
Then there's a version that says: this is hard, and you don't have to figure it out alone. That version respects the reader's intelligence, acknowledges the difficulty without amplifying it artificially, and puts the agency back where it belongs; with the person reading.
One uses pain as a hook. The other uses it as a point of honest recognition.
I'm still working out which side of that line every sentence I write falls on. That's the ongoing reflective work that won’t let me flood readers with content.
What Happened After I Left the Stage
The networking part started and two people walked over to me.
They didn't challenge me. They came to say that the dilemma I had described resonated. That they believed I did have a responsibility in how I communicate, and that sitting with the question was already the right path.
We talked for the rest of the night although we met for the very first time. About how we work, how we see the world, and the stories that shaped us. We also became comfortable being silent around each other, which is also rare. Genuine conversation, the kind that almost never happens at such events, and I’ve been in attendance for more than a decade now.
I walked home with a surprise of confirmation that the question I had was worth asking out loud.
Why This Matters Beyond Coaching
Last week’s event reassured me that I have to stand firmly behind the idea of ethical communication. I wholeheartedly believe that this is a common responsibility of business owners and everyone who decides to communicate. We should hold each other accountable and invite you to keep me in check and let me know if I step over boundaries.
Most people reading this are not coaches. But many of you communicate professionally in some capacity, and the underlying tension is not exclusive to my field.
Whenever your job involves persuasion, and most jobs do at some level, you face a version of this question. Am I informing, or am I manipulating? Am I meeting someone where they are, or am I amplifying their discomfort to close the gap faster? There should be a set boundary to what we can actually represent.
These aren't questions with clean answers but questions that deserve to stay open and worth having conversations over. I’d love to read your take on it, so please do share your thoughts wherever you feel comfortable.
What I took away from that room is that having the conversation at all, even without conclusions, is more valuable than pretending the tension doesn't exist.
Sitting with discomfort honestly is courageous. It might actually be the most ethical thing you can do.
It’s perfectly okay to ask for support. You don’t have to figure everything out on your own. While I believe everyone is their own best expert, I’m also a big believer in asking for help to create change together. It’s comforting to have someone by our side as we go through transitions. If you’re feeling motivated to expand your comfort zone and curious about how I can support you on your journey, let’s talk.
What you intend to communicate and what actually lands aren't always the same message. Online leadership coaching is where you find out where they split.
