Let’s check the dictionary for this one. Ah, here we are:
sycophancy, noun. The fawning behavior of a sycophant; servile flattery.
You know what’s a great way to get someone to like you, and jibe with what you have to say? Agree with them. Make them right. See things their way. Validate their feelings, perspectives, conclusions, regardless of merit.
In other words, play the role of the sycophant.
Of course it’s not hard to see how this might be useful for a coach. If you’re in the business of getting people to want to pay (and keep paying) you money in exchange for having conversations with them (and let’s face it: even if it’s a comically narrow definition, every coach is ultimately in that business, especially if they don’t offer anything more than conversations), you really are incentivized to get someone to like you, and to jibe with what you have to say.
So it’s gonna be tempting to lean towards unconditionally empathizing with whatever their story is on their bumpy road to self-improvement1Therapy often backslides into this very behavior, and this is the territory in which coaching itself insidiously morphs into therapy..
That might be what a client needs in the short term. Or, more likely, thinks they need. But because of its tendency to keep one stuck in whatever mindset that wasn’t working in the first place, this is at odds with actual difference-making. And THAT is what the client really needs and is here for.
What’s the high road alternative? Tough love.
Tough love to us clients means a lot of things. It means not indulging our every disempowering rant. Relating to us as big and capable. Calling out our BS. It’s the courage to say “Actually, you’re being the asshole.” Or “You’re playing way below your potential; I get it’s comfortable, but knock it off.” It’s telling us to rise up and do the right thing, even if it’s the hard thing. Because of what’s at stake on the other side.
Tough love is to be listening for, patiently waiting for, us to actually do those hard things. To congratulate us when we do, and not let us off the hook when we don’t.
Co-founder of Y-Combinator Jessica Livingston, tweeted in 2025 “I don’t think I’ve ever regretted taking the high road (not that I always have).”
Yes.
You won’t always take the high road in this way. But you won’t regret having done so. Even if it ruffles the feathers of some of us clients. Because deep down, it’s what we really want anyway.
By that I mean “write it down somewhere, so it’s clear what your client is playing for”.
Goals and intentions thereby become clear and unambiguous, and that is the only way by which you’ll be able to circle back later and judge whether they got done.
CoachAccountable Action plans and Metrics are built for just this sort of thing.
Set up these sorts of things, then give the tough love to root them on to follow through.
Notes:
- 1Therapy often backslides into this very behavior, and this is the territory in which coaching itself insidiously morphs into therapy.
