There’s often some sort of unstated, subtle fear that coaches often have of their clients.
You’ll more commonly hear it copped to among coaches working with high-powered executives. “These people literally have no time”, “I can barely get them to show up for the sessions themselves”.
But this is not unique to executive coaches. When you come to recognizing that pattern, you can see the more subtle variations in less overt instances of coach being subordinate. “I don’t want to bother them”, “I don’t want to overwhelm or ask too much of them” and “It’s not my place to tell them what to do.” Most subtle of all: “I need to meet them where they are at.”
It’s a veneer over the same concern: I want my clients to continue working with me. It’s the same fear: that they will drop me as their coach.
Clients who merely get a whiff of that first concern will be turned off, and rightly so. It’s self-dealing and small.
So coaches and their clients would do better courting a different concern: I want my clients to get undeniably life-changing wins. A different fear: that they will get only lukewarm or questionable results.
Clients who are enthusiastically introduced to that second concern will be delighted by your candor, and inspired that it really is about them and what they came for.
Let your clients know you don’t need them to like you, you need them to get big wins. Enroll them in that and you will have created a powerful partnership for the coaching relationship.
CoachAccountable Action planning and Metric tracking are where you tee up the game with your clients. Worthy plans and goals get made, and then it’s game on: the results, or lack thereof, will be clear as time goes on.
Guide your client to make a game (as Actions and Metrics) that’s winnable and that they’re excited to win, and let them know you’re their partner in getting what they came for. CoachAccountable makes this game real, concrete, and visible to both parties as the weeks and months go by.
