Lessons Learned from ‘Difficult’ Clients
The cover story from a recent issue of Choice: The Magazine for Professional Coaching is about working with difficult clients. The article challenges coaches to consider the following: what the coach perceives as difficult about the client is an opportunity for the coach to stretch and to ultimately learn something invaluable about him/herself.
Not long after I read the article, one of my mentor-coaching clients came to a coaching call with a difficult client situation. Actually she was experiencing many of her clients as difficult. My client, who I’ll refer to as Diane, was at the last leg of her journey to become a certified coach. Her Gremlin was telling her that she wasn’t cut out to be a coach after all.
“How effective am I if I experience the majority of my clients as difficult?” Diane wondered that day on our call.
An enlightening coaching conversation ensued.
In processing out loud the relationships with each of these four clients, three critical themes emerged for Diane:
1) She was not setting clear boundaries with her clients. For example, one client repeatedly called in a few minutes late for coaching. Diane did not mention the lateness, and she sometimes extended the coaching conversation if it didn’t feel quite complete. Another client consistently paid late, and Diane did not raise her concern about the late payment with her client.
2) She was not ‘calling her clients forth’. A couple of these clients had a tendency to fall into ‘victim mode’ when discussing their life circumstances. Diane found herself colluding with them instead of coaching them to consider other, more empowering perspectives.
3) She was attached to holding on to her clients. With only a couple months remaining to complete certification, Diane was worried that one or more of her clients would end the coaching, and she would not have the hours required to successfully complete the program. She recognized that the more she held on, the less present and authentic she was being with her clients.
There was a huge shift that occurred for Diane as she realized what was occurring for her in these relationships. We met two weeks later for another coaching call, and her energy was completely different. She reported feeling more confident in her coaching and no longer seeing her clients as quite so difficult.
“What’s different now?” I asked with great curiosity. “I let go,” she responded.
For Diane, letting go meant being unafraid to lose a client. She trusted that as one client ended, a new one would show up for coaching. Letting go also meant ‘speaking her truth’ when she observed her clients in victim-mode and not taking responsibility for their lives. She felt much freer to offer her perspective from a loving place, knowing that she had her clients’ best interest at heart. And perhaps most important, letting go meant trusting that she had everything she needed to be a great coach!
Consider the clients you think of as difficult. What are the lessons these clients can teach you?
