Don't you agree? When clients want your affirmation

Sometimes clients tell you stories: Stories where they felt treated badly, where someone did something wrong, where someone got upset with the client and they feel like they did not deserve the upset. The stories carry in them a request to agree with the client: Yes, the other person treated you badly; no, the other person had no reason to get upset, etc. The client wants to reaffirm their perspective and make sure that you are on their side.

I understand clients’ need for affirmation, after all, we all sometimes feel our perspective challenged by other people’s behavior. However, for the coach, this can create a difficulty. As coaches, we want to promote the autonomy of the client. We aim at making our services superfluous for the client. If we become the “confidante”, “paid friend” and main source of affirmation and confirmation for the client, we are not really successful at that part of our jobs.

So how can we respond to such a situation? As always, the golden rule of coaching is “it depends”. I have two experiences as coach and as client that were very positive but quite different.

Years ago, I was working with a colleague who was constantly berating me, and I started feeling quite miserable around this person. I was second guessing most of the interactions and was starting to feel insecure. I recounted some of the interactions and my coach asked questions like: “Was there anything that you did that could give the colleague the impression that you were (insert the criticism)?” When thinking about what I did, did not result in the identification of anything I had done, the coach agreed with me that probably, this was not about anything I had done. I learned that sometimes people don’t respond to what I am doing but to their own interpretations of that and that there is little I can do to control that.

The other experience is me coaching an executive whose boss is very different from her. She started telling me what she thought the boss was doing wrong and how this impacted her department negatively. We had already coached quite a while, so I felt safe to say: “You know what – I get that his is really difficult for you, but I wouldn’t be doing my job very well if I supported you in focusing on what your boss is doing wrong. I’m here to support you and you won’t thrive without a reasonable relationship with your boss. And since we can’t change him, we might focus on what you can change. What do you think?” She agreed immediately and we started working on strategies of response.

Two very different responses that created a positive outcome – don’t you just love the complexity of relationships and conversations. If I had to extract “advice” out of these examples, this is what I

would say:

- If the client desperately needs emotional support, I’d give it. I’d commiserate a bit before trying to look at any agency the client may have. Anything else sounds cruel to me. After all, we are human, first.

- If the client feels insecure, wants a “reality check”, it is a good idea to look at the situation and ask questions about it and then let the client decide what perspective they want to take.

- If it is about the client telling a story to “vent”, shortening the story or inviting the client to focus on their agency might be more productive than agreeing with the vent.

- In any case, I would not evaluate the need of the client for affirmation as negative. I would try and acknowledge it and invite the client to look at it. My experience is that the acknowledgement is important, otherwise most clients will try to bring their point across more intensively to help you understand how difficult it is. So something like: “Wow, that sounds tough, I get how this would impact you!” and “What difference would it make if I agreed with you / affirmed your perspective?” Maybe, the client answers: “I would stop second guessing myself” and you could then explore ways to stop second guessing (and what to do instead) that don’t depend on the coach.

This topic was something we discussed in one of our free meetups and exchanges (shout out to Jo who brought it). If you want to join us, here’s the link:

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