The Fierce Champion: Willingness to Take the Gloves Off can Enhance Your Client’s Transformation

I’m not, by nature, a very fierce guy.  I tend to lead with logic and reasoned arguments when there is conflict or disagreement, seeking harmony over victory and consensus over command.  That’s why I’ve had to learn to step into an element of coaching that can be intensely uncomfortable but transformational for my clients.

Fierceness.

I vividly remember when fierceness came up in a training a few years back.  “Your job for this next exercise,” said our front-of-room leader, “Is to be such a fierce champion of your client that they are about to fire you.”  We were broken into pairs and proceeded to employ what now we would call “radical candor” to coach our ersatz clients.  Some of us did get fired, most of us soft pedaled our messaging, and all of us learned something.  “It seems,” I said, “Maybe…is there something you’re not seeing here?”  I thought I was being bold calling out my partner-client for ignoring something.

In the years since, I’ve worked with leaders at all levels and noticed that my willingness to be fierce in the service of my clients has evolved.  That’s a key: ferocity in their service.  I cannot be a champion unless I’m prepared to be an all-in, bare-knuckle, take-no-prisoners partner in creating the space for their transformation.

Some ferocious things I’ve said to clients:

“I’m hearing a lot of reasons why you won’t act…and I also heard you say you want things to be different. My question is…what needs to be true for you to pull your head out of your backside and make a change?” (I used more adult language than is permissible here.)

“That statement feels dishonest based on what you’ve told me before.  How can that and XYZ also be true?”

“Here’s the behavior I’ve observed that is directly counter to your stated intent.  How do you line them up?”

Here’s another key: I can only speak that way if I’ve earned trust and if I am doing it 100% in support of their development.  The minute I’m saying it for my sake, or to get them to do something I want, I’ve lost their agenda.

I was listening to a friend who had just come from a corporate meeting where Kim Scott’s radical candor was discussed as a good manager-as-a-coach skills building.  “It’s like they’re telling us it’s OK to be a jerk because now it’s trendy,” is how my friend put it.  I asked if their company had provided the full model, including the great foundation, Care Personally.  Sadly, and as is all too often the case, that part had been ignored.

Being fierce in a coaching relationship is even deeper than caring personally.  I have to be so committed to my client’s success that I’m willing to lose them as a client along with the loss of reputation and (if I was an external coach-for-hire) loss of income if they quit.  It’s also knowing the right moment to take off the gloves, grab your client by the hand and (metaphorically) pull them into a space where they are intensely uncomfortable and dragging their feet.  Here are my three clues that we’re approaching that moment:

• The client is in a circular conversation with you
• They are making clearly contradictory statements
• Your intuition tells you it’s time

We all know that intuition plays a big role in coaching.  It’s easy to follow intuition into simple places, such as, “I sense that this topic is hard for you.” It’s much harder to follow it by holding up a mirror that reflects back some awkward truths like, “That sounds like you’re hedging.” It’s a discomfort that I’ve learned to embrace, even if it took some time, and I don’t always do it well.

Because here’s the thing: My clients deserve my very best self. They need me to step into fierce discomfort just like I’m asking them to.  There’s magic there, and you’ll be amazed at the results.  I haven’t lost one single client when I stepped to the edge with them like this.

I’ve brought fierce championship into coaching relationships with hard-charging senior executives, shy individual contributors and everything in between.  For many, it’s been the breakthrough conversation they were seeking but didn’t know how to ask for.  We say that most coaching happens outside the sessions, and the most common statement during the meeting a few weeks after the session where I stepped into fierceness is “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you asked.  And it made me…”

While I’m not by nature a very fierce guy, fierceness is a quality I’ve learned to embrace.  It has allowed me to support my clients in ways I couldn’t without it.  Ferocity has helped me create more room for their growth and transformational horizons they hadn’t yet glimpsed.

RAWR!