“Can you hold me accountable to this?”
I hear this ALL the time in coaching.
And usually, absolutely 100%.
In fact, I love holding my clients accountable to the decisions they’re wanting to make.
Accountability can be incredibly valuable when:
… someone is trying to create a new behavior
… follow through on something uncomfortable
… or when they are about to finally do the thing they’ve been saying they’re going to do for the past 6 months.
But I think there’s a point where accountability can quietly turn into something else.
And this is a dangerous territory that coaches might teeter the line towards.
Today, I wanted to dive into what it looks like to hold your clients accountable to their power versus what it might look like babysitting.
The coach becoming responsible for the client’s follow-through.
And those are NOT the same thing.
If I’ve agreed to check in with you on Friday, I’ll check in with you on Friday.
If we create a deadline together, I’ll hold you to the deadline.
If you told me something mattered to you and I see you moving away from it, I’m probably going to ask you about it.
But I don’t want to create a relationship where the only reason you do something is because Christina is going to ask whether you did it.
Because then what happens when I stop asking?
This is where I think we have to look at what accountability is actually supposed to create.
Good accountability should eventually create self-accountability.
It should help someone build evidence that they can make a commitment to themselves and keep it.
Not teach them that someone else has to constantly be standing over their shoulder reminding them to move.
So if I notice a client repeatedly saying:
“You didn’t remind me.”
Or:
“I need you to make sure I do this.”
I’m probably going to get curious about that.
What happens when nobody checks?
Whose responsibility do you believe it is to make sure this gets done?
What structure could YOU create so that your follow-through isn’t dependent on me remembering for you?
Because my job isn’t to care about your goal more than you do.
And no, it doesn’t mean that I stop caring.
And it definitely doesn’t mean I throw my hands up and say, “Well, figure it out!”
It means I help you create the structure, behavior and ownership that makes follow-through possible without me becoming responsible for it.
Sometimes that might mean we need a better system.
Sometimes the commitment was unrealistic from the beginning.
And sometimes we have to have the conversation that the thing someone keeps saying is a priority… isn’t actually being treated like one.
That’s coaching too.
Because accountability should support someone’s ownership.
It shouldn’t replace it.
I don’t want to build clients who are incredible at doing things when I’m watching.
I want to build clients who become someone they can count on.
And should they stop coaching with me at some point, they don’t end up being frazzled not knowing who to rely on.
The goal is to ensure the accountability I provide helps them get there.
THAT’S accountability doing its job.
