Now before you get your guards up, hold on a sec!
It’s a tough situation that I wanted to speak on…
As a coach, should you EVER let your clients fail?
The immediate reaction is NO, obviously not!
But here’s a question: What do you do when you can see your client making a decision that you don’t think is going to work?
Maybe they want to launch something you don’t think is ready.
Maybe they’re convinced they need to change their offer AGAIN.
Or you’ve given them your recommendation, explained exactly why you think it’s the better path…
…and they decide to do something completely different.
Do you stop them?
I think as coaches, especially when we REALLY care about our clients’ results, we can start to feel responsible for protecting them from every bad decision.
But I don’t think that’s always our job.
Because there’s a difference between letting someone fail and letting someone walk blindly into something.
If I see something they can’t see, I’m going to tell them.
I’ll share what I’m noticing.
I’ll explain the potential consequences.
I’ll ask questions.
I’ll make sure they’re making the decision with as much information and awareness as possible.
But after that?
Sometimes I have to let them choose.
Because they’re the CEO of their business.
Not me.
And if I override every decision I disagree with because I think I know better, I’m not necessarily developing their leadership.
I might actually be teaching them that my judgment matters more than theirs.
There have been plenty of times where I’ve thought:
“I wouldn’t do it that way.”
And my client did it that way anyway.
And I’ll be honest: There are times where I was right.
It didn’t work.
And we came back together afterward and looked at what happened, what they learned, and what they would do differently next time.
But sometimes THEY were right.
They saw something I didn’t.
And I think we have to leave room for that too.
Because coaching isn’t about creating someone who makes every decision exactly the way you would make it.
It’s helping someone become the kind of leader who can make a decision, take responsibility for the outcome, learn from it, and make the next one with more wisdom than they had before.
And sometimes that wisdom comes from something not working.
I can tell someone 14 times why I think something is a bad idea.
But there are lessons you understand very differently once you’ve lived them.
That doesn’t mean I’m sitting back thinking, “Well, go ahead and fail then!”
I’m still there.
I’m still holding the vision.
I’m still going to challenge something when I believe they need to be challenged.
But once I’ve done that, I have to remember whose business we’re actually talking about.
My job is to give them my perspective.
Their job is to decide what they want to do with it.
And if they make the “wrong” decision?
Great coaching doesn’t end at “I told you so.”
That’s where another coaching conversation begins.
What did we learn from this experience and where can we go from here?
Because sometimes protecting someone from every failure also protects them from the leadership that gets built because of it!
