When people sign up for the “What to put in your coaching welcome pack”, 7 part e-course I invite them to share what other coaching or confidence topic they would like more information about.

Some people share their answers, while others do not. The answers I do get can vary dramatically in length and topics suggested. I do read them all and bear them in mind if I specifically invite a Friday guest poster or when I write Wednesdays coaching related post.

Today’s post comes from one such comment, because it intrigued me. It simply said “Dealing with clients who are over confident.” One of the very first Wednesday coaching related posts I wrote was about what technique to use to increase confidence and I don’t often get asked about over-confident coaching clients.

So I began to imagine the possible scenarios that may have occurred to lead to such a description and briefly my coaching thoughts about each of those situations. 7 words is not a great deal to go on, so if the individual who asked that question is reading this feel free to get in touch and expand further.

I’m guessing that because more information has been requested and with the choice of the word “dealing” that at the very least the coach perceives the over confidence as a “problem”.

Mainly because whenever I answer a question I start with the person who asked it, my first question would be to explore who says this is over-confidence?

Potentially (and I have no way of knowing if this is true for the actual questioner) this may reveal more about the coach than it does about the client.

However, I also accept that over-confidence may be a “label” that a coach may have been briefed about from a third party such as a manager in a business context. – Is this really a question about building better relationships in the workplace?

The only context I can possibly imagine a client using the descriptive label as over-confidence is in hindsight – probably in response to something not going the way they had intended and looking for a reason why and questioning their every action. In reality it sounds like this client has actually lost confidence and trust in their own opinions and actions.

I’m also going to guess that rather than a “feeling” of a certain level of confidence, this is actually a question about how to deal with certain behaviours, something that the client is doing that in this case has been “labelled” as over confidence.

So my next question is what behaviours tells this person that this client is over-confident?

If over confidence is your own description, as a coach, of your client is this behaviour directly linked to something happening in or as a result of the coaching session?

For example, is it the “homework” that your client is committing to which indicates to you that they are over confident?  Does a client try and commit to overwhelming a situation with lot of action between each session?

What impact is this behaviour actually having?

For example, is it challenging your expectations for them? Is committing to so many actions actually creating an overwhelming feeling and stress for them?

In one situation, it is the coach who is being affected more than the client. In the other it is the client who is being affected by their action. In which case I would suggest using questioning to first see if this is something the client wants to alter and secondly guide them to identify the behaviour that is causing this and what they can do instead. Perhaps you can agree to play with it for a week or two and see the difference that it makes?

If this is an issue just for the coach then I would suggest that they may want to explore that deeper – is this a case of a particular behaviour pushing your buttons? Have you got strong beliefs about how someone should behave in certain situations? I’m not going to tell you that you have to change that; I will ask if it is affecting your coaching? Do you want it to influence who you work with? What would you suggest to a fellow coach in a similar situation?

If you are finding that this is a trait you see in all your clients then you may want to look at if there is anything that you are doing in your marketing and interaction with your clients that is encouraging this behaviour. Depending upon what behaviour you are actually talking about it may be as simple as how you set expectations at the start of your coaching relationship – what you say during an initial chat, or put in your coaching welcome pack etc?

Coaches, what else would you add to a request about “Dealing with clients who are over confident?”