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They come in many forms–control freak, risk taker, charismatic leader.
In the executive suites of major corporations around the world, these traits are common–and often combined with a healthy dose of narcissism.
“The predominance of narcissism in our executives…(makes) it likely that coaches will deal with these types of behavioral tendencies,” says Kerri Kearney, an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University, who started researching the high-stakes risks and rewards of working with narcissistic leaders after watching a high-profile coaching assignment fail. “Why did this critical coaching engagement fail? It was a question that continued to haunt me.”
For Kearney, the episode was troubling because the failure of the coaching effort had “resounding effects” inside the company and as a result she said it “stuck with me for months, because, based upon the situation and generally accepted coaching practices, it had every reason to be a resounding success.”
Why did it fail? Kearney set out to answer that question.
She began studying the existing literature on the predominance of narcissism among executives, but soon found that the impact of narcissistic behaviors on the coaching relationship had not been explored. “Now in posession of additional knowledge from the field of behavioral sciences, I believe the reasons for the earlier coaching failure were related to my lack of understanding and management of the narcissistic tendencies of the client,” said Kearney.
Kearney has just written about her experiences working with narcissistic leaders in the current edition of the International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring.
Her story, entitled “Grappling with the Gods” aims to empower other coaches to be effective with narcissistic clients, who may be expert at appearances. “Their roles require that they are able to present the ‘proper’ face, and a designer suit, high levels of overt confidence, obvious success and proper manners in the boardroom can initially fool even an experienced executive coach,” Kearney writes.
So how can a coach work successfully with this kind of client?
Part of the answer, Kearney suggests, comes in understanding the resistance many narcissistic leaders may have to coaching, even if on the surface they seem actively interested, even eager to be coached. One key client–the executive whose coaching failure propelled her to study narcissism–was initially described to Kearney as “uncoachable.”
In working directly with the client, his usual ease seemed to vanish. Kearney writes that he “would generally refuse to meet my eyes and would smoothly avoid any clear responses. Equally unusually for him, I noticed that his eyes would dart around the room, seeming to focus on nothing but suggesting extreme nervousness or discomfort, almost an underlying panic.”
An underlying panic from an an executive who’d risen to the top thanks to DNA that kept him unshakable and constantly confident?
Kearney’s research suggests the facade that these kinds of leaders build can be threatened by the probing nature of coaching. “The intense individual focus that is an inherent part of the executive coaching process may be viewed by any client as stressful,” Kearney writes. “However, for the narcissistic leader, I wonder if it appears as a real threat to their sense of well being and is associated with greatly increased stress.”
So what works with tricky clients like this?
Kearney believes her research has given her some answers, including suggesting that coaches be ready to make changes in how they do their job with narcissistic clients. “Coaches must be willing to make mid-game adjustments.” One of those adjustments may be to dispense with offering feedback. “The nature of narcissism makes these leaders highly resistant to any feedback that puts them in a less than perfect light,” she writes. “This could make a coaching process very challenging to perhaps impossible. This most certainly requires a patient, well-attuned coach who is creative about framing feedback, devising feedback strategies and abandoning and/or creating new strategies based upon the leader’s responses.”
Kearney considers her observations and research to be a “very small starting point” in understanding the unique nature of working with these types of clients, and she hopes more study “will heighten the opportunity for success” in working with clients who might be considered “uncoachable.”
What’s your experience?
Have you coached an “uncoachable” client? How have you worked with a high-profile, narcissistic client?
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There are 16 Responses so far...
It was unclear to me from this article how Kearny defines a “narcissistic client”.
Very interesting. It seems to me that the narcissistic client in question is fearful of negative feedback and therefore the coach would have to put much more time and attention on building a safe, trusting relationship first.
Many people who fear negative feedback are self-critical, so giving positive feedback can be an effective way to build trust. But this type of client is so used to positive feedback that it would only create a very superficial trust. One would have to build a much deeper relationship to have any impact. Very difficult.
I’d love to hear more thoughts on this subject.
Intriguing and insightful article and discussion.
As a Psychoanalyst for over two decades, I worked with narcissistic executives and leaders. To do analysis with them was a creative and intellectual challenge, as it is now to work with them in a coaching venue, which I have done for the past eight years.
Here are some applications that might be useful to offer in our discussion of coaching approaches:
• Many of the ways that we facilitate change are contrary to how the mind and the brain work. This applies across the board, not just to narcissistic individuals. Incorporating principles from psychology, neuroscience, and quantum physics are necessary in strategic coaching.
• Of the types of empathy, the most useful initially with the narcissistic individual is cognitive empathy: to know the perspective of the client, what they may be thinking. Emotional and compassionate empathy need to be reserved for later resonance.
• Intellectual stimulation may be most accessible as a root to what’s really important: Regulating states of mind by choosing the mental map most productive for a given task; appealing to an understanding of the states of mind and mindsets of self, peers, and competitors.
• As a coach, remember to take nothing personally. This establishes a model for the narcissistic individual to not take things so personally, to recognize that others are only making self-statements.
• The more subtle aspect in learning something new and creating change is an injury to self- esteem. When change occurs—to replace with a better idea or method—Is a threat to identity. Every step forward means relinquishing a past position, so aspects of narcissistic injury will always be present for everyone.
• Remember that clients are always doing their very best job of showing you exactly what it’s like to be them. The issues that need coaching will come alive within the coaching relationship, not just talk about “out there.” This gives ample information in an active, lived process where change becomes vivid.
• Remember that people in transition will create new ways to return to the old story. Don’t take it personally.
• Never underestimate the change-back pressure from the system. The family. The company. Each has individual or systemic status quo bias.
The article and all three responses so far have proved valuable to me at various levels. Thank you.
The one thing I would add is that I have sometimes found working with similar clients that once I have established the appropriate trust and permission to provide potentially confronting feedback, I share with them my observations of their style of receiving feedback generally or when related to specific topics.
And I ask them what they think of those observations so that we’re having a conversation based on both perspectives versus it being only about one person’s perspective.
I do understand the risks with such an approach and I use this very carefully, and again it’s necessary to highlight that I only do it when there is trust and permission to do so.
My experience has shown me that the majority of times I use this technique there is a significant shift or at the very least a temporary “pattern interrupt” (where their current pattern of thinking/responding is interrupted in order to provide an opportunity to explore what might have been a “blind spot” for the client).
I trust this one additional perspective may be of some value to readers and I again want to thank Mark for a great article and all the contribution of others thus far and to come.
Cheers, Noel (Sydney)
It appears to me that a client/coachee who is not in a ‘readiness state’ for/toward coaching; or is ‘unconsciously resistant’ to coaching because of narcissistic personality disorder or self-centeredness inclinations; then the first approach is to ‘treat’/'fix’ the NPD or egocentrism; before even engaging into coaching.
Raising the awareness of these ‘blind spots’ using ‘unburdening’ or ‘unblocking’ processes, a coach could be engaged in (without delving deeper into therapeutic interventions); so as to facilitate the ‘readiness state’ for coaching may be an option before engaging in ‘serious’ coaching conversations.
David’s suggestions on how to delicately handle clients/ooachees who display ‘nacassistic behaviours’ are highly relevant to coaches.
However, my personal experience is that the secret to success in coaching lies predominantly in the ability to build a coach-coachee relationship which are meaningful, open, trusting, and sustainable through time.
Who has ever had a client/coachee who does not display even an inkling of ‘narcissistic’ or ‘egoistic’ behaviour (I believe we all have such behaviours as long as they do not reach or classified as ‘disorders’)?
Billy C H Teoh
Malaysia.
I found this a really interesting article too.
I myself have had trouble receiving critical feedback in the past and for me personally it has come from having very low underlying self esteem which I tended to hide from myself and others with a certain image I projected.
This image gave me a false sense of self confidence so that I was able to function in environments I probably wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.
Since I had that much cover up going on receiving criticism can feel incredibly threatening. It felt like I was crumbling and having to rebuild myself.
I agree it can be a threat to someones identity but in my experience I think its really a cover up identity which the client is reliant upon in order to experience their world as they would like or as they would like others to veiw them. The image is a protection.
Hearing criticism not only potentially threatened my perceived personal identity but also the environment Id built around that identity. I am not a corporate executive but I imagine it could play out in a similar fashion.
It has taken me a while to realise I can use feedback as a tool to use constructively for my own development but first I had to admit I needed development in some areas and I was very resistant because it meant having to face what was real rather than what I prefered to see.
I think those who I am able to recieve it well from do model not taking things personaly, but also are very sensitive in how they deliver it, including asking permission, first as Noel mentioned, which allows me to prepare myself and view it more objectively.
I have also found attending education/training programmes helpful because it allows me to take learning on board that may be relevant to me but is not directed at me personally.
That way I have been able to incorporate it without feeling like my image is about to be taken out from under my feet leaving me with nothing to fall back on. In this way I can slowly relinquish the image in a much safer trusting environment.
As this has happened I have become more real and trust in myself has grown enormously simply because it is “real” and not an image.
This is very frightening at first though because your trust and confidence is in the image and I have had to do this very slowly.
I imagine that corporate executives with their images have a whole lot at stake and even though it may appear superficial I imagine that underneath it is anything but.
I feel for them!
Thanks for the chance to comment.
Jane (Broken Hill)
This has turned into a great conversation, and I hope it’ll stay lively. It’s always been a goal of the Coaching Commons to spark conversation and then provide the forum for the discussion, and I, for one, love it.
If a client is uncoachable wouldn’t that indicate some kind of disorder or something deeper in the first place? I am very green at this and not a practicing coach but I find it really interesting.
If you have to “prepare” a coachee to be coached does that mean you are crossing the boundaries of coaching no matter how sensitively you do this? What could be the ramifications of this?
On the other hand the fact that coaching can take a more intellectual approach could possibly provide an environment that is much safer for such a client as David pointed out and therefore more suited to this type of client.
Do coaches see failing to coach someone who is narcistic as failing as a coach and then research to see if there is some approach they can take which will then mean they can have some success with these clients. Does this then mean it becomes therapeutic even if the approaches are not strictly therapy?
I don’t know I just wonder where the boundaries are and how far do you take coaching while not diagnosing and not using techniques that can be clearly classified as therapy.
How do you know when you begin to impact the client in such a way that it then becomes therapy even if that is not your intention, remembering that these cients could be very good at not allowing you access to their inner experiences.
It is a very interesing topic!
Jane
In almost nine years of coaching and mentoring executives and professionals, I have not found anyone to be “uncoachable.” For all of the coaches I have mentored this has meant:
• The coach needs to better understand some basic aspects of the client’s style, personality, and needs.
• Not take the client’s personality and perhaps abrasive or off-putting style personally, but as information the client brings to the relationship.
• To accurately and emphatically appreciate the client’s personality and issues, and to strategically co-create ways to proceed.
Narcissism does not imply a pathology but a style of personality that needs appreciation and understanding, just as many other styles.
Also, I believe there is not a thin gray line between coaching and therapy, but a broad black one. For a white paper on the differences between coaching and therapy, download “Coaching vs. Therapy: Frontiers and Fences” at http://www.MentorPath.com It is not the impact on the client that determines coaching versus therapy, but the venue and framework of the coach. In my experience, good coaching will have powerful impact on someone’s growth and development, often evolving in ways more significantly in therapy or analysis. See also the article “The Neuroscience of “The Secret’” under the “Articles” tab at the website above.
Thanks for those comments David.
Im so glad you pointed out its not the impact that determines coaching v therapy. Even though the differences between coaching and therapy has been explained to me before this has still been an area of confusion for me, hence my comments.
I now can see Ive been looking at it from the point of view of the impact it has and its a relief for someone to say this does not determine coaching v therapy. I will look up the website you have mentioned.
Thanks
Jane
Thanks for differentiating between therapy versus coaching.
David, permit me to understand further the statement: “It is not the impact on the client that determines coaching versus therapy, but the venue and framework of the coach”.
Could you further share what you meant by ‘the venue and framework of the coach’?
Although a coach works with ‘emotionally healthy’ clients/coachees, in reality, there will be ‘times of stress’ when a client/coach may not be fully ‘emotionally healthy’, and this is where there may be a line of greyness?
Holding on to the distinctions of therapy versus coaching, the coach’s option then, is to use a coaching process while entering a therapeutic domain?
But then, the BIG question is should a coach enter into the ‘unburdening’ or ‘unblocking’ or ‘therapeutic’ processes, so as to be able to move forward with the coaching conversation, or refer to the client/coachee to the appropriate professional?
Is the coach competent to assess and determine if or if not for example – that a client is ‘suffering’ from mild or acute narcissism? What and who determines whether ‘mild narcissism’ requires a ‘healing process’ versus a coaching process? or are we saying that we just ignore that, that is a no issue in the coaching conversation?
Billy C H Teoh
Malaysia.
Having read the website given by David it seems to me that even if it is not the impact on the client that determines coaching v therapy I am coming to understand that there is still a very real difference in how these approaches are experienced by the client.
The “intent” of coaching with its strategies and tools focuses the client in a forward thinking, feeling, behaving motion.
I can finally understand that this is not therapy. This is not unravelling the “old” but rather creating the “new” Thanks David.
In my experience of being coached the two things that have impacted on me the most powerfully are 1) Writing a letter to myself from the future and 2) Having someone believe in me with conviction.
I can also see that when coaches are faced with “tricky” clients they would need to be quite skillful and knowledgable in order to keep the client moving forward.
If a client is no longer moving forward or showing signs of resistance then perhaps this is an indication that 1. The client needs refering or 2. The coach themselves needs coaching or some form of supervision.
I also “believe” that some clients need to revisit the past and should be allowed to tell their old story as boring as this may sound. I think coaches need to look out for this as it may help clients and has helped me to feel validated and to let go and be more willing to create a new story.
Is this crossing the boundaries of coaching? With my new understanding I think the clients future behaviour, thinking, feeling would determine whether or not it had.
I think the line is crossed when the coach continues to coach after a coachee/client is showing signs of not moving forward in a healthy self actualizing manner. I imagine this would be relevant to both therapy and coaching.
These have been the best conversations and I dont know about anyone else but they have really helped me to understand coaching and therapy so much more.
Thanks!
Jane
Incredibly interesting conversation and points made by the discussants. Jane’s March 12 comment bravely allows us to see her openness in growth along these lines of sense of self in specific ways.
Narcissism is another term for a developmental domain—of the sense of self, common to everyone. If compromised, the self is vulnerable to “narcissistic injury” as well as being dependent on continuing “narcissistic supplies” like the admiring responses of others. So, narcissistic development is analogous to the development to the sense of self, something we all continually engage throughout our lifetimes.
I agree with Billy’s comment that the coaching relationship is the crucible of change, and it is this process that allows growth and development in the client. And with Noel’s comment that a collaborative atmosphere is necessary, as more narcissistic individuals are sensitive to perceived criticism and any hint of an authoritarian position on the part of the coach.
Regarding Billy’s comment about unconscious resistance: everyone is unconsciously resistant because of the ways that our minds and brains work. Neuroscience has demonstrated that every belief, every fact, every attachment pattern, is an anatomical reality. You can’t simply lay another fact along side what is already operating in the brain hardware and mind software and expect it to change someone. Many of the methods we use to facilitate change are actually contrary to how the mind and the brain work. See my last two blog entries on “Mindfulness; Psychoanalysis meets Quantum Physics on the Buddhist Trail to Neuroscience” and “The Neuroscience of Forgiveness” at http://www.TheSecreteLanguageofMoney.com/blog for further discussion about these specific mind and brain matters.
In fact, I believe we are in a unique position as executive coach to address these issues. In fact, if we do not, it is likely that they will never get addressed. It is our obligation to do so, what we are paid for. A client is always doing the best job possible to teach us exactly what it is like to be him or her. When I mentor coaches to help them understand and navigate this process brought alive in the coaching engagement, they are able to successfully work with their clients.
Some neuroscience studies have now demonstrated that when problems are focused on and reworked, the process of that focus more deeply etches them. It is the focus on possibilities and on creating new brain pathways that offers the greatest promise of change. It is for this reason that many people can get stuck in therapy. Writing a thousand better endings to an old story still recreates the process of the old story and more deeply etches it in the brain.
It is this process of looking at possibilities rather than problems, at now and next that distinguishes coaching from therapy. All relevant information, including feelings, behaviors, and beliefs from the past are taken as information to inform the choice architecture of this moment. We do not re-enter the old story with the client, but stay focused on the present, new and evolving story. In this way we do not delve more deeply into the unconscious, because everything that will be needed manifests in the present moment as unconscious derivatives, even old beliefs and assumptions that have previously ghostwritten behavior.
I hope this is helpful.
Thanks David for the sharing.
Your last paragraph of your recent posting brought out something of interest to me (“We do not re-enter the old story with the client, but stay focused on the present, new and evolving story.”)
I am assumming that most coaches are trained as such. However, in practice, we sometimes do need to enter the old story in order to obtain the ‘leveraging points’ to move forward (of course, not dealing with the old story – that would be entering therapy).
Also, in practice, we need to elicit and solicit so as to understand the underlining ‘undesirable neurological patterns’ of our clients/coachees, in order to ‘install’ new desirable neurological patterns as part of the coaching process if that is an issue at hand.
So, as a practitioner, there are lots of theoritical and evidence-based researches on what a coach should or should not ‘practise’; though in reality, there are so many variables that come into play in any ‘serious’ coaching conversation, that sometimes ‘rules’ may not be the most appropriate option. After all, we are dealing with the intricacies and complexities of we as humans.
Isn’t it great to be able to put theory into practice, and practice into theory?
Billy C H Teoh
Malaysia.
Yes these conversations have been very helpful to me.
Thanks David, Billy and Noel for your input and helping me to gain a better understanding from my position of not having yet coached a client.
I am grateful for the knowledge you have generously offered.
Jane
I find the discussion interesting, although one question I have is “who initiated the coaching relationship and with what goal in mind?” Narcissistic personalities seldom seek out coaching/feedback in my experience, so it makes me wonder what the issue is and who decided it needed to be addressed. I am not confident coaching is a helpful approach. At the very least, the coach and client need some parameters to assess the relationship over time.
It is also interesting that with all of the research on recruitment & retention, shortage of key skills etc that the corporate mind set hasn’t shifted to look more at HOW results are obtained rather than a heavy bias towards outcomes. When I work with small businesses (under 200 employees) who demonstrate financial success, staff loyalty and long tenure, the leader(s) have a fair bit of ego in the game but they lead through relationships and influence more than through positional power.
Large corporate entities seem to spend a lot of time mopping up damages left by leaders who leave a trail of destruction behind them. In my opinion, the costs are unsustainable and the cultural legacy is coming home to roost!