Building Professional Relationships and Setting Healthy Boundaries With Clients

When working closely with people, it’s natural to become friendly. This kind of bonding can strengthen a relationship and make it easier to communicate and work together.

However, the Coach-Client or Trainer-Trainee relationship is different than many working relationships. While it is important to bond with your client, you also have to remember that this is a business relationship. Your job is to guide them along their career path, and help them to be accountable to the goals that you set up together.

In other words, you need to demonstrate #professionalism in the relationships you build with your clients.

Professionalism is a commitment to a professional mindset and professional quality that encompasses responsibility, respect, integrity, competence, and excellence. For us, this means being honest and accurate; keeping our promises; making ethical choices; demonstrating equality and respecting people, cultures, and beliefs.

How do you do this? How do you initiate a professional relationship?

1. Begin by explaining your role and responsibilities and define what the client’s role is and what is expected of them.
2. Next, outline healthy boundaries for working together. Most organizations have policies that define these boundaries. We should follow them and share them with our clients, talking through them and answering questions to make sure they understand.

For organizations that don’t have such policies, we need to take the initiative to establish a list of healthy boundaries with our clients. At a minimum, these should include:

• Respecting each other’s personal space — Unwanted or inappropriate touching or affections will not be tolerated. This includes crowding or intimidating another person by standing too close to them.
• Respecting each other’s time — Clients should never call you at home beyond work hour unless there is an emergency. Likewise, we should never call a client after working hours unless we have set up an appointment with them. Professionals leave work at work and keep personal time personal.
• Using only respectful and appropriate body language and gestures — Rude or inappropriate gestures, poses and mimicking are not acceptable behavior.
• No yelling, cursing or name-calling should be acceptable by either side.
• No bullying of any kind
• Follow the Golden Rule — Respect other people and their property; treat them the way you would like them to treat you.

It’s also important to explain the consequences for violating these boundaries. If anyone does violate them, address the situation quickly, directly and with compassion.

• Explain why what they did was inappropriate and what appropriate behavior should be.
• Set goals for eliminating or correcting the behavior and follow up on their progress.
• If the behavior continues, sit down with them and create a behavioral contract clearly stating what is appropriate and consequences for inappropriate behavior.
• Provide training or resources to help them develop in this area.

Building professional relationships that incorporate healthy boundaries is an important part of our roles. It’s a big key to our and their success.