What Happens When You Stop Defending and Start Listening
The Reflex Nobody Warned You About
Here is something I see in almost every physician I coach, especially early on. Someone shares an observation about their leadership, and before the sentence is finished, the physician is already constructing a defense. Not because they are closed-minded. Because defensiveness in coaching is the default mode for people who built careers on being right.
That instinct to defend or clarify feels productive. It feels like you are adding context. But what it actually does is shut down the conversation before it gets anywhere useful.
Listening Without an Agenda
There is a difference between hearing someone and listening to them. Hearing is passive. Listening in coaching sessions means staying present with what is being said without simultaneously preparing your rebuttal.
Ralph Nichols, widely considered the father of listening research, found that most people retain only about 25 percent of what they hear. His work, detailed in Are You Listening?, makes the case that genuine listening is an active skill, not a passive one. For physicians mentally composing a defense while their coach is still talking, retention drops even further.
The shift is not about agreeing with everything your coach says. It is about creating enough space to actually evaluate it.
Why High Achievers Struggle Most With This
If you have spent twenty years being the smartest person in most rooms, openness to feedback in medicine does not come naturally. Your identity is woven into your competence. When a coach reflects something back that implies a gap, your brain reads it as a threat to who you are, not just what you did.
This is not a flaw. But it becomes a problem when it prevents you from hearing the one observation that could change your trajectory.
What Opens Up When You Let Go
I worked with a physician who spent the first three sessions explaining away every piece of feedback I offered. Good reasons, every time. Then one session, something shifted. She paused, took a breath, and said, "Okay. Say more about that." No defense. No context-setting. Just listening.
That single moment changed the entire coaching relationship. We got to the real issue in ten minutes instead of spending the hour circling it. Think of it like a pitcher who keeps shaking off the catcher's signs. At some point, you have to trust the process and throw the pitch.
The breakthroughs in coaching rarely come from your coach saying something brilliant. They come from you being willing to hear something uncomfortable without swatting it away.
One Thing to Try
The next time you feel the urge to defend during a coaching session, try replacing your first response with three words: "Tell me more." That is it. You are not surrendering your perspective. You are just delaying your defense long enough to find out if there is something worth sitting with.
Most of the time, there is.
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