Coaching Isn't Managing.

Managing is making sure the train runs on time. Coaching is making sure the conductor can drive without you standing over their shoulder.

The Point

You're not coaching to make yourself feel useful. You're coaching to make the other person more capable, more confident, and eventually less dependent on you for answers.

If every conversation ends with you telling someone what to do, that's not coaching. That's a bottleneck with good intentions.

How to Actually Coach

• Ask more than you tell. "What do you think the right move is?" beats "Here's what I'd do" nine times out of ten.
• Sit in the discomfort. Let people struggle with the answer. Silence is a tool, not a failure.
• Give feedback that's specific enough to act on. "Great job" teaches nothing. "The way you restructured that proposal around the client's priorities made the difference" teaches everything.
• Match the push to the person. Some people need encouragement. Some need a challenge. Know which one you're talking to.
• Follow up. The coaching moment is worthless if nobody checks whether anything changed.

What Coaching Isn't

• A performance improvement plan with better branding.
• Therapy. Know the line.
• Something you do once a quarter in a formal review and call it development.
• A monologue about what you would've done differently at their level.

The Rule

The best coaching session is the one where the other person does 80% of the talking and walks away thinking it was their idea. Because it was. You just helped them find it.