Navigating the Path to Coaching Excellence: A Manager’s Journey
Learning to coach can be surprisingly challenging for managers, especially those who have spent years leading teams, making decisions and solving problems.
During a coaching workshop, the principles often seem straightforward. Listen carefully, ask good questions, help people think and support them in finding their own solutions. Then comes the real test: putting these skills into practice at work. A team member approaches you with a problem. You’re busy, you know what needs to be done, and giving a quick answer seems the easiest way forward.
Sound familiar?
This is where many managers discover that learning coaching skills and developing coaching habits are two different challenges. Let’s look at some of the difficulties managers experience along the way and what they can do to become more effective coaches.
Why Do Managers Struggle to Apply Coaching Skills?
1. Old Management Habits Are Hard to Change
Most managers have developed their own ways of leading people over the years. They may be used to giving instructions, making decisions or stepping in whenever something goes wrong. These habits have often served them well, so changing them takes conscious effort.
For example, when a team member asks, “What should I do about this customer complaint?”, a manager’s immediate response may be to explain exactly how to handle it. That may be appropriate when the situation is urgent. But when there is time for discussion, the manager could first ask:
- “What have you found out about the complaint so far?”
- “What options have you considered?”
These questions give the team member an opportunity to think through the situation before receiving guidance.
What helps?
Start by recognising your usual response when someone comes to you with a problem. Do you immediately offer advice, ask for more information or invite the person to share their thinking? Becoming aware of your habits is a useful first step towards changing them.
2. Managers Feel Uncomfortable with Silence
One of the less discussed challenges in coaching is learning to give people time to think. A manager asks a question, the team member pauses, and after a few seconds the manager becomes uncomfortable.
So, the manager asks another question, explains the first question or provides an answer. The opportunity for the team member to reflect is lost. Silence can feel awkward, particularly when managers are accustomed to keeping conversations moving.
What helps?
After asking a question, allow the person some time to respond. There is no need to fill every pause. Sometimes, people simply need a few moments to organise their thoughts. If the person is genuinely struggling, you can rephrase the question or provide a little more context.
3. Managers Find It Difficult to Listen Without Judging
Managers bring their own experience, opinions and expectations into every conversation. This becomes a challenge when they form conclusions before fully understanding what the other person is saying.
Imagine a team member explaining why a project has fallen behind schedule. The manager may already believe the person has managed their time poorly. With that assumption in mind, the conversation can quickly become a discussion about time management, even though the actual difficulty may involve unclear priorities or dependencies on other departments.
What helps?
Before deciding what the problem is, ask the person to explain the situation in greater detail. Useful questions include:
- “What has been happening?”
- “Which part has been most difficult?”
- “What have you already tried?”
Listen for information that may challenge your initial assumptions. Good coaching requires curiosity, particularly when you think you already know the answer.
4. Managers Doubt Their Own Coaching Ability
Some managers feel uncertain when they first begin coaching.
They worry about asking the wrong questions, losing control of the conversation or being unable to help the person reach a useful conclusion. Others become so focused on remembering a coaching model that the conversation starts to feel unnatural. This is common when learning a new skill.
What helps?
Keep your early coaching conversations simple. Focus on understanding the person’s situation, what they want to achieve, what may be getting in the way and what they intend to do next. You do not need a long list of clever questions. A few relevant questions, followed by careful listening, can lead to a productive discussion.
How Can Managers Become Better Coaches?
1. Choose the Right Moments to Coach
Not every workplace conversation needs to become a coaching session. There are situations where managers must provide clear instructions, make decisions or address urgent matters directly.
Coaching is particularly useful when someone has the opportunity and ability to think through a challenge, consider options or learn from an experience. For example, after completing a difficult assignment, a manager could ask:
- “Which part went well?”
- “What would you handle differently next time?”
- “What have you learnt that you can use in your next assignment?”
Choosing the right moment helps coaching feel relevant rather than forced.
2. Work on One Coaching Habit at a Time
Trying to improve every coaching skill at once can be overwhelming. A more manageable approach is to select one habit and practise it consistently.
For the first week, you might focus on listening without interrupting. The following week, you could practise asking one follow-up question before giving advice. Later, you might concentrate on helping people define their own next steps. Small, deliberate improvements make it easier to develop confidence.
3. Pay Attention to How You Ask Questions
The wording and tone of a question can influence how comfortable someone feels during a coaching conversation. Compare these two questions:
- “Why didn’t you complete the task?”
- “What got in the way of completing the task?”
Both address the same issue, but they may encourage different responses.
The first can sound accusatory, depending on the circumstances and tone. The second invites the person to explain what happened. Managers should still hold people accountable. Thoughtful questions can help them understand the situation before deciding what action is needed.
4. Ask for Feedback on Your Coaching
Managers often evaluate how their team members are performing. It can be equally useful to understand how team members experience their coaching. After a conversation, ask something simple:
- “Was our discussion helpful?”
- “Did I give you enough space to share your thoughts?”
- “What could I do differently next time?”
The answers may feel uncomfortable at first, especially when the feedback differs from your own impression. Take the feedback seriously and look for patterns over several conversations.
5. Reflect on Your Own Coaching Conversations
One useful way to improve is to spend a few minutes reviewing your own coaching practice. After a conversation, consider:
- Did I understand the person’s situation before offering suggestions?
- Did I listen carefully or interrupt too often?
- Were my questions relevant to the issue?
- Did we agree on a clear next step?
- What would I do differently in the next conversation?
You can keep brief notes to identify habits you want to improve. Over time, this helps turn coaching experience into learning.
What Support Do Managers Need from Their Organisations?
Managers can make a personal commitment to improve their coaching skills, but their working environment also matters. When organisations expect managers to coach, they need to consider how coaching fits into everyday responsibilities.
Make Coaching Part of Regular Management Routines
Managers already have performance discussions, individual meetings and project reviews. These provide opportunities to practise coaching without creating an entirely separate schedule of activities. The key is to make the conversations useful and relevant to the work being done.
Provide Opportunities to Practise
Attending a workshop can help managers understand coaching principles and experience the techniques. However, confidence usually develops through repeated practice.
Short practice sessions, peer discussions and follow-up coaching clinics can help managers work through difficulties they encounter after training. For example, a manager who struggles with a defensive team member could practise handling that conversation with a colleague and receive feedback before trying a different approach at work.
Observe How Coaching Is Being Applied
Counting how many managers attended coaching training tells an organisation very little about whether their behaviour has changed. A more useful approach is to look at how coaching appears in everyday management.
- Are managers giving people opportunities to think?
- Are they listening before making judgements?
- Are team members leaving discussions with clear actions they understand and own?
These observations provide a more practical picture of coaching progress.
How Do You Know Your Coaching Is Improving?
Managers sometimes judge a coaching conversation by whether it felt comfortable or whether the team member appeared satisfied. Those impressions can be useful, but they do not tell the whole story.
Look for changes in what happens during and after the conversation. For example, a team member may begin preparing possible solutions before approaching the manager. Another may become more willing to discuss mistakes and what can be learnt from them.
Managers can also observe their own behaviour. Are they interrupting less frequently? Are they asking more relevant questions? Are they becoming more comfortable allowing people time to think? These are practical signs of progress. The longer-term question is whether coaching is helping people improve how they work, make decisions and handle their responsibilities.
Conclusion
Becoming an effective coach takes practice, patience and a willingness to examine your own management habits. There will be conversations where you ask a question poorly, interrupt too soon or return to giving advice. These moments are useful opportunities to reflect and improve.
Managers develop their coaching ability through the conversations they have, the feedback they receive and the adjustments they make along the way. If you are learning to coach your team, start with one question:
“What is one thing I could do differently in my next conversation to help someone think more clearly?”
Try it, observe what happens and build from there.
