Why simply assigning tasks is no longer enough for today’s manager – and how a coaching approach helps employees become more autonomous, capable, and effective.
When a manager first becomes a team leader, the job may seem straightforward: assign tasks, allocate responsibilities, monitor results, and correct mistakes. But as the team grows, a different challenge often emerges.
If employees constantly come to their manager with questions such as, “What should I do?” “What would be the best approach?” “Is it okay if I do it this way?” “What should I do if the client doesn’t respond?” the manager gradually becomes the bottleneck in the entire system.
This is where a coaching approach becomes more than just a tool for employee development — it becomes a management practice.
A manager-coach does not do the work for an employee. Instead, they help the person learn to find solutions independently, explore options, take ownership, and develop the skills they need.
And this is not simply a nice idea from modern business literature. Research provides evidence supporting the effectiveness of coaching.
What Does Research Say About Coaching in Organizations?
One of the better-known studies in this area is the meta-analysis by Tim Theeboom, Bianca Beersma, and Annelies van Vianen, “Does coaching work? A meta-analysis on the effects of coaching on individual level outcomes in an organizational context,” published in The Journal of Positive Psychology. Theeboom, Beersma & van Vianen — full study and data
The authors combined the findings of 18 studies involving a total of 3,103 participants.
The results were compelling: coaching had a statistically significant positive effect across several areas, including performance and skills, well-being, coping with work-related challenges, attitudes toward work, and goal-oriented self-regulation.
In other words, coaching can influence not only what a person does at work, but also how independently they are able to set goals, manage their own actions, and navigate workplace challenges.
5 Situations Where Coaching Can Be Particularly Valuable for Managers
1. An employee doesn’t know how to solve a problem
Don’t rush to provide the answer.
Instead, try asking:
“How would you approach this situation if you couldn’t ask me?”
This allows you to address the immediate issue while simultaneously developing the employee’s autonomy and problem-solving skills.
2. An employee has made a mistake
A conventional manager may focus on analyzing the mistake. A manager-coach explores the thinking and decision-making that led to the mistake.
Instead of saying, “You did this incorrectly,” you might ask:
“At what point did you realize that the situation was not going according to plan?”
“What did you decide to do at that point, and why?”
“What would you do differently now?”
“What do we need to change to prevent this from happening again?”
This turns a mistake from a reason for punishment into an opportunity for learning.
3. An employee has lost motivation
Instead of trying to “motivate” the person immediately, it is often more useful to explore what is actually happening.
For example:
What is draining most of your energy right now?
Which part of your work is still engaging for you?
What has changed compared with the period when you felt more engaged?
What could make the next few weeks more productive for you?
Sometimes the manager discovers that the issue is not the employee’s “lack of motivation” at all. It may be overload, unclear goals, conflicting priorities, or a lack of development opportunities.
4. An employee wants to advance their career
This is where coaching can be particularly powerful.
Instead of saying, “To become a manager, you need to develop X, Y, and Z,” you might ask:
“How do you define the role of a manager?”
“Which capabilities do you feel you need to develop?”
“Which of those capabilities are you already demonstrating?”
“What could you start practicing over the next month?”
This enables the employee to become the owner of their own development plan.
5. A conflict emerges within the team
A coaching approach does not mean that a manager should simply say, “Work it out between yourselves.”
Quite the opposite. The manager retains their leadership responsibility while helping the people involved see the situation from a broader perspective.
For example:
How do you think the other person sees the situation?
What do you think they are trying to protect or achieve?
What is within your control in this situation?
What outcome would you like to achieve from the conversation?
What are you willing to do first?
This helps shift the conversation from “Who is to blame?” to “What can we change?”
An Important Distinction: A Manager-Coach Is Not the Same as a Professional Coach
This distinction is crucial. A manager has authority, is accountable for the team’s results, evaluates employee performance, and sometimes needs to make decisions themselves. Therefore, a manager cannot always maintain the neutral position of a professional coach.
If an employee is consistently failing to meet their responsibilities, for example, the manager may need to move beyond asking, “What do you think you should do?” and say directly:
“This result does not meet expectations. We need to change X by [date].”
Coaching does not replace management.
It makes management more developmental.
A manager-coach knows how to move between several roles:
Leader → Expert → Mentor → Coach
The key is understanding which role the employee needs from you at that particular moment.
A Coaching Culture Starts with More Than Training
You can send every manager in the organization to a two-day coaching skills training program.
But if the company continues to operate according to beliefs such as:
“The manager is always right.”
“Don’t make mistakes.”
“Don’t ask unnecessary questions.”
“Just do what you’re told.”
the coaching approach is unlikely to last.
That is why a manager’s role is not simply to learn how to ask powerful questions.
The goal is to create an environment where employees can:
- speak openly about problems without fear;
- acknowledge mistakes;
- propose their own solutions;
- ask questions;
- receive feedback;
- set their own goals;
- understand the connection between their work and business outcomes.
Research also highlights the importance of the organizational context.
A systematic review of 117 empirical studies identified several factors associated with effective workplace coaching, including trust, self-efficacy, motivation to engage in coaching, goal orientation, feedback, and managerial support.
This is why coaching is not a set of magic questions. It is a way of building effective management relationships.