6 Tips to Take a Coach Approach
What is your capacity for coaching others to greater growth and discovery?
Build coaching skills into your leadership approach
I distinctly remember one of my first supervisors in my career … she was a manager who was known for being great to work for. So, how did this greatness play out day to day?
She asked thoughtful, intentional questions that pushed me to think more strategically.
She took time to ask my opinions on important topics.
She empowered me to make choices and take initiative, while letting me know she was always in my corner.
Thoughtful questioning, intentional listening, and a clear commitment to my growth and potential were some of the distinct differentiators of her style.
As a result of her informal coaching, I enjoyed coming to work, grew in confidence, contributed new ideas, took on meaningful projects, gained more responsibility, AND was quickly promoted.
Her investment in me went far beyond my performance in that first job … the generous space she created for me to grow and develop influenced me deeply.
Her impact was transformative.
What’s the Value in a Coach Approach?
Maybe you are in a leadership role and know your current style isn’t working. Or maybe you want to help your team grow and develop more strategically. Perhaps you feel your team is disengaged and can’t figure out how to provide a different kind of support.
According to recent research conducted by Google, employees desire managers who can skillfully coach them— and this desire ranks as a top rated (no. 1) manager behavior.
Coaching takes time and intentionality, and it isn’t very often modeled, taught, or encouraged in organizations. Coaching isn’t as efficient as advice-giving, and it isn’t always the appropriate leadership style or intervention to apply.
However, research shows us that those who are coached experience many benefits, including greater capability, clarity, confidence, among a range of other benefits (read more on the research-based benefits here). Leadership scholars Milner and McCarthy have even demonstrated how coaching has significant similarities to a transformational leadership style.
What’s Your Current Approach?
So, how exactly do you embrace a coaching mindset as a manager or leader? As a friend or colleague? As a partner or parent?
Deciding whether or not to integrate a coach approach into your role is something that requires wisdom and discernment. The first important step is to consider what your current approach is, and determine how it’s working for you.
Pick a specific context, and decide where you most frequently land on this coaching continuum —>
Are you an expert advice-giver or a committed question-asker?
Do you listen to respond or listen to understand?
Do you default to making immediate suggestions, or have you built a habit of supporting others to solve their own problems?
With your current strategies, what impact are you having? Is it the impact that you want to have?
Take a recent situation in which you took a directive approach, and reframe it to see how your impact might be different by taking a coach approach.
Six Tips to Apply a Coach Approach
You don’t have to be a professional coach to benefit from developing your coaching skills. In whatever role you serve, you have a unique opportunity to apply coaching strategies to enhance your relationships and transform your conversations.
Tip 1: Clarify Coaching Goals
Before you can take a coach approach, it’s essential to define your purpose and desired outcomes. For what purposes can applying coaching skills be most valuable—professional development, personal growth, or team performance? Consider the relationships in your life that could benefit most from a coaching approach and reflect on the specific skills you need to refine. If you’re mentoring or supervising someone, clarify their growth goals and explore ways you can support them effectively through coaching. Establishing clear objectives ensures that your efforts are intentional and impactful.
For what purposes can applying coaching skills be most valuable?
What relationships in your life would benefit most from a coach approach?
What specific coaching skills do you most need to refine?
If you are mentoring or supervising someone, what are their specific goals for growth and development? How can you support them through coaching?
Tip 2: Identify ‘Coachable’ Moments
Not every interaction requires a coaching approach. Observe situations where stepping back, listening, and facilitating reflection could have the greatest impact. These optimal coaching moments often occur when someone is struggling with a challenge, making a decision, or seeking guidance. Outside the workplace, consider opportunities to practice coaching with family, friends, or children—helping others explore solutions rather than giving direct advice. Recognizing these moments allows you to apply coaching intentionally, rather than reacting automatically.
When is it most valuable to take more of a facilitating, non-directive coach approach? In which situations?
What situations represent optimal coaching moments?
Outside of the workplace, when would it be meaningful to try a coach approach? With family? Friends? Your kids?
Tip 3: Develop Deeper Listening
Effective coaching begins with deep listening. Reflect on your current capacity to hear, understand, and observe without immediately offering solutions. Identify your most frequent barriers—interrupting, assuming, or thinking ahead—and practice pausing to fully absorb what the other person is communicating. Deep listening not only builds trust but also uncovers insights that might otherwise be missed, allowing for more meaningful and impactful coaching interactions.
What is your current capacity to listen deeply, to take the time to hear, understand, reflect, and observe?
What are your most frequent barriers to listening more effectively?
Tip 4: Ask Powerful Questions
“When you build a coaching habit, you can more easily break out of three vicious circles that plague our workplaces: creating overdependence, getting overwhelmed and becoming disconnected.”
The heart of coaching is asking questions that prompt reflection and discovery. Examine the types of questions you typically ask and consider whether they guide others toward new perspectives or creative problem-solving. Powerful questions encourage exploration, self-awareness, and ownership of solutions. By honing your ability to ask thought-provoking questions, you enable others to find clarity and develop actionable strategies for growth.
What types of questions do you typically ask? What do those questions help you accomplish?
How would you rate your ability to ask questions that help others see new perspective or solve problems more creatively?
Tip 5: Encourage Awareness & Action
Coaching is most effective when it leads to both insight and action. Reflect on the strategies you use to help others gain awareness—whether through feedback, prompting reflection, or exploring consequences. Consider how you hold people accountable for translating new understanding into behavior and reaching their goals. Encouraging awareness and supporting action bridges the gap between intention and results, making coaching practical and results-oriented.
What strategies do you use to help others gain new insight?
In what ways do you hold others accountable to developing their potential and reaching their goals?
Tip 6: Leverage Your Strengths
Your unique strengths shape how effectively you coach others. Reflect on the qualities—empathy, curiosity, analytical thinking, patience—that you naturally bring to interactions. How can these strengths enhance your ability to adopt a coaching mindset and support others’ growth? Leveraging your strengths not only increases your confidence as a coach but also ensures your approach is authentic, sustainable, and aligned with your natural style.
What unique strengths do you possess that can help you leverage a coaching mindset more effectively?
A Comprehensive Guide to Becoming a Coaching Manager
Cultivating a coaching approach is a fundamental shift that empowers managers to develop their teams and foster a culture of growth. However, many leaders find themselves wondering about the most effective ways to initiate coaching conversations, how to navigate specific performance challenges through a coaching lens, or simply what questions will truly unlock insight and drive ownership within their team members. The desire and intention to coach employees is often present, but the confidence in how to effectively apply coaching skills for managers can be a hurdle.
To directly address these practical needs, I've created a comprehensive Manager’s Coaching Toolkit.
This resource is designed as a comprehensive guide to not only deepen your understanding of coaching principles and frameworks but also to provide you with immediately applicable tools. Inside, you'll find actionable templates to structure your coaching sessions, a coachability assessment to tailor your approach, and a carefully curated collection of 100 targeted coaching questions organized across ten essential leadership categories.
Consider it your practical companion for moving beyond the theory of coaching and confidently implementing impactful coaching conversations that lead to tangible results for both yourself and your team.
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