I was having a one-on-one with one of my employees, and she was having a problem with a customer. The kind of problem that we dealt with often. She was new to the role and was asking some questions. I started to use my favourite leadership technique, coaching.

I asked her a lot of questions and gave very few answers. 

She asked, “how do I handle X?” And I said, “great question, what do you think would be worth trying?”

She sighed, looked down, and clearly wasn’t happy with my question. “Jason, if I knew the answer to the question, I wouldn’t have asked it. This might be easy for you, but this is high stakes, urgent, and I would really appreciate to just get some ideas about how we can solve this.”

I fell into a trap. I was so attached to coaching that I forgot about training. We have to provide people with space to learn and grow on their own. But we also need to provide the tools to do this well. 

She was clear on what had to happen. But being new to the role and actually new to the industry, she didn’t have the same experience to draw on. One of the reasons that she had taken this job was to get training for this sort of situation.

It was an excellent reminder to me that I can’t always have it my way. As a leader, I often think about coaching and empowerment. But I also have to recognize that that’s only one part of the equation.

There are a whole bunch of scenarios where coaching isn’t appropriate. For example, when we’re onboarding a new employee. We have to help them understand the company values, their expectations, their role. These parts of leadership require instruction. 

Another case is when your employee escalates a problem. Sometimes they need your direct support or input to fix a situation. This generally comes with higher stakes or pressure. In these moments as leaders, we have to put on a different hat. Our role changes from coach to teacher, supporter, or team mate. 

I’m a big fan of coaching, but it’s only one of the tools in our toolkit as leaders. We need to be prepared to pull out other tools to fit the problem at hand. I love a good empowering question. I also love an effective and happy employee. 

Coaching has limits. Effective leaders need to avoid the scenario I found myself in. Don’t get attached to coaching for its own sake. Be ready to shift to another method.