I recently witnessed a Director at a large organization giving feedback to a Manager on her team. The session was going well — mostly positive, good energy. But as the conversation unfolded, something became clear: the Manager depended on the Director for answers at almost every turn. Guidance, direction, approval — all flowing in one direction.

At one point, the Director paused and said: “I really have to temper my habit to just give you the answer.”

That’s a moment of real self-awareness. And it points to something most leaders wrestle with at some point in their careers.

Early on, we’re rewarded for having the answer. Being prepared, being the expert, solving the problem — that’s how you get noticed and get promoted. But as your leadership scope grows, something shifts. You move further from the technical work. You can’t possibly track every detail. And if your team is still looking to you for every answer, you’ve got a bottleneck — and it’s you.

That’s when it’s worth adding more coaching to your leadership toolkit.

Manager vs. Coach: The Key is Showing up Agile as a Leader

Neither approach is better — they serve different purposes. Here’s how I think about it:

The Manager approach: Gives specific, step-by-step direction. Holds the expertise. Measures success based on whether the direction was followed correctly.

The Coach approach: Meets people where they are. Assumes they’re capable of solving problems if they understand the outcome and what “good” looks like. Comes from curiosity rather than authority. Growth happens when people do their own critical thinking.

The manager approach is totally appropriate when someone is new to a role, working in unfamiliar territory, or learning a new process. The coach approach works best with experienced people who know their work and just need space to think it through.

The key is being agile in your leadership; meeting people where they are and use the right tool at the right time for the person and situation in front of you- being agile.

The question worth asking yourself: are you choosing your approach intentionally — or just defaulting?

The Dividends Are Real

When you shift toward coaching, a few things happen: You learn how creative and capable your people actually are. You see how they think and where their strengths are. You step out of the weeds. And your team members? They gain confidence. They become less reliant on you. They start to own the work – because their contribution to it is deeper.

That’s the compound interest of coaching.

The Downside of Showing up as Coach

When you first begin to flex the coaching muscle, it will feel as if it’s taking forever. You’ll have thoughts like, ‘We could have finished this conversation ten minutes ago if I just gave them the answer!’ The fact is, you’re investing a few minutes today to gain back hours and hours down the road. Because people will stop bringing you every question and you’ll spend way less time tracking every detail. Because your team member will build a muscle around operating independently and solving problems on their own.

How to Flex the Muscle

The challenge is that our default wiring pulls us toward resolution — answering the question, giving the direction, moving fast. Here’s a simple reframe:

Before you answer, ask three powerful questions first.

A powerful question is usually open-ended and starts with What, How, or Tell me about. For example:

• How would you define the problem?

• What does your gut say to do next?

• What options do we have? What else?

This doesn’t mean you never pull out the answer. It means you give your team member the chance to think it through first. More often than not, they already know — they just need the space to get there.

That’s 10% more coach. And it’s more than enough to start.

You Both Win When You Don’t Have the Answer All the Time.

When a leader gets genuinely good at this, the returns show up on both sides of the conversation.

For you: you spend less time in the weeds and more time contributing at the level your role actually calls for. You build a team that requires less oversight. You become the kind of leader people grow under — which is a differentiator that follows you everywhere.

For your team members: they develop confidence in their own judgment. They stop waiting for permission and start taking real ownership. They deliver better work — not because they were told exactly how, but because they figured it out themselves and have a stake in the outcome.

The best leaders I’ve worked with aren’t the ones with all the answers. The best leaders are those that stay agile and help the people around them discover their own answers.