How can we summarise the skills, knowledge and experience required to be an effective coaching manager?
The first requirement is, quite simply, for the manager to find time to coach. This may sound obvious, but in practice it is one of the hardest disciplines to maintain. Most managers are already juggling operational demands, reporting responsibilities, meetings and targets. Coaching can easily slip down the list of priorities because it is rarely urgent in the moment.
Yet the irony is that coaching is one of the few managerial activities that reduces pressure in the long term. When managers invest time helping people think, solve problems and develop capability, they gradually create teams that need less direction and supervision. The time spent coaching is repaid many times over through improved confidence, capability and ownership within the team.
So the first test of a coaching manager is their willingness to create the space for these conversations to happen. This is far more important than being able to whip out the latest clever technique or model.
Credibility before coaching
The coaching manager then establishes their credibility by undertaking their own job conscientiously and competently.
People are far more likely to accept coaching from someone who is seen as credible in their role. This does not mean the manager must be the most technically brilliant person in the team. Nor do they need to be the font of all wisdom. In fact, the opposite is often true.
Managers who coach understand that their role is not to have all the answers, but to create the conditions for good thinking to happen. They do not worry about being the expert in every situation. Instead, they help others explore possibilities, test ideas and learn from experience.
A manager who coaches will endeavour to set a good example and be an appropriate role model. They demonstrate curiosity, openness and a willingness to learn. They show that it is acceptable not to know everything straight away, provided there is a willingness to reflect and improve.
At the same time, they are secure enough to avoid ‘pulling rank’ or relying on position power, i.e. the power that comes with the job description and place in the organisation’s pecking order.
In other words, their authority comes less from hierarchy and more from the quality of the relationship they build with their people.
Advocates for their people
Managers who coach are natural advocates of their people, encouraging and supporting them, especially when things are not going well.
In many workplaces, the role of a manager can easily drift towards monitoring, evaluating and correcting. Coaching managers take a slightly different stance. They still hold people accountable, but they see their primary responsibility as helping others succeed.
That means noticing strengths as well as weaknesses. It means creating an environment where people feel able to experiment and learn without fear of immediate criticism.
Managers who coach give praise when it is due, but they also deal with poor performance in a straightforward and understanding manner. Coaching is not about avoiding difficult conversations. In fact, given the trust a coaching relationship can engender, those conversations often become easier.
Instead of blame, the focus turns to learning. Instead of judgement, the focus shifts to understanding what happened and what can be done differently next time.
This approach helps individuals maintain their dignity while still addressing the issue at hand.
Seeing the individual, not just the employee
Managers who coach treat each individual as a person in their own right; uniquely different from other employees with whom they interact at work.
It’s another simple idea that is surprisingly difficult to practise consistently.
Many organisations unintentionally encourage a one-size-fits-all approach to management. Policies, procedures and performance frameworks can sometimes lead managers to treat people as interchangeable roles rather than individuals with different motivations, strengths and aspirations.
Coaching managers resist that tendency. They take time to understand what makes each person tick. They recognise that some people respond well to challenge, while others need reassurance before they stretch themselves. Some want rapid development and responsibility, while others prefer steady growth and stability.
Coaching conversations provide a space to explore these differences. Over time, this helps managers tailor their support and create conditions where each person can contribute at their best.
Coaching managers are not a new invention
So to be a coach in a work context, these are the attributes you must develop.
But are these not the same attributes we have always needed to be an effective manager of people at work?
If we look back at managers who left a lasting positive impression on us, they rarely succeeded because they used a particular model or technique. More often, they listened well, took an interest in people, offered guidance when needed and helped others grow in confidence.
In other words, they behaved in ways we might now describe as coaching. It’s not the behaviour that changed, but the language we use to describe it.
A cause for encouragement
The challenge for managers is not to acquire an entirely new set of qualities. It is to develop the ones they already possess and apply them more deliberately.
That might mean asking one more question before offering an answer. It might mean allowing someone to think through a problem instead of stepping in immediately. It might mean recognising effort and progress as well as results.
Small shifts like these gradually create a more coaching-style approach to leadership.
Managers have always been coaches
As managers of people we are coaches and always have been. The difference now is that organisations increasingly recognise the value of coaching conversations as part of everyday leadership. Teams are expected to be more adaptable, more innovative and more responsible for their own performance than ever before.
A coaching approach supports those expectations because it encourages people to think for themselves, take ownership and learn continuously.
Of course, like any skill, coaching improves with practice. Managers can certainly develop their capabilities and improve their results by becoming more aware of the factors highlighted here.
Perhaps the most reassuring message is this: becoming a coaching manager is not about reinvention. It is about doing what good managers have always done, but with intention.
Your next read: What managers need to STOP doing to become effective coaches
