How to coach your people: mindset, goals, and key skills

Executive overview

Most leaders manage when they should be coaching. The distinction matters: management fixes rule violations; coaching addresses development issues — how someone thinks about their role, not just what they do.

Effective coaching requires setting a clear goal, committing to it over time, and radically shifting mindset away from personal investment in the outcome. The two core skills are perspective-taking and earning the right to advise before offering it.

Good coaching means standing shoulder-to-shoulder with someone, seeing what they see, before asking them to turn around.

Coaching vs. management: the key distinction

• Management handles rule or policy violations — tell the person, reach agreement, move on.
• Coaching addresses development issues: a recurring pattern, a wrong mental model, or a mindset that needs to shift.
• If someone has probably heard the feedback before and still hasn't changed, it's a coaching issue.
• Coaching takes time by design — it is not a one-time conversation.

Setting goals before you start

• Define the goal clearly in your own head before opening the conversation.
• Make it specific and measurable: think "what would this look like on video?"
• Frame goals as observable behaviour, not abstract labels ("respectful behaviour" is not enough).
• Set an explicit time horizon — e.g. "between now and your next performance review."
• Anchoring to the performance review signals duration and stakes without ambiguity.

The mindset shift: it's not about you

• The biggest obstacle is the leader's own investment in the outcome.
• When you need them to succeed because it reflects on you, you stop coaching and start persuading.
• Persuasion is not coaching — it may produce intellectual agreement, but not lasting change.
• Detachment is a skill: remind yourself that their development may or may not succeed, and that is not a reflection on you.
• Two images that help maintain neutrality:
  • Julia and the animals — approach like a patient observer focused entirely on the other creature; read receptivity before moving forward; some people need sessions before they're ready.
  • The coastal plain and the forest — two people at the same spot can see completely different things; your job is to turn and look at what they see before asking them to look at yours.

Letting them go first

• Once you've set the goal and described the video, stop talking.
• Ask a neutral open-ended question — not "what do you think about that?" (which asks them to comment on your feedback), but "what does all that sound like to you?"
• The neutral question gives them full latitude; it's not still about you.
• Then listen — for five, ten minutes, or several sessions if needed.
• You do not need to fill silence with expertise. You have already delivered the goal and the picture.

Earning the right to advise

• You earn the right to give advice only after you can genuinely see the issue from their perspective.
• Until then, keep asking questions: "That's interesting — tell me more about that."
• The shift happens when you can sit shoulder-to-shoulder looking at the same scene, not facing them from the opposite direction.
• Once you're there, you can share your view — not as a correction, but as something you'd like to show them: "There's actually a forest behind us. I'd love to show it to you."
• Denying their perspective ("you don't understand") breaks the coaching relationship immediately.

Practical application for time-pressed leaders

• Block a recurring slot — coaching doesn't require long sessions, but it does require regularity.
• A single goal per person per cycle keeps it tractable.
• Resistance and debate in early sessions is normal; it signals the person isn't ready yet, not that coaching has failed.
• Leaders who are highly results-oriented will find patience difficult — that's the work.
• The payoff: people who remember a great coach do so 15–20 years later; it's rare precisely because it's hard.