A coach's impact is limited if they only focus on the team. To create lasting change, they must transition into an advocate who identifies organizational impediments and holds leadership accountable for solving problems that are outside the team's control.
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When team dysfunction stems from organizational problems like unstable team composition, applying coaching is a form of meddling. It pathologizes the team and absolves leadership of their responsibility to fix the underlying systemic issues they created.
The transition to managing managers requires a fundamental identity shift from individual contributor to enabler. A leader's value is no longer in their personal output. They must ask, "Is it more important that I do the work, or that the work gets done?" This question forces a necessary focus on delegation, empowerment, and system-building.
To help your team overcome their own performance blockers, shift your coaching from their actions to their thinking. Ask questions like, "What were you thinking that led you to that approach?" This helps them uncover the root belief driving their behavior, enabling more profound and lasting change than simple behavioral correction.
Giving teams full autonomy to select their coach can be counterproductive. They might choose someone who makes them feel comfortable and validates their existing habits, rather than a coach who will challenge their dysfunctions and push for necessary, but difficult, transformation.
Coaching executive teams is fraught with power dynamics. To be effective, a coach must align exclusively with the person who hired them and their specific objective. Addressing other visible problems will only create opposition from other executives and derail the engagement.
Many leaders, particularly in technical fields, mistakenly believe their role is to provide all the answers. This approach disempowers teams and creates a bottleneck. Shifting from advising to coaching unlocks a team's problem-solving potential and allows leaders to scale their impact.
Even the best coaching will fail if the company culture punishes desired behaviors. A 'firefighter syndrome' culture, which rewards heroes who solve last-minute crises, will undermine coaching aimed at fostering proactive problem-solving, rendering the investment useless.
Better products are a byproduct of a better team environment. A leader's primary job is not to work on the product, but to cultivate the people and the system they work in—improving their thinking, decision-making, and collaboration.
A coaching-based leadership style is valuable for engagement but can fail in ambiguity. When a team struggles to find a "red thread" connecting their work, the leader must switch from asking questions to providing a clear, assertive frame and setting direction.
Leaders who complain their team isn't as good as them are misplacing blame. They are the ones who hired and trained those individuals. The team's failure is ultimately the leader's failure in either talent selection, skill development, or both, demanding radical ownership.
