Coaching Is Not Feedback, and Managers Confuse Them

Ask a manager if they coach their team and almost all will say yes. Watch them for a week and you will mostly see them giving feedback: telling people what went wrong, what to do, how they would have handled it. Useful, sometimes. But it is not coaching, and the two are not interchangeable.

Feedback tells. Coaching asks. Feedback delivers information the person was missing. Coaching helps the person find something they already half-knew. Managers who only ever tell build teams that wait to be told, and then wonder why the same issues keep coming back.

Which does the moment need?

The skill is reading which mode the situation calls for:

• A clear mistake needs feedback first, then coaching on the fix.

• Someone stuck needs coaching; handing them the answer teaches nothing.

• A repeating pattern needs coaching; they have heard the feedback already.

• A decision only they can make needs coaching; taking it removes the learning.

Managers who only tell build teams that wait to be told.

Asking is the harder, more valuable habit

Telling is faster and feels productive, which is why managers default to it under pressure. But the questions, what have you tried, what is stopping you, what would you do if it were your call, are what build capability that lasts past the conversation. It is a learnable habit, and it is the difference between a manager who fixes problems and one who grows people who fix their own.

Not sure whether a situation needs telling or asking? Sort it with the tool below.

Yzerly helps managers know when to tell and when to ask, and builds the coaching habit until it is automatic. We find where telling has capped a team, train the questions that unlock it, and prove it in teams that solve more on their own.

Written by Resham Tharani, Yzerly.