How to Be a Great Coach—Even When You’re Busy

I’ve delivered coaching skills workshops to thousands of leaders in my work as an executive coach and management professor. Participants typically come away convinced of the power of coaching to develop people and drive performance; however, they often express concern that they lack the time to do it effectively. It’s easy to assume that good coaching requires hours dedicated to lengthy formal conversations, and senior leaders know that this approach is untenable in today’s fast-paced work environment where they’re already stretched thin. But when I follow up with training participants and their direct reports, they report that some of the most powerful managerial coaching happens not in scheduled sessions, but in the everyday moments when work is actually getting done. Coaching exists on a spectrum from what we can call fully nondirective approaches, which emphasize questions that facilitate self-reflection, to highly directive approaches, which involve sharing advice and recommending solutions. Professional coaching typically operates at the nondirective end, but as a leader, most of your daily interactions with team members naturally fall toward the directive end. The good news is that you don’t need to become a professional coach to reap the benefits of a coaching approach. By learning to coach in the flow of work—asking more questions, pausing before providing answers, and helping people think through solutions—you can develop your team without adding meetings to your calendar or extending your already long days. That’s because this approach builds your team members’ capacity to analyze problems, consider multiple perspectives, and devise solutions in the moment so that over time, when they come to you with questions, they’ve already done high-quality thinking. For senior leaders especially, this shift is critical: Strengthening your direct reports’ skill at working independently and thinking strategically is key to amplifying their teams’ performance. The best opportunities to coach in the flow of work arise when a team member approaches you with a question or problem. Then you have a choice: Provide the answer yourself or enable them to think through the solution. Both approaches take a little time, but only one builds ownership over the solution and capability for future situations. Structure the Conversation with the Coaching Bridge Use this quick three-part structure to guide your response to an employee’s query: question first, guidance second, question last. Start by asking a question that invites the person to share their thinking and assess the situation. Then offer your perspective or expertise based on what you’ve heard. Finally, bridge back to their problem-solving ownership by asking what they’ll do next given both perspectives. This approach takes the same amount of time as giving direct instructions but helps develop strategic thinking and ensures the person’s buy-in. I call it the “coaching bridge” because it connects your guidance to the employee’s own thinking and experience, rather than simply handing them a solution. I recently coached a VP of resource mobilization at a global public health nonprofit—I’ll call him Saul—who was struggling with a regional director’s performance challenges—I’ll call her Evelyn. Evelyn was delivering projects late and below the standard of excellence Saul knew she could achieve. He had invested considerable time in trying to understand her challenges but hadn’t found a way to balance that support with accountability—until he witnessed a brief conversation between Evelyn and the organization’s executive director, whom I’ll call Vanessa. When Evelyn shared her challenges in preparing a substantial grant proposal, Vanessa didn’t immediately offer suggestions or lower the goal. Instead, she said, “Based on what I’ve seen of your work, I’m confident that you can execute this well and on time. What’s been getting in your way so far?” After listening to Evelyn explain her competing priorities and resource constraints, Vanessa shared her perspective: “Based on what I’m hearing, it sounds like you need to be more strategic about where you’re focusing your energy, and you may need additional support from the partnerships team.” She then concluded with, “Given what we’ve discussed, what’s your plan for the next 30 days to get back on track?” Saul realized he had been missing a crucial element. While his empathetic approach had been helpful in building trust, he hadn’t been holding Evelyn accountable for results or pushing her to develop solutions. The coaching bridge method would enable him to maintain high expectations and stimulate Evelyn’s problem-solving skills while still providing support—transforming a performance management issue into a development opportunity in just a few minutes. Meanwhile, buoyed by Vanessa’s expression of confidence in her and interest in helping her navigate challenges, Evelyn improved her work quality and delivery times. She recalled her conversation with Vanessa as a positive turning point for her. Start with These Questions Many coaching opportunities arise in brief, spontaneous moments. A team member sends you an urgent email, stops by your office with a question, or mentions a challenge during a project update. Asking a coaching question in response to these events is key rather than lapsing back into just answering their query or immediately giving advice. But this is often the most challenging aspect of coaching for busy executives because it requires restraint and intentionality in moments when your instinct is to solve problems as quickly as possible. Building up an arsenal of questions to ask to begin the conversation in these different scenarios helps establish the habit. Some of the most effective coaching questions for senior leaders include: What’s your initial thinking on this? What options are you considering? What patterns are you noticing in this situation? What’s getting in the way of success for you? What would success look like in this scenario? What assumptions are we making that we should test? If you were advising someone else facing this challenge, what would you suggest? What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? These questions work because they require the person to synthesize information, think strategically, and consider multiple perspectives—exactly the kind of thinking you want to develop in your senior team members. Here are a few more questions to use in specific situations: When someone brings you a decision for approval, respond with “Walk me through your reasoning” before giving your input. When they share a success, ask “What made the difference?” When they encounter a setback, try “What would you do differently next time?” Instead of “Here’s what you need to do,” try “What’s your thinking on next steps?” If you disagree about their approach, don’t just say “This won’t work”; ask “What concerns might others have about this approach?” These response patterns turn routine interactions into learning moments. Over time, you’ll see your team become more proactive and thoughtful, reducing the time you need to spend on oversight and problem-solving. Practice Strategic Silence One of the most powerful coaching tools costs no time at all: staying quiet after asking a question. Leaders often ask a question and then fill the silence with hints, suggestions, or their preferred answer. This tendency to default to action over reflection robs the other person of the thinking time that makes coaching effective. When you ask, “What do you think we should do here?,” take a deep breath and count slowly to five before saying anything else. No matter how uncomfortable it feels, resist the urge to fill the silence and move things along. Strategic silence is particularly powerful with senior-level team members who are used to needing immediate answers. The pause signals that you expect them to think deeply and contribute meaningfully to the solution. It also prevents you from inadvertently solving problems that they could be working through themselves. Your team members will begin to anticipate these questions and arrive at conversations more prepared and thoughtful, saving you time in the long run. When people start approaching situations more strategically and independently, you know your coaching-in-the-flow-of-work approach is working. A tech founder I coached illustrates this point. He wanted his direct reports to take more ownership and engage proactively in problem-solving, but he thought, spoke, and moved at such a rapid pace that his team found it intimidating. He was initially unaware that his frenetic energy left little room for others to think, but after practicing the coaching bridge approach in our sessions, he began using it in team meetings—deliberately slowing down, asking questions, and pausing for responses. As a result, his team began contributing more ideas and taking greater ownership over solutions. For example, when a competitor rolled out a new software feature that threatened the firm’s market position, the founder immediately thought of a number of ways to respond to maintain competitive advantage. He was tempted to share them all right away, but he chose to stay quiet at first. The innovative idea that the team ended up implementing was one that came from a shy team member who had rarely spoken up in meetings before. By simply creating space for reflection, he cultivated exactly the problem-solving culture he’d been pushing for. Focus on High-Impact Coaching Moments Not every interaction needs to be a coaching opportunity. Focus your coaching energy on situations where the learning will have the biggest impact: decisions they’ll face repeatedly, skills they need for advancement, or challenges that affect organizational performance. When someone has a one-time question about an administrative policy you know off the top of your head, just give them the answer. When they ask about how to handle a complex stakeholder negotiation they’ll face many times in their career, that’s worth a coaching approach. Performance challenges, strategic decisions, and leadership dilemmas merit the coaching approach because the thinking skills developed in these moments will serve the person in similar situations throughout their career. As you begin implementing these ideas, start small and build momentum. Trying to coach everyone in every fitting interaction is overwhelming and unsustainable. To begin, pick one team member who’s motivated to grow and one type of situation where coaching could make a significant difference. Practice your in-the-moment coaching skills in this limited context first. As these new patterns become natural, gradually expand to other people and situations. . . . The most sustainable coaching happens when it’s woven into the fabric of how you work together rather than added on top of everything else. By coaching in the moments that matter, you develop your team’s capabilities while accomplishing the work that needs to get done. The investment is minimal, but the returns—in terms of their growth and your effectiveness—compound over time.

How to Be a Great Coach—Even When You’re Busy

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