Why you might be the reason your team member is under-performing (and how to change it)

No manager wants to accept they could be causing their team member to under-perform, but you might think differently after reading this post.

The reason is that many managers think they’re coaching when they’re really just… giving instructions.

Let me tell you a quick story.

A manager came to me, frustrated that one of their team members wasn’t stepping up.

“She never brings ideas,” they said. “She just waits for me to tell her what to do.”

So I asked, “What do you do to help her think for herself?”

“I coach her,” they replied. “I suggest what she could do, and then she does it.”

Then I asked, “How do you define coaching?”

They laughed and said, “It’s helping someone find their own solutions.”

Exactly.

The problem? They were calling it coaching, but they were still doing all the thinking. No real questions. No space for the team member to explore their own ideas. Just well-meaning advice, dressed up as support.

If you want your team members to come up with ideas and solutions then you need to develop their capacity to think for themselves by asking them to.

Or to paraphrase a christian parable:

“Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day, teach a person to fish and you feed them for a lifetime.”

Every time we jump in with the answer, we train our team to rely on us. We become the bottleneck and they stay stuck, second-guessing themselves.

So what does coaching actually look like?

Questions that start with, “have you thought about…” or “are you ….” or “do you think…”, are not real questions, they are instructions disguised as questions and they could be perceived as judgements.

Here are a few coach-like questions you can try:

💭 What would you do first?

💭 How would you approach this?

💭 What do you already know about this?

💭 What else might you need to consider?

💭 What does success look like to you?

💭 What support do you need from me?

These kinds of questions do two important things:

They help your team member clarify their thinking.
They signal trust because you’re giving them ownership.

But what if they say, “I don’t know”?

If they’re used to being told what to do, this kind of questioning might feel strange at first. Don’t give up.

Instead, take it back to basics:

❓ What do you know so far?

❓ What would help you move forward?

You’re still guiding them, but now you’re building their capacity, not doing the work for them.

Here’s the irony: the manager I mentioned thought they were easing anxiety by offering answers. But actually, asking thoughtful questions might have made their team member feel more confident and empowered and less anxious overall.

So next time you catch yourself jumping in with a solution, pause. Ask instead.

Try it out and let me know how it goes.

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