The Manager’s Response Grid: Where Do You Sit?

Leader-as-coach is not a feel-good label; it is a disciplined way of responding to your team in the moments that matter most – especially when you are under pressure, running behind on deliverables, or dealing with underperformance.

The Manager’s Response Grid: Where Do You Sit?

Imagine a simple 2×2 grid of manager responses with two axes: situation (crisis vs normal) and mindset (growth vs fixed).

• In a crisis with a growth mindset, leaders stay calm under pressure, ask a few sharp questions, and create just enough thinking space for the team to act wisely.
  
• In a crisis with a fixed mindset, leaders become anxious and controlling, over-manage, and often make the team more dependent at exactly the wrong time.
  
• In normal situations with a growth mindset, leaders are development focused – everyday tasks become learning moments, not just instructions to follow.
  
• In normal situations with a fixed mindset, they default to “I’ll tell, you do,” instructing, not learning, and reinforcing old habits.

This grid is a mirror: the same situation can create either fear or ownership depending on which quadrant you show up in.

10 Real Moments Where Leader-as-Coach Is Tested

The shift to “leader as coach” doesn’t happen in workshops; it happens in how you respond to very specific situations your document highlights.

1. From boss to coach – what actually changes in your day

• You slow down the first two minutes of key conversations: ask, then tell (if needed); listen before deciding.
  
• You notice where you are doing work your team could learn to do, and deliberately step back to grow capacity, not just deliver output.

2. Coaching in 15 minutes, not 1 hour

• Use micro-coaching: 10–15 minute conversations structured around one focus question like “What’s the real challenge here for you?” before you jump to solutions.
  
• A simple framework like GROW (Goal, Reality, Options, Will) helps you stay focused: “What do you want here?”, “What’s happening now?”, “What could you try?”, “What will you do by when?”.

3. Handling low performance without labeling people

• When you secretly believe “they’re just not smart enough,” coaching is already blocked.
  
• Instead: clarify expectations, explore their reality, and co-create experiments (small commitments) they own, while holding both high standards and psychological safety.

4. Stop solving, start coaching – taming your “advice monster”

• Michael Bungay Stanier calls the compulsive urge to give solutions the “advice monster.”
  
• His TEDx talk “How to Tame Your Advice Monster” shows how staying curious a little longer builds ownership, learning, and genuine problem-solving in your team.

5. Quiet team, silent risk

• When your team is quiet, it often signals low psychological safety, not lack of ideas.
  
• Amy Edmondson’s research shows that high-performing teams speak up more, not less, because leaders explicitly invite input and respond without punishing mistakes.

6. Coaching in a metrics-obsessed world

• “Soft” skills like listening, asking questions, and giving developmental feedback are directly tied to retention, productivity, and innovation.
  
• You can connect coaching to numbers by tracking: time-to-independence for new hires, internal mobility, error rates, and engagement scores on “my manager cares about my development.”

7. Attrition, toxicity, and coaching

• When relationships are missing and culture turns toxic, people don’t leave “the company,” they leave their manager.
  
• Manager-as-coach cultures see better performance and retention because people feel seen, challenged, and supported – not just evaluated.

8. Coaching on WhatsApp and Zoom

• In remote or hybrid teams, every message – a delayed reply, a curt “ok,” a rushed comment in a call – shapes how safe people feel to bring problems early.
  
• Turning digital moments into coaching moments means asking one extra question (“What options are you considering?”) instead of firing off instructions.

9. From annual review to weekly coaching

• Once-a-year reviews tend to be backward-looking and judgment-heavy.
  
• Short, frequent check-ins focused on “What are you learning?”, “Where are you stuck?”, and “What’s one thing you want to do differently next week?” build momentum and psychological safety.

10. What if your manager were a coach?

•  Imagine your own manager meeting you with curiosity, not assumptions, and with partnership, not power-play.
  
• Use that as your north star: “How can I be the coach I wish I had?” – and let that shape your questions, tone, and follow-through.

Everyday Practices to Build Your Coaching Muscle

You don’t need a full-blown program to start; you need a few intentional habits.

•  Ask before you tell: Try three coaching questions before any advice – e.g., “What’s your goal here?”, “What have you already tried?”, “What else could you do?”.
• Listen for patterns, not only events: Track where you get triggered (crisis, conflict, client pressure) and pre-commit to one better response (like pausing, naming the pressure, then asking one question).
• Use delegation as development: When delegating, explicitly add “What would you like to learn through this task?” and “Where would you like support vs full ownership?”.
• Normalize learning language: Phrases like “What did we learn?”, “If we did this again, what would we change?”, and “What surprised us?” quietly shift the culture from blame to learning.

If you are in a senior role, you can multiply the impact by modelling this in your own leadership team and recognizing managers who grow people, not just numbers.

Curated Resources to Go Deeper

If you want to keep building your leader-as-coach practice, these resources can help:

• Advice Monster & Coaching Habit
  ○ Michael Bungay Stanier – TEDx talk “How to Tame Your Advice Monster”
• Coaching frameworks and skills for managers
  ○ GROW model overviews and practical questions for each step.
  ○ Essential coaching skills for managers: active listening, powerful questioning, constructive feedback, emotional intelligence.
• Manager-as-coach and coaching culture
  ○ Articles on why “manager as coach” drives engagement, performance, and retention.
  ○ Practical tips to transform managers into coaches using delegation, role-play, and giving managers a coach themselves.
• Psychological safety and team voice
  ○ Amy Edmondson’s work on psychological safety and why speaking up is a core performance driver, not a “nice to have.”

As you explore these ideas, keep returning to the manager’s response grid from the diagram: in this moment, with this person, in this situation – am I showing up from a fixed mindset or a growth mindset, and what would a coach do differently right now?

Join us for this LinkedIn Live to explore whether coaching is just a skill or a way of being, and how it can become a true life mission—register here: https://www.linkedin.com/events/7422210072061206528?viewAsMember=true