“I think I am a pretty good coach,” the executive across the desk said to us. Impressed with his positive attitude about himself, we asked, “How do you know?”. He said he had attended a coaching course and learned many of the techniques of good coaching. That triggered a question for us. How many leaders believe they are better coaches than they really are?

The old proverb says, “If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he will eat for a lifetime.”

But too often, managers fall into a habit of simply giving their employees a fish — or in this case, all the answers. “Do as I say, and you will succeed” is, unfortunately, not an uncommon approach to management.