I keep coming across the idea that coaching other people is less about advising them and more about drawing out their own expertise.

For example:

Effective leaders coach. They view colleagues as experts of their own experience, and they challenge and support their colleague’s thinking.

“Open-ended questions” have pride of place in this approach: what? and how? instead of yes-or-no queries. Michael Bungay Stanier, for example, says in his book The Coaching Habit:

Instead of moving into advice-giving, solution-providing mode, you ask the Focus Question: “What’s the real challenge here for you?”

Giving advice has its place. Someone may explicitly want our advice. And the world is full of contributors and leaders whose expertise–however much drawn out–is not sufficient to the tasks at hand. So I wrestle with this tack.

But I also know how valuable it is to be coached where my intelligence, experience, and problem-solving skills are respected. And I remain convinced, with Paulo Freire, that a “banking model” of imparting knowledge has limited effectiveness.

As I move more deliberately into the practice of coaching, I am taking seriously the power the coachee has to frame the issues, explore the points of leverage, and effect change. As Bungay Stanier says, “The essence of coaching lies in helping others and unlocking their potential.”