Mining the MDW Dataset 3: From Command to Coach

See if you can last the next meeting with your team without giving one answer and only ask questions. See if you can get the team to gain new insights and charter a new course without you telling them what to do.

In 150+ organisational transformations I’ve analysed, one transition predicts success more than any other:

The moment managers stop giving answers and start asking questions.

It sounds simple. It’s brutally hard.

Why Command Feels Like Leadership

We promote people because they’re good at solving problems. Then we’re surprised when they keep solving problems instead of developing problem-solvers.

Command leadership feels like leadership because:

• You’re clearly adding value (providing solutions)
• You’re visibly in control (making decisions)
• You’re moving fast (no time wasted on development)
• You’re meeting expectations (leaders should know what to do)

But here’s what our analysis reveals: command leadership creates followers, not leaders. And followers don’t create breakthrough results. And command leaders become the bottle-necks limiting your organisation’s capacity to excel.

The Transformation Stories

Global Wheels Manufacturer: From Caveman to Coach

One of the largest wheel manufacturers faced a critical challenge: deep manufacturing expertise locked in the heads of managers who’d never worked anywhere else. They called it “caveman management” – managers who solved problems through experience and authority.

The transformation required managers to transfer their knowledge rather than hoard it. The shift: From being the person with answers to being the person who develops answering capability.

Result: 25% improvement in operating profit as frontline teams became capable of solving problems that previously required management intervention.

Nestlé Malaysia: The Control Paradox

Nestlé Malaysia’s transformation began when leaders realised they were “individually efficient but jointly ineffective.” Managers were excellent at making decisions quickly, but terrible at building decision-making capability in others.

The shift: From command-and-control to coaching-and-enabling. Instead of solving problems for teams, managers started solving problems with teams.

Result: Teams became capable of responding to daily performance deviations without management intervention, creating both efficiency and resilience, while freeing managers from daily fires, so they can start focusing on building continuous improvement capability.

Polokwane Smelter: The Expertise Paradox

At Anglo American’s Polokwane Smelter, leadership discovered something counterintuitive: “Managers must sometimes be intentionally excluded so the real experts – the frontline -can lead the solution.”

The people closest to the work often had the best insights, but managers’ need to add value prevented those insights from emerging.

Result: Frontline teams developed solutions that technical experts had missed, because they combined deep work knowledge with fresh perspective.

The Research That Explains Why

Google’s Project Oxygen analysed what made their highest-performing managers different. The #1 behaviour wasn’t technical expertise or decision-making speed – it was coaching.

The data is compelling:

• Teams with top-quartile coaching managers had 12% better business results
• Those same teams had 27% lower turnover
• Coaching managers created 2.3× more promotable employees

Why? Because coaching creates capability, and capability creates sustainable performance – quite simple once you think about it.

Why Coaching Feels Harder Than Commanding

1. The Ego Challenge – Coaching requires admitting you don’t have all the answers. For people promoted because of their expertise, this feels like professional suicide.
2. The Time Challenge – Coaching takes longer than commanding in the short term. When pressure mounts, the temptation to revert to “just tell them what to do” becomes overwhelming.
3. The Control Challenge – Coaching means watching people struggle, make mistakes, and learn through experience. For managers used to preventing problems, this feels like abdication of responsibility.
4. The Identity Challenge – Many managers derive satisfaction from being needed for their expertise. Coaching successful teams means being needed less, not more.

What Coaching Actually Looks Like

Based on successful transformations, coaching has specific, observable behaviours:

Ask Questions That Develop Thinking

• Instead of: “Here’s what you should do…” Try: “What do you think is causing this problem?”
• Instead of: “That won’t work because…” Try: “What would need to be true for that to succeed?”

Make Your Thinking Visible

• Instead of: Giving the answer Try: “Here’s how I’m thinking about this… what am I missing?”

Create Safe Learning Environments

• Instead of: Punishing mistakes Try: “What did we learn? How do we prevent this next time?”

Focus on Capability, Not Just Results

Instead of: “Get this fixed by Friday” Try: “How can we build capability so this doesn’t happen again?”

The Multiplication Effect

Here’s what successful transformations reveal: managers who coach don’t just get better teams – they get teams that get better without them.

UTC Fire & Security’s insight: “We created a culture where staff question the status quo and think like problem-solvers.”

When managers become coaches:

• Problems get solved faster because more people can solve them
• Innovation increasesbecause more diverse minds are engaged
• Resilience improves because capability is distributed, not concentrated
• Succession planning happens naturally because leadership skills are being developed daily

The Diagnostic Questions

How do you know if you’re commanding or coaching? Ask yourself:

Time allocation:

• Do you spend more time solving problems or developing problem-solvers?
• Are you busier when your team performs well or when they struggle?

Team dependency:

• What happens when you’re not available?
• Do problems wait for you, or do they get solved without you?

Learning direction:

• Are you teaching more than you’re learning?
• Do team members come to you with solutions or just problems?

Energy patterns:

• Do you feel energized by being needed or by not being needed?
• Does team success make you feel valuable or replaceable?

What This Looks Like Monday Morning

Stop:

• Immediately providing solutions when people bring you problems
• Making decisions that others could make with guidance
• Solving problems that others could learn from

Start:

• Asking “What do you think we should do?” before sharing your perspective
• Saying “Help me understand your thinking” when you disagree
• Making your decision-making process visible so others can learn it

Practice phrases:

• “What would you do if I weren’t here?”
• “What information would help you decide?”
• “How would you explain this to someone else?”
• “What would you do differently next time?”

The Hardest Truth

The transition from command to coach is difficult because it requires becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable.

You’ll watch people struggle with problems you could solve instantly. You’ll bite your tongue when you see “better” ways to do things. You’ll invest time in development when pressure demands immediate results.

But here’s what the most successful transformations teach us: the discomfort of coaching is temporary. The discomfort of commanding is permanent.

Command leadership creates dependency, which creates more problems to solve, which requires more commanding, which creates more dependency.

Coaching leadership creates capability, which prevents problems from occurring, which reduces the need for commanding, which creates time for more coaching.

The Choice

You can be the manager who always has the right answer, or you can be the manager who develops people who find right answers.

You can be indispensable, or you can make others capable.

You can solve today’s problems, or you can prevent tomorrow’s problems by building problem-solving capability.

The question isn’t whether you’re a good problem-solver. The question is whether you’re good at developing other good problem-solvers.

What made you realise you needed to coach more and command less? Share a moment when you discovered that developing others was more valuable than demonstrating your own expertise.