5 Reasons Why Leaders Fail to Coach Their Teams

Coaching is desirable but often missing.

Photo by Mikhail Nilov

When was the last time you coached someone?

I managed a team for one year before I got new team members. A newbie came up to me and asked: “So, when will we have our first coaching session?”

I didn’t know much about coaching back then. I did train and develop my teammates, but doing coaching was a whole new level. Long story short, managers were not ready to coach their teams at all.

When I started doing management training, I researched why leaders did not do coaching. Here are five of the most common reasons why they fail to coach teams.

1. Time: Don’t have any

Let’s be realistic here. How many duties do managers have? Employees often think they only approve timesheets and holidays. But any manager here knows it is many more.

You have to manage hiring and firing, developmental plans, training, capacity management, strategies, financial reporting, performance reviews, team meetings, etc. Leaders have a lot on their shoulders!

The number one reason why there is not much coaching happening is because of the lack of time.