How to Coach Your Team When You Have No Time
Leaders want to coach and mentor, but the calendar rarely cooperates. Here’s how to make coaching a natural part of your day without losing time you don't have.
Ask most leaders what they wish they had more of, and the answer isn’t budget or headcount. It’s time. Time to coach, mentor, and grow their people. But time is the one thing leaders never seem to have.
Coaching and mentoring others is one of the most satisfying things a leader can do, and most won’t give it up. In fact, they’re often reluctant to let it go even when their schedule doesn’t really allow for it.
I think back to when I was at Lehigh Valley Public Media and realized I was spending close to two days a week just coaching my direct reports. Granted, I probably had too many direct reports, but the time I spent with those people was an investment in them and in the organization. I saw it pay dividends again and again.
But what about you? What would happen if you tried devoting that much time? Could your organization handle it? Could you?
The real question is how to fit coaching in when there are dozens of other priorities competing for your attention. If you want to invest in people but aren’t sure how to make the time, what’s the best way forward?
The Problem
The problem is real. The coaching group Empower World notes that “Leaders often struggle to balance coaching activities with their other responsibilities, leading to potential time constraints and competing priorities.” Neuro-leadership coach Dr. Megha Bansal puts it more bluntly: “Balancing coaching demands and leadership projects is like spinning plates, except one’s on fire.” 🔥
The Solution: Stop Playing from the Old Playbook
The answer isn’t to squeeze more hours into the day. It’s to change how we lead.
A Harvard Business Review article called The Leader as Coach explains why the old way doesn’t work anymore. For decades, the default job description of a manager was to have the right answers. They moved up the ladder, developed expertise, and then taught their teams how to do what the boss had done. Classic command and control.
That playbook is obsolete. Change comes too fast, too often, and too disruptively for yesterday’s answers to hold. The goal now isn’t to direct and instruct. It’s to support and guide. To help employees learn how to solve problems and adapt on their own.
The HBR authors put it well: the effective manager-as-coach “asks questions instead of providing answers, supports employees instead of judging them, and facilitates their development instead of dictating what has to be done.”
But here’s where many leaders stumble. We think we’re coaching when we’re really just giving thinly disguised instructions. The old playbook says: have the answers. Fake coaching says: ask questions but steer toward your answer. Real coaching says: help your team find their own.
The Practical Solution: The GROW Model
If telling is the wrong way, what’s the right one? A practical tool is the GROW model. It’s a simple four-step framework for conversations that draw on a person’s own potential.
Goal: Help the employee set the outcome they want from the conversation. Ask: “What do you want when you walk out the door that you don’t have now?” This gives the talk direction.
Reality: Focus on facts. Ask “what,” “when,” “where,” and “who” questions. For example: “What are the key things we need to know about this situation?” Notice you’re not asking “why.” Why questions often feel accusatory. The point here is to listen, not to solve.
Options: When someone feels stuck, our instinct is to solve their problem for them. A better move is to ask: “If you had a magic wand, what would you do?” It removes constraints and opens their mind to real options.
Will: End with commitment. Ask: “What will you do?” Have them state a specific action and timeline. Then check motivation: “On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to do this?” If the answer is 7 or less, they probably won’t. Circle back until they land on something they’re truly committed to.
Back to the Original Problem: Time
This still feels like a time issue. And it is—unless you rethink what coaching looks like. I no longer believe leaders need to carve out two days a week as I once did.
The key is to stop treating coaching as a formal meeting. It’s not a block on your calendar. It’s a style of conversation. You can use the GROW model in a five-minute talk at someone’s desk or a quick back-and-forth on a messaging platform.
When a direct report comes to you with a problem, resist the urge to hand them the answer. Instead, try one of these quick questions:
“What have you already thought of?” (Options)
“What does a successful outcome look like here?” (Goal)
“What are the key facts we’re working with?” (Reality)
Work those questions into daily interactions and you’ll do more than help your team solve problems. You’ll help them build the critical thinking skills they need. You’ll stop being the bottleneck with all the answers.
And here’s the payoff: when you stop giving answers, your team grows stronger—and you finally get time back for the work only you can do.
What about you? How do you make time to coach your team when everything else feels urgent? Drop a comment with your best tactic—or the struggle you’re still figuring out.
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