This is a conversation/reaction topic between Toby Sinclair and Terry Brown recently on LinkedIn. You can find it here. The net of the discussion was—can a manager coach the people that report to them? And, to be clear, the coaching in this sense was professional coaching.
Here’s Toby’s post—
Managers can’t be coaches
But they can coach. Let me explain.
Line managers face barriers to being a coach. These include:
Power dynamic between manager and direct report
Knowledge is held by the manager but not the team member. e.g. Upcoming reorganization
Confidentiality conflict between manager and other team members.
Unwritten constraints in what can/can’t be discussed in the corporate culture.
Commonly to the direct report, the manager will always be a manager. Not a coach.