Are Managers Becoming Individual Contributors with Direct Reports? The Importance of Coaching

Managers are responsible for overseeing a team, yet they are also being given responsibility to own projects or special assignments, much like an individual contributor. With these additional responsibilities, the core management duties can take on less focus. Coaching is fundamentally one of the most important aspects of management, and unfortunately can be one of the first management responsibilities to be reduced due to time constraints.

Employees need encouragement and empowerment. Coaching takes time and energy, coaching means putting yourself out there, coaching means setting aside time to make it happen. Coaching will empower your employees, giving you even more resources at your disposal to distribute the large volumes of work.

This link contains a list of excuses often used for not meeting the commitment to coach. Do any of these sound familiar? What advice can you provide other managers to reduce these excuses?