Leading Beyond the Advice Monster

In leadership, the concept of leader as coach has emerged as a powerful and effective approach to inspire, empower, and develop individuals and teams. Many of my CEO clients find themselves giving away precious work hours solving for their direct reports rather than coaching team members to solve for themselves.

Michael Bungay Stanier, a notable leadership expert, coined the concept of “Advice Monster” in his bestselling book, The Coaching Habit. The Advice Monster represents the instinctive urge within leaders to offer solutions, advice, and expertise, often without fully understanding the problem. While this behavior might seem expedient and helpful on the surface, it can stifle creativity, address the wrong problem, undermine confidence, discourage independent thinking, and inhibit growth for individuals and teams.

The Three Faces of the Advice Monster

1. The “Tell-It” Monster: This aspect of the Advice Monster is all about providing quick fixes and easy answers. Leaders who frequently employ the Tell-It Monster tend to dismiss the value of their team’s input, inadvertently discouraging critical thinking and innovation.
2. The “Save-It” Monster: The Save-It Monster swoops in to rescue team members from challenging situations. While it may seem supportive, this behavior can disempower individuals and prevent them from developing problem-solving skills.
3. The “Control-It” Monster: This facet of the Advice Monster involves imposing the leader’s ideas and decisions on their team. The Control-It Monster can stifle creativity and diminish the team’s sense of ownership.

All three of these “Monsters” minimizes ownership and reduces accountability in the long run.

When do you know you’re in deep with these Advice Monster behaviors? You may find yourself with little or no margin, long work weeks, and an inability to get your own work done because you’ve taken to solving situations your team could with a little coaching. Stepping out of your lane into lower altitude concerns robs you of your time for strategic and high-level thinking and work output.

5 Strategies to Tame the Advice Monster

How do we tame the Advice Monster? Michael Bungay Stanier offers these strategies to become a more effective leader-coach.

1. Be Lazy: Pause and reflect before jumping into the conversation and offering advice. Allow your team to express their thoughts and ideas fully. (For more on this topic, refer to my article: Managing Emotional Responses to Elevate Executive Presence).
2. Be Curious: Ask open-ended questions to encourage your team to think critically (These questions often start with “What…”) Questions such as “What is your biggest challenge here?” or “What have you tried so far?” or “What are your options?” or “What are your priorities?” can spark generative discussion and unearth the real issue under the challenge.
3. Be an Active Listener: Practice this by giving your team your full attention, acknowledging their perspectives, and validating their feelings. Reflect back what you hear them saying. It might sound like, “What you’re saying is…..” or “To summarize…is that correct?”
4. Be Silent: Silence can be a powerful tool in coaching conversations. Allow for moments of silence to give your team members the space they need to process and express themselves. Let the moments of uncomfortable silence settle in. The most amazing insights happen in these sweet moments of silence.
5. Be Empowering: Provide your team with the support they need to implement their ideas and solutions. Trust their abilities to succeed. Consider questions such as, “What do you want from me?” or “What does support look like?” or “How will you define success?” or “How will the team hold itself accountable?”

The leader as coach is a transformational force in the modern workplace, fostering a culture of collaboration, growth, ownership, and innovation. By recognizing and taming the Advice Monster, leaders can create an environment where team members are empowered to solve for themselves, establish collective purpose and goals, and increase accountability. In doing so, employees feel a greater sense of belonging, productivity, job satisfaction and success.

Leaders will find more white space to focus on their key priorities and strategic thinking.

Seeking to tame your Advice Monster? Let’s chat.

On July 30, 2023   /   Authentic Leadership, Executive Coaching