Three Conflicts and a Request for Advice
Tom, a newly promoted team lead, has spent 12 minutes of a 30-minute session describing three separate conflicts: a missed handover, a passive-aggressive Slack message, and a peer who "never reads anything." Each story is vivid and detailed, and each ends with some version of "that's just how she is." He then says: "So what would you do? You've managed people." You notice a pattern he has not named: in all three stories he decided how to respond before speaking to the person involved. You have 15 minutes left, and Tom is already reaching for a pen to write down your answer.
1. What do you reflect back first, and why that rather than the advice he asked for?
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Reflect the pattern and the request, in that order. Something like: "Three different people, three different situations - and in each one you'd worked out your move before you talked to them. I'm also noticing you've asked me for my move."
This does two jobs. It shows Tom he has been heard in detail, which matters because he has spent 12 minutes establishing that the situations are real and unfair. And it offers him the one observation that could change how he leads, rather than the fourth opinion in the room. Advice would add one more predetermined move to a set of three.
Keep it tentative. He may reject it, and that is useful information: "Is that fair, or am I over-reading?" If he says it is fair, ask what happens for him between deciding and speaking to the person. The gap between those two moments is the actual coaching ground.
2. How do you respond to "What would you do? You've managed people" without dodging the relationship?
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Answer the request honestly and then hand it back with substance. Dodging - "I don't give advice" - sounds evasive and slightly superior, especially to a new manager who feels exposed.
Try: "I have a view, and I'll hold it for a minute, because you're the one who has to work with these people next week. If I gave you my answer you'd be running my judgement in your team, and it might not fit your relationship with them." That is transparent about the choice you are making and why, rather than pretending you have no opinion.
Then make the handback specific: "In that Slack situation, what did you want her to know, and what did you actually say?" Or "Which of the three would you least like to have a direct conversation about, and what makes it the hardest?" The aim is to move the conversation from what Tom should do to what Tom is avoiding, which is where the learning is.
3. With 15 minutes left, how do you shape the rest of the session so he leaves with something usable?
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Choose one situation, not three, and say why you are choosing. "We've got 15 minutes. I'd rather go deep on one than skim three - which one has the most charge for you?" Let him pick; the choice is itself diagnostic.
Work the chosen situation toward a single next action he designs. Ask what he wants the other person to understand, what he would need to say to make that likely, and what he would notice in himself as he says it. If he wants to rehearse, rehearse - but as practice in his own words, not as a script you supply.
Close with a clear commitment: what he will do, by when, and how he will know it happened. Leave 90 seconds for that, and do not let the detail of the other two stories creep back in. One real conversation attempted beats three analysed.