Leaders who coach: a shift worth making in Vietnam

A leader who coaches asks before telling, and builds judgement in the team rather than supplying every answer. In Vietnam the shift is harder, because seniority carries a strong expectation that the senior person decides. It is also worth more here, because the directive default caps a team at its manager's bandwidth.

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There is a difference between a manager who has the answers and a manager who can get the answers out of their team. LHH sets out the steps to building a coaching culture, and making that shift is one of the highest-return changes a leadership team can make. In Vietnam it is also one of the more demanding, because it asks managers to lead in a way that can run against how authority has traditionally been expressed in the workplace.

What "leaders who coach" actually means

Coaching, as a leadership style, is not being soft, and it is not withholding direction. It is asking before telling, developing judgement in others rather than renting out your own, and treating a team member's problem as a chance to build capability rather than a task to take back. A manager who does this well ends up with a team that solves more without them, which is the entire point. A manager who only directs ends up as the bottleneck their team routes everything through.

Why the shift is harder, and more valuable, here

In many Vietnamese organisations, seniority carries a strong expectation that the senior person provides the answer. That expectation is not wrong, but leaned on exclusively it caps a team at the manager's own bandwidth, and it leaves capable people waiting to be told. A coaching style loosens that cap. It is more valuable here precisely because the default is more directive, so the upside of changing it is larger. The organisations that build it well do not abandon authority; they add a second gear, knowing when to decide and when to develop.

Building it is a capability, not a personality trait

The common mistake is to assume some managers "are" coaches and others are not, and to leave it there. Coaching as a management behaviour is trainable, and it is best built deliberately: giving managers the skills, the practice, and the feedback to change how they run a one-to-one, a review, a moment when someone brings them a problem. Some organisations go further and develop an internal coaching capability, including people trained and accredited to coach across the organisation, so the skill is not dependent on a handful of naturals or on external coaches for every need.

Where external coaching still earns its place

Building internal capability does not remove the case for professional coaching; it sharpens it. Experienced, ICF-accredited coaches are worth their fee at the points where the stakes and the blind spots are highest: a newly promoted leader finding their level, a senior individual whose next step is as much about how they lead as what they know, an intact team that needs to work differently together. The pattern that works is a blend: professional coaching where it counts most, and a management population that has learned to coach in the daily flow of work.

Start with one conversation you would normally direct

Coaching as a management behaviour is trainable, which means you can test it before commissioning anything: take the next problem a team member brings you and ask before you tell. Notice whether they leave with your answer or their own, and whether they need you the next time. Where you want that to become how a whole management population leads, our ICF-accredited coaching skills programmes run at three levels, from managers adding coaching to an existing skill set through to internal coaches needing advanced practice.

Our coaching skills programmes are ICF-accredited and run at three levels: managers, people leaders, and internal coaches building advanced practice.

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