What is the real difference between coaching styles for leaders?

The real difference isn’t the title on the coach’s card. It’s what happens in the conversation. Michael Bungay Stanier, author of The Coaching Habit, draws the sharpest line: the moment you start giving advice, you’ve stopped coaching. Some styles lean on the coach’s answers. Others stay curious a little longer and let the leader find their own. He also splits coaching built for managers and leaders from the woo-woo version built for people who already see themselves as coaches. Whatever the label, business coaching or executive coaching, the engine is the same. Stay curious longer, and hold what he calls fierce love: committed to the person’s success, but refusing to be nicey-nicey about it. Get those two right and you’re already in the top quartile of coaches.

Why this episode is worth your time

Michael Bungay Stanier has sold over 1.2 million copies of a self-published book on coaching, and he can explain the whole craft in two minutes. That’s the useful part. He strips coaching down to two moves any leader can run, and he’s blunt about the styles that don’t work: the advice-heavy manager who jumps straight to the answer, and the woo-woo coach who turns a practical skill into something only other coaches understand.

Choosing a coach, or trying to lead more like one? The question isn’t business coaching versus executive coaching. It’s whether the style forces a real commitment and changes how you spend your week, or just leaves you feeling a bit better about yourself. This conversation hands you a test for that.

Five things you can take from this episode

1. Advice is the tell. The premise behind The Advice Trap is simple: if you’re giving advice, you’re not coaching. The default move is to jump in with the answer. A coach-like leader stays with the question a beat longer and lets the other person do the thinking.
2. Coaching for leaders is a managerial skill, not a woo-woo one. Bungay Stanier built his method to be accessible for normal managers, not for people already inclined to be coaches. If a coaching style feels mystical or self-indulgent, it’s the wrong style for a leadership team.
3. Fierce love is the differentiator. Genuinely committed to someone’s success, and refusing to be nicey-nicey about it. Curiosity without fierceness is soft. Fierceness without curiosity is just advice with the volume up. The good ones hold both at once.
4. Good coaching forces a commitment, and commitment means saying no. A worthy goal disrupts the expectations you hold of yourself and the ones other people hold of you. A style that never asks you to drop anything isn’t really changing anything.
5. The best coaching redesigns the role, not just the mindset. Bungay Stanier’s I Care, They Care matrix maps your work against what you value and what your boss’s boss values, so you can cut, delegate or reframe. In the episode, Dominic Monkhouse describes a CEO who said he had no time to swim before work. They went through his diary and found only 20% of his week genuinely needed him. The block was never time. It was how he thought his team would judge him for leaving to swim, and shifting that view freed him for the strategic M&A work that actually moved the business.

About the guest

Michael Bungay Stanier is the author of The Coaching Habit, the best-selling book on coaching this century at over 1.2 million copies, and a rare self-published title to reach that scale. He followed it with The Advice Trap and How to Begin, and earlier wrote Do More Great Work. He founded Box of Crayons, a training company that teaches tens of thousands of people a year to stay curious a little bit longer, and later stepped back from the CEO role to focus on writing through his newer venture, mbs.works. He’s Australian and lives in Canada.

Snippets from the episode transcript

The sharpest moments from the episode, in the guest’s own words.

“Like, stay curious a little bit longer. Hold fierce love for the people you’re working with.” … “Cuz fierce love means that you are committed to who they are and their success. And the fierceness means you’re not going to be nicey nicey about it. You’re going to do what needs to done to lay the the challenge down.”

What it means: the two ingredients of a strong coaching style are curiosity and fierce love. Curiosity keeps you from rushing to advice. Fierce love keeps you honest, so you challenge the person instead of just being agreeable. That combination matters more than whether the label says business or executive coaching.

“I had a point of view around how it could be different, which was like, you’ve got to make it accessible and useful and unwired for normal people who are managers and leaders. Not for woo-woo people who are inclined to be coaches.”

What it means: coaching that works for leaders is practical and built into how you manage, not a separate mystical discipline. If a style only makes sense to people who already identify as coaches, it won’t travel across a leadership team.

Frequently asked questions

What is the real difference between business coaching and executive coaching for leaders?

The useful difference isn’t the label but the style inside the room. Executive coaching tends to develop the individual leader one to one. Business coaching works on the company and the team around you. But Bungay Stanier’s point cuts across both: any style that defaults to giving advice has stopped coaching, and any style that stays curious and holds fierce love is doing the real work.

Is coaching a leadership skill or something only professional coaches do?

It’s a core leadership skill. Bungay Stanier argues coaching should be accessible and useful for normal managers, not reserved for people who see themselves as coaches. He says he can explain the principles in two minutes: stay curious a little bit longer, and hold fierce love for your people. Any leader can run those two moves in a normal conversation.

What makes someone a good coach for a leadership team?

Two things, done together. Genuine curiosity, so they ask a real question instead of pushing their own answer. And fierce love, so they’re committed to your success but willing to challenge you rather than keep you comfortable. In the episode, Bungay Stanier says get those two right and you’re already in the top quartile of coaches, with or without a formal qualification.

How do you know if your coaching style is actually working?

It should force a real commitment and change how you spend your week, not just leave you feeling better. A worthy goal disrupts the expectations you and others hold, which means saying no to things. If nothing’s been dropped and no habit has changed, the coaching hasn’t landed, whatever style it claims to use.

Where Monkhouse & Company fits

Run the advice-versus-curiosity test on your own coaching. If it comes up short, the fix is a style that works on the whole business and forces the commitments that actually change how you lead. Learn the coaching approach behind our programmes. You can also read our primer on what business coaching is, and why you need to be a Level 5 leader.