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    Interactive assessment

    Manager as Coach Assessment

    Evaluate your coaching capability as a manager across the five dimensions that determine whether you develop, engage, and retain your team.

    Research shows that the manager-as-coach model produces significantly better outcomes than the manager-as-director model: teams coached rather than managed report higher engagement, lower turnover, and faster capability development (Gallup, 2025; DDI, 2025). This assessment helps managers identify where their coaching is already effective and where specific development will produce the biggest improvement.

    Questions or items
    20 questions or items
    Completion time
    Around 10 minutes
    Dimensions
    Coaching Mindset, Active Listening, Powerful Questioning, Feedback & Feed-Forward, Goal-Setting & Accountability
    What you receive
    Personalised results with result bands, section scores and development guidance.

    What it covers

    • Coaching Mindset
    • Active Listening
    • Powerful Questioning
    • Feedback & Feed-Forward
    • Goal-Setting & Accountability

    Rate each statement from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree) based on your actual behaviour in conversations with your team, not your intention or aspiration. The most useful results come from honest self-assessment.

    Results: Personalised results with result bands, section scores and development guidance.

    How this interactive diagnostic works

    Read what it covers here first. Nothing is saved or sent until you continue. Your result is calculated once every required item is answered.

    If it asks for your first name and work email, you enter them in the diagnostic itself. This page sends nothing.

    Statements in this diagnostic

    Statements are grouped by section. Answer each one for the situation named in the instructions, using the scale shown.

    Coaching Mindset

    Coaching starts with a belief: that your team members have the capacity to find their own answers, and that your job is to develop that capacity rather than provide solutions.

    1. I genuinely believe that my team members can solve most of their own problems, and I hold back from providing answers even when I have them
    2. I approach 1-to-1 conversations with genuine curiosity about what the other person needs, rather than a pre-set agenda or solution
    3. I give team members space to learn from difficulty and setback rather than rescuing them or fixing problems on their behalf
    4. I consider developing others to be a core and essential part of my leadership role, not an optional extra when I have time

    Active Listening

    Coaching conversations require a quality of attention that most managers have not been trained to develop, listening to understand, not to respond.

    1. In coaching conversations, I listen significantly more than I speak, I do not dominate the conversation
    2. I resist the urge to finish sentences, complete thoughts, or redirect the conversation while the other person is still processing
    3. I notice and respond to the emotional undercurrent of a conversation, not just the facts being shared
    4. After coaching conversations, the people I have coached typically say they feel genuinely heard and understood

    Powerful Questioning

    A powerful question opens up thinking rather than closes it down. It creates insight rather than confirming what the coach already believes.

    1. I ask questions that make the other person genuinely think, rather than questions with an obvious right answer
    2. I use open, exploratory questions, beginning with 'What', 'How', or 'What if', rather than leading or yes/no questions
    3. My questions help people access their own knowledge and perspective, rather than signalling what I think they should do
    4. I am comfortable sitting with silence after asking a question, rather than filling the space with another question or my own answer

    Feedback & Feed-Forward

    Effective coaching feedback is specific, behavioural, honest, and forward-looking. It develops capability rather than just evaluating performance.

    1. I give specific, behavioural feedback tied to observable actions, not vague impressions or character judgements
    2. I give honest, constructive feedback even when it is uncomfortable or the other person may not want to hear it
    3. I actively seek feedback on my own leadership and coaching effectiveness, I do not only give feedback, I also receive it
    4. I balance backward-looking feedback with forward-looking conversations about development and growth opportunities

    Goal-Setting & Accountability

    Coaching produces change when it results in clear, committed actions and a structure for following through. Without accountability, insight rarely becomes behaviour change.

    1. I help team members set specific, meaningful development goals rather than accepting vague aspirations
    2. I follow up on goals and commitments in a way that feels supportive and developmental rather than policing
    3. I co-create action plans with my team members rather than prescribing steps for them to follow
    4. At the end of every coaching conversation, there is a clear, committed next step that both of us are aware of

    How the result is read

    Your answers are totalled for each section and overall. Each total falls into one of the bands below.

    • Developing, 20 to 44: Your management style currently leans toward directing and advising rather than coaching. Coaching skills will significantly expand your toolkit and improve team engagement. Start with Coaching Mindset, it underpins all other dimensions.
    • Emerging, 45 to 64: You have coaching instincts but inconsistent practice. You likely coach well in comfortable situations but revert to directing under pressure. Structured development and deliberate practice will embed the coaching habits.
    • Capable, 65 to 84: You coach effectively in most situations. Your team experiences you as supportive and developmental. Focus on the dimensions where your score is lowest, likely Powerful Questioning or Goal-Setting, to lift your overall impact.
    • Advanced, 85 to 100: You coach with skill, consistency, and genuine impact. Your team develops under your leadership and your conversations generate real insight and behaviour change. Consider developing other managers to coach to this standard.

    Sources named in this diagnostic

    • Gallup (2025) State of the Global Workplace Report. Washington, DC: Gallup Press.
    • DDI (2025) Global Leadership Forecast 2025. Pittsburgh, PA: Development Dimensions International.
    • International Coaching Federation & Human Capital Institute (2024) Building a Coaching Culture: Leveraging the Power of an Internal Coaching Programme. ICF.
    • Harrell, C. and Barbato, L. (2018) 'Great managers still matter: The evolution of Google's Project Oxygen'. re:Work, 27 February.
    • Whitmore, J. (2017) Coaching for Performance, 5th edn. London: Nicholas Brealey.
    • Clutterbuck, D. and Megginson, D. (2005) Making Coaching Work: Creating a Coaching Culture. London: CIPD.
    • Kimsey-House, H., Kimsey-House, K., Sandahl, P. and Whitworth, L. (2018) Co-Active Coaching, 4th edn. London: Nicholas Brealey.

    Where to take the next step

    Our coaching skills programmes build listening, questioning and conversation capability for managers and leaders.

    Explore Coaching Skills Training

    Frequently asked questions

    What does the Manager as Coach Assessment measure?

    Research shows that the manager-as-coach model produces significantly better outcomes than the manager-as-director model: teams coached rather than managed report higher engagement, lower turnover, and faster capability development (Gallup, 2025; DDI, 2025). This assessment helps managers identify where their coaching is already effective and where specific development will produce the biggest improvement.

    How many questions are in the Manager as Coach Assessment?

    It contains 20 questions grouped into 5 dimensions: Coaching Mindset, Active Listening, Powerful Questioning, Feedback & Feed-Forward, Goal-Setting & Accountability.

    How is the Manager as Coach Assessment scored?

    Responses are totalled within each section and across the diagnostic, and each total falls into a result band.

    What happens after I complete the Manager as Coach Assessment?

    Once the required items are answered, you enter your first name and email to see your results: an overall interpretation, section scores and development guidance.

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