One of the most common habits I see in leaders, managers, and experienced professionals is the instinct to advise. A problem is raised and the room immediately shifts toward finding answers. What should be done. What worked last time. What someone ought to do next.
Rather than being negative or controlling in intent, this is usually because they care, and because experience creates a powerful sense that we’ve earned the right to guide others.
Which is exactly why advice is so seductive — and so risky.
Giving advice feels good. It gives us a sense of usefulness, competence, and sometimes even wisdom. We get to step into the role of the person who knows, the person who has been there and the person who can shorten the journey for someone else. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that impulse, and it’s often a pro-social one.
But that doesn’t mean advice is always helpful, or appropriate.
It’s worth making an important distinction here. Advice works well when the task is well defined. How to complete a tax return, follow a process or operate a system where there is a clear right way and a clear wrong way. In those situations, advice is efficient, reduces error, saves time, and transfers knowledge cleanly.
There is a good reason however, why counsellors and good coaches are ‘advised’ not to give advice. The problem arises when we move that same instinct into messier territory: everyday life, relationships, leadership, career decisions, conflict, or anything involving human behaviour. These are not problems with a single optimal solution, but with multiple valid responses, trade-offs, and consequences – many of which depend heavily on context.
So what’s the issue with advice in these situations?
Well, for advice to be genuinely useful, some fairly demanding conditions need to be met.
Firstly, you need a full and accurate understanding of the situation. If we know anything about people, it’s that they vary enormously in their ability to articulate what’s really going on, and even in their ability to access their own relevant insights. What they notice, what they omit, what they normalise, and what they emotionally minimise all shape the picture you’re responding to. Advice built on partial data is still advice, it’s likely to be bad advice.
Secondly, you need a deep understanding of that person’s values, preferences, fears, goals, and constraints. Not in abstract terms, but in the minute detail that actually drives behaviour. In reality, this level of understanding is rare, and tends to exist only in relationships with a long history, trust, and repeated exposure to how someone actually lives with the consequences of their choices.
Thirdly, there is the issue of ownership. Advice subtly shifts responsibility away from the person facing the situation and toward the person offering the solution. Even when the advice is sound, the outcome becomes partly yours rather than fully theirs. If it works, it confirms your judgement. If it doesn’t, it’s easy for disengagement, blame, or quiet resentment to creep in. By contrast, when people arrive at their own conclusions, even imperfect ones, they tend to commit more fully, learn more deeply, and stay accountable for the consequences. Ownership is hard to foster in environments where advice is the default response, because thinking has already been done on someone else’s behalf.
Taken to its logical conclusion then, this leads to two uncomfortable truths.
The first is that unsolicited advice is almost never a good idea. Is there anything more irritating than someone confidently telling you what you should do, based on a fraction of the information you’re living with without having asked?
The second is more subtle, and more challenging. Even when someone asks for advice, we should be cautious. Being asked does not magically grant us the understanding required to give good advice. At best, it gives us permission to explore, and at worst, it tempts us to overestimate how much we really know.
This is where the distinction between advice and coaching matters.
Advice focuses on the “how”, and coaching focuses on the outcome. Advice transfers solutions, and coaching develops thinking. Advice often satisfies the giver, and coaching serves the person in front of you.
Advice focuses on the “how”, and coaching focuses on the outcome. Advice transfers solutions, and coaching develops thinking. Advice often satisfies the giver, and coaching serves the person in front of you.
I’ve written before about the dangers of becoming a “sat nav” manager – someone who knows the destination but can’t stop calling out turn-by-turn instructions. The irony is that while this feels helpful, it deprives people of learning, ownership, and the chance to find solutions that actually fit their context.
At an organisational level, this matters. Cultures that default to advice tend to create dependence, risk aversion, and shallow thinking. Cultures that invest in coaching, (real coaching, not advice in disguise), build capability, confidence, and adaptability.
Our role, increasingly, is not to tell people what to do, but to help them think better about what they want to achieve, what matters to them, and what options are genuinely available. That requires patience, curiosity, and a tolerance for ambiguity — but it’s far more powerful than even the best-intentioned advice.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Many organisations are full of capable, well-intentioned people who default to advice without realising the impact it has on learning, ownership, and motivation.
We help leaders develop strong coaching habits and build cultures that prioritise thinking over telling. If your organisation struggles with the balance between coaching and advice giving, I’d be happy to help.