Every problem you solve for someone is one they do not learn to solve. Coaching is how you develop people instead of carrying them.

A capable person on your team brings you a problem, and you solve it. It is faster that way, and it feels like leadership. Then they bring you the next one, and the one after that, and slowly you realize that nothing moves without you, that your calendar is full of other people's decisions, and that the strongest people around you have quietly become dependent on you for the thinking. You did not mean to build that. You built it one helpful answer at a time.

The reframe is this. Every time you solve a problem for someone instead of developing their ability to solve it, you have traded a faster today for a more dependent tomorrow. Help feels generous. Done on repeat, it quietly trains your best people to bring everything to you, which is the opposite of what a leader is for.

Every problem you solve for someone is a problem they do not learn to solve.

Coaching is a skill, not just being helpful

The book defines coaching as developing the skills, competencies, and confidence of the people in your sphere so they reach their full potential, and ties it directly to succession, the pipeline of people ready to take on more. It is built on asking before telling, agreeing on a real goal, and following through, not on having the best answer in the room. Done well, it is how you build a team that gets stronger without you, not weaker whenever you step away.

Handing the thinking back with a question, agreeing on a capability the person actually wants to build, and staying with it over time, is a method you can run on the person you keep rescuing. How to do it is what the course builds.