Picture yourself stuck in traffic. The car in front of you won’t signal, you have no idea what they’re about to do, and your frustration spikes.

That feeling—annoyed, stressed, maybe even a little angry—is exactly what happens on our teams when people don’t communicate.

As project managers and leaders, we often unintentionally create that “traffic” feeling. We move fast, we solve problems, and we tell people what to do.

But when we don’t coach people, don’t communicate clearly, and don’t help them think for themselves, we become the bottleneck and the stress point.

Positive leadership offers another way: shift from being the expert with all the answers to being a partner in people’s success.

It takes a little longer at first, but it builds teams that are more independent, more resilient, and far less dependent on you for every decision.

From Expert to Partner: The Mindset Shift

Many of us take pride in being “the expert.” It feels good to have the answers and to be the person people come to when something goes wrong.

But staying in that role keeps you stressed and keeps your team stuck.

When you’re the expert, you sit at the top of a hierarchy and people wait for you to decide.

You end up reacting to symptoms—missed communication, stress, confusion—instead of addressing the source.

When you position yourself as a partner in people’s success, you level the playing field and help people think for themselves.

Giving answers may solve the immediate issue, but it cuts people’s growth.

When you “grow the answers” instead—asking questions, guiding reflection, and letting people struggle a bit—you’re building problem‑solvers, not just followers.

Yes, it takes longer. But it’s more sustainable.

Think of the office coffee pot: when no one refills it, everyone suffers. Taking those extra moments to refill the pot benefits the next person.

Coaching works the same way. It’s a time investment now that saves you time and stress later.

Listening For People, Not Just To Problems

Positive leadership doesn’t start with talking; it starts with listening differently.

Most of us listen like this:

• Why is this happening?
• How did this happen?
• Do I agree with this?
• Do I know the answer?

We listen for the situation so we can fix it. Coaches listen for the person.

When you listen for the person, you tune into things like their values and strengths, the clues in their behavior and language, whether something is missing in their skills or training, and how coachable they are.

You also notice their motivation, whether they might need deeper support than you can provide, and what needs they’re trying to meet.

And let’s be honest: every workplace is just a bunch of kids, better dressed, trying to get their needs met—credit, fairness, recognition, being heard.

If you listen for those needs, you can lead more effectively.

Listening Like a Drummer’s Parent

Imagine sitting in a Broadway theater. The audience is dazzled by the costumes, the lights, the whole spectacle.

But if your child is the drummer in the pit, you’re not watching the show the same way. You’re listening for the drums.

You don’t see everything. You don’t even register all the details. You listen for that one person, because that’s who matters most to you.

Coaching works the same way. You can teach your team skills all day, but if you don’t shift their behavior and who they’re being, you won’t get the results you want.

You need to listen for the person inside the situation, not just the situation itself.

Coaching From Your Gut, Not Just Your Head

When you’re always in “fix mode” as a project manager, you live in your head: “I have a program for that. I have a process for that.

I know the solution to that.” Coaching asks you to drop into your gut—your intuition.

Intuition isn’t magic. It’s often just imagination, the “tip of the iceberg” of everything you’ve observed and felt but haven’t consciously processed.

When you riff with ideas, let yourself imagine options, and encourage your team to be more innovative, you’re tapping into that gut sense.

We all know what happens when we ignore it. You think, “I shouldn’t hire this person,” but override that hunch with logic anyway.

Six months later, you realize you were right the first time.

Positive leadership means getting more comfortable listening to that gut feeling and using it to inform the questions you ask and the way you coach.

Stop Interrogating. Start Accessing Wisdom.

One of the biggest shifts in coaching is in the questions you ask.

There’s one question that almost guarantees a bad answer: “Why did you do that?”

Ask that, and most people turn into a three‑year‑old with crayons on the wall: “I don’t know.”

You get defensiveness, shutdown, or confusion—not insight.

Most of the common questions we ask—who, why, when, where, how—are information questions. They dig for details and stories.

They’re useful for gathering data, but they don’t necessarily move people forward.

Coaches use wisdom access questions: questions that help people find their own answers, create forward motion, and reach solutions.

These questions overwhelmingly start with the word “what.”

A few useful examples:

• “What effect is this having on you?”
• “What options do you have?”
• “What makes you bring this here now?”
• “What would you really like to say?”
• “What can you do to protect yourself or another person?”

Not all “what” questions are helpful. “What’s wrong with you?” doesn’t access wisdom, and “What do you think about doing X?” is just a suggestion dressed up as a question.

Genuine “what” questions act like a search engine for the brain: they demand a specific response and push people into deeper thinking.

A Coaching Example: Protecting a Team Member Under Pressure

Consider a real example of how these questions play out in a project context.

A project manager shares that a team member is “at the end of her rope.” They’re working with an outsourcing partner who keeps dropping the ball and delivering poor quality work.

The team has to keep working with this partner, and the PM is spending twice as long in meetings listening to the team member vent and absorbing the fallout.

Instead of jumping straight to advice a coach asks “what” questions:

• What effect is this having on you?
• What options does she have?
• What reflection will this have on her reputation?
• What makes you bring this here now?
• What can you do to protect her?
• What stops you from pulling the project back in‑house?

Through those questions, the PM realizes that the team member’s stress is legitimate, that the outsourcing partner has shown themselves to be unreliable, and that the PM’s real concern is losing an “incredible asset” on the team.

She also sees more clearly that she’s already intervening—documenting problems, elevating concerns discreetly, and building a case to shift the work back in‑house.

The questions don’t magically create new information, but they do create clarity. And that clarity is often what lets a leader move from feeling stuck to acting with purpose.

As a coach, you might still offer advice, such as encouraging the team member to “cut the drama” and let the outsourcing partner fail while the PM continues sending clear signals up the chain.

But the real power lies in helping the leader see her own path, rather than simply handing her a solution.

Practice: Coaching With “What” Questions

When coaches in the room were asked to try this approach, they had one minute to listen to a problem and four minutes to ask only “what” questions.

It felt artificial at first, but it worked.

In just a handful of questions, many people reached a surprising level of clarity. Some needed several questions; others got there in three or four.

A few reached insight with just one strong “what” question.

That’s the goal: not to interrogate, but to cause an “aha.” When people get the idea themselves, they are far more likely to act on it.

If you’ve ever given someone advice they praised—and then ignored—you know this truth.

Months later, they might come back saying, “I have a great idea,” and it’s the same thing you said before.

Coaching is ego‑reduction therapy. It’s not about who had the idea; it’s about whether the person actually implements it.

When you coach people to their own insight, they’re more likely to follow through.

Show People Who They Can Be, Not Just What to Do

Telling people what to do just adds to their laundry list of tasks. Coaching shows people who they are and who they can become.

If someone tells you that you look great today and you let that sink in, you often carry yourself differently.

You step up to match the version of yourself you’ve just seen reflected.

The same thing happens at work. People are waiting for you to show them who they are in the project context and who they can grow into.

Career satisfaction doesn’t come from the tasks themselves; it comes from who your job allows you to be. If you like who you get to be, you’re more likely to like your job.

As a positive leader and project manager, you can ask questions like:

• “Who do you need to be for this project to succeed?” instead of  “How many more tasks can you take on?”

Someone might answer, “I need to be bolder.” Now you’re working on identity and behavior, not just output. That’s where real change happens.

Positive Leadership in Practice

In a short time, we’ve touched several shifts that define positive leadership and coaching:

• Moving from expert to partner, from giving answers to growing answers.
• Listening for people—their values, needs, and motivation—instead of just listening to problems.
• Trusting your gut and intuition alongside logic.
• Using “what” questions to access wisdom and cause forward motion.
• Helping people see who they can be, not just what they should do.

When you lead as a coach, you reduce your stress, grow more independent team members, and create a safer, more collaborative space for problem‑solving.

You’re no longer the traffic jam; you’re the person who helps people navigate the road.

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