A manager can leave a one-to-one feeling helpful while the employee leaves a little less able to act independently. That can happen when every difficulty receives an immediate answer. The manager fixes the wording, chooses the next step, resolves the customer problem and explains what to say in the follow-up meeting.
The work moves forward, but the employee learns that progress depends on the manager being available. Support from a manager matters, and so does the ability to think, decide and recover from an ordinary mistake. A good one-to-one should strengthen both.
Support can quietly become rescue
Imagine a project coordinator who brings a delayed task to their manager. The manager already sees the likely solution and could give it in thirty seconds. If the matter is urgent, that may be exactly what the situation needs. If the same pattern occurs every week, however, speed can hide a development problem.
The employee may stop preparing options because the manager will choose. The manager may become frustrated that nobody takes ownership, even though the routine has taught the team to wait. What looks like weak initiative can partly reflect the way decisions are being handled.
This is why mentoring inside a management relationship needs care. The manager still holds authority, since they assess performance, allocate work and may influence pay or promotion. A conversation cannot become genuinely developmental simply because the manager asks a few coaching questions.
Ask for the employee’s thinking before supplying your own
A small change is to ask for the employee’s view before giving the answer. A manager might begin with questions such as these:
- What do you think is happening?
- Which two options have you considered?
- What risk would you watch most closely?
- What would you recommend if I were unavailable?
- What support would help you carry out that choice?
These questions are useful only when the manager listens. If the employee’s suggestion is dismissed immediately, the exercise becomes a test with a hidden correct answer. The aim is to understand their reasoning, identify what they may have missed and agree a decision they can use.
A manager also needs to say when a decision is not open. Safety, legal duties, client commitments and formal procedures may limit the available choices. Clear boundaries are more respectful than pretending the employee owns a decision that has already been made.
Put development into ordinary work
Development is often postponed for an annual appraisal. In practice, the ordinary week provides better material: a meeting that did not go well, a client question that caused uncertainty, a handover that failed or a task the employee handled with growing confidence.
Acas describes performance reviews as a chance to discuss what someone is doing well, where improvement is needed, whether more support or training would help, and their career or development objectives. It also recommends regular feedback, coaching and check-ins alongside formal reviews.
That does not require every one-to-one to become a long coaching session. A manager can choose one real piece of work and ask what the employee noticed, what they would repeat and what they would change. The discussion should finish with a specific action, an agreed level of authority and a time to review what happened.
Keep accountability visible
Mentoring is sometimes presented as the gentle alternative to performance management. That is misleading, because people need clear expectations as well as room to learn.
A developmental conversation should still answer practical questions: What result is required? By when? Which decisions can the employee make alone? When must they ask for help? What evidence will show that the work is complete?
The CIPD’s evidence review on effective people managers identifies communication, mentoring and coaching, conflict resolution, trust and psychological safety among the skills managers need. It also stresses that managers require enough time and organisational support to do the role well. Asking managers to develop people while loading them with continuous operational work is unlikely to produce thoughtful one-to-ones.
A simple structure for the next one-to-one
A simple structure can keep the next one-to-one focused on the employee’s own thinking. A manager can use five short stages:
- Start with the work: Choose one current task or decision.
- Hear the employee’s account: Ask what they have observed and tried.
- Test the options: Discuss risks, evidence and consequences.
- Agree the boundary: Clarify what they can decide and when to escalate.
- Review the learning: Return to the outcome, including what the manager’s own response helped or hindered.
FAQs
- What makes a good one-to-one? One where the work moves forward and the employee leaves more able to think, decide and recover from an ordinary mistake.
- Why should a manager ask for the employee’s view before giving an answer? Because it shows the employee’s reasoning, reveals what they may have missed and helps the two of them agree a decision the employee can use.
- Does mentoring replace accountability in a one-to-one? No. People need clear expectations as well as room to learn, including the result required, by when, which decisions they can make alone and what evidence will show the work is complete.
Takeaway
This approach does not remove managerial responsibility. It uses that responsibility to build capability rather than permanent dependence.
A good one-to-one should solve enough of today’s problem to keep the work moving. It should also make it more likely that the employee can handle tomorrow’s version with sound judgement of their own.
This is a substantially new adaptation inspired by my website essay, The Power of Mentor Leadership: Why Great Leaders Develop People, Not Just Performance.
