The Advice Trap
Be Humble, Stay Curious &, Change the Way You Lead Forever
Book Edition Details
Summary
"The Advice Trap (2020) is a practical guide to taming your inner "Advice Monster" and becoming a more effective leader and coach by asking more and advising less. It explores why we compulsively give advice (often due to insecurity and a desire for control) and provides techniques to foster curiosity, improve listening, and empower others, thereby enhancing engagement and innovation."
Introduction
Picture this: You're in a meeting, someone starts describing a challenge, and within seconds your mind is already racing with solutions. Your hand is practically twitching to jump in with the perfect answer. Sound familiar? This overwhelming urge to give advice isn't helping anyone—it's actually creating more problems than it solves. The person you're trying to help becomes dependent on your answers, you become overwhelmed with everyone else's problems, and your team loses the ability to think for themselves. But there's a different way to lead, one that transforms not just how others perform, but how you show up in the world. It requires a fundamental shift from being the person with all the answers to being the person who asks the right questions. This journey will challenge everything you think you know about leadership, but the rewards—for you, your team, and your organization—are extraordinary.
Tame Your Advice Monster
Deep within each of us lurks what we might call the "Advice Monster"—that internal voice that's convinced we must always have the answer, always save the day, always stay in control. This monster shows up in three distinct personas: Tell-It believes you were hired to have all the answers, Save-It insists you must rescue everyone from their problems, and Control-It demands you maintain grip on every situation. Each persona whispers the same core lie: that you're better than the other person, that they're simply not capable enough to figure things out themselves. Consider Sarah, a marketing director who found herself working late every night, not on her own strategic work, but solving problems for her team members. Every time someone brought her a challenge, she'd immediately dive in with solutions. Her team had learned to come to her for everything—from client conflicts to project timelines. Sarah thought she was being helpful, but she was actually creating learned helplessness in her team while burning herself out. The transformation began when Sarah recognized her Save-It persona in action. She started asking herself tough questions about the "prizes" she was getting from this behavior—feeling needed, maintaining control, being seen as indispensable—and the "punishments" she was paying—exhaustion, a disempowered team, and no time for her real work. She realized she needed to build a different version of herself, a "Future You" who empowered others rather than rescued them. Taming your Advice Monster requires four specific steps. First, identify what triggers your advice-giving behavior—is it certain types of people or situations? Second, honestly confess what your Advice Monster actually makes you do. Third, acknowledge both the short-term benefits you get from giving advice and the long-term costs you pay. Finally, envision who you want to become—a leader who develops others' capabilities rather than doing their thinking for them. The key is recognizing that change is hard not because you don't know what to do, but because you're fighting against deeply ingrained patterns that once served you. Start small, be patient with yourself, and remember that every time you resist giving immediate advice, you're investing in everyone's future success.
Master the Art of Coaching Questions
The secret to staying curious longer isn't complicated—it comes down to asking better questions and resisting the urge to immediately provide solutions. The most powerful coaching questions are deceptively simple, yet they unlock profound insights when used skillfully. Questions like "What's on your mind?" open conversations naturally, while "And what else?" digs deeper beyond first responses. "What's the real challenge here for you?" cuts through surface issues to uncover what truly matters. Take the story of Marcus, a software development manager whose team meetings had become frustrating affairs where everyone waited for him to solve their problems. People would present issues, he'd immediately start problem-solving, and meetings would drag on with little real progress. The team felt disengaged, and Marcus felt overwhelmed by the constant stream of decisions he had to make. Everything changed when Marcus learned to ask "What's the real challenge here for you?" instead of immediately offering solutions. In one memorable meeting, when a developer mentioned delays in a project, instead of diving into technical fixes, Marcus asked this question. The developer paused, thought deeply, and revealed that the real challenge wasn't technical—it was communication with a stakeholder who kept changing requirements. This led to the team developing their own strategy for managing client expectations, something far more valuable than any quick technical fix Marcus might have suggested. The art lies not just in asking these questions, but in asking them well. Ask one question at a time, cut the lengthy introductions, avoid fake questions that have answers built in, stick to "what" questions rather than "why" questions, get comfortable with silence, actually listen to the answers, acknowledge what you hear, and remember that any communication channel can carry a good question. Practice these questions daily in small moments. Use them in emails, casual conversations, and formal meetings. The goal isn't to become a professional coach, but to become someone who helps others think better, which ultimately helps everyone perform better.
Create Coach-Like Leadership Culture
The real magic happens when being coach-like becomes your natural way of interacting, not something reserved for special "coaching sessions." Every interaction—whether in person, over video calls, through email, or even in text messages—offers an opportunity to stay curious a little longer. The key is recognizing that coaching isn't an event, it's a way of being with each other that can transform your entire organizational culture. Consider the transformation at a technology startup where the CEO, David, noticed that his weekly one-on-one meetings had become dull reporting sessions. Team members would update him on their progress, he'd offer advice or approval, and everyone would leave feeling like they'd just checked a box. David decided to experiment with starting each meeting with "What's on your mind?" instead of asking for status updates. The change was remarkable. One team member opened up about feeling overwhelmed by competing priorities, leading to a discussion about focus and resource allocation. Another shared excitement about a new client opportunity, which led to strategic thinking about market expansion. These conversations became energizing for both David and his team members, and decisions emerged that were far better than anything David could have imposed from above. To create this culture, you must learn to "seal the exits"—making conversations so engaging that people want to stay present rather than mentally checking out. This involves raising what researchers call the "TERA Quotient" by building Tribe (showing you're on their side), Expectation (helping them know what's coming), Rank (raising their status in the conversation), and Autonomy (giving them choices and control). Start by choosing one type of interaction to transform. Perhaps it's your team meetings, your feedback conversations, or your email responses. In each case, replace your instinct to immediately provide answers with questions that help others think more deeply. Watch how this simple shift begins to change not just individual conversations, but the entire dynamic of how your team works together.
Transform Your Leadership Forever
The ultimate goal isn't just to ask better questions—it's to become a fundamentally different kind of leader, one who operates from empathy, mindfulness, and humility. This transformation requires you to move beyond your current self toward a "Future You" who trusts others' capabilities, shares control, and finds fulfillment in developing others rather than being the hero who saves the day. This shift will challenge some of your deepest assumptions about leadership and your own value. Michael, a senior executive at a financial services company, discovered this when he started noticing his own fears about letting go of control. He worried that if he didn't immediately offer solutions, problems wouldn't get solved. If he didn't take charge, meetings would go nowhere. If he didn't have all the answers, people would lose respect for him. These fears kept him trapped in old patterns of leadership that left him exhausted and his team underdeveloped. The breakthrough came when Michael decided to test these fears systematically. In one crucial meeting about a budget crisis, instead of immediately presenting his solution, he asked "What do you think we should do?" and then stayed curious as the team worked through the problem. Not only did they come up with a better solution than he had planned, but they owned it completely because they had created it themselves. His fear of losing control transformed into excitement about unleashing his team's potential. This transformation requires ongoing practice and patience with yourself. You'll slip back into old patterns—everyone does. The key is to notice when your Advice Monster is taking over and gently redirect yourself back to curiosity. Set small tests for yourself: Can you wait ten seconds before offering advice? Can you ask one question before providing an answer? Can you let others struggle productively with a challenge instead of immediately rescuing them? Remember that becoming more coach-like doesn't mean never giving advice—it means giving advice deliberately and skillfully when it's truly needed, rather than as your default response to every situation. This conscious choice about when and how to help others will transform not only your leadership effectiveness but your relationships and your own sense of fulfillment.
Summary
The journey from advice-giving to curiosity-led leadership represents one of the most profound shifts you can make as a leader. As this exploration reveals, "the real cost of being in the Advice Trap is the dysfunctional patterns of working that repeat themselves between individuals, within teams, and through organizations." When you learn to tame your Advice Monster and stay curious longer, you don't just change your own behavior—you transform the capabilities of everyone around you. Your direct reports become more confident and autonomous, your teams become more innovative and engaged, and your organization becomes more agile and resilient. The path forward is clear: starting today, in your very next conversation, pause before offering advice and ask a question instead. Notice what happens when you trust others to find their own answers, and discover the profound satisfaction that comes from developing others rather than doing their thinking for them. Your Future You is waiting—one question at a time.
By Michael Bungay Stanier
