Profits & Pints Recap — February 2026
- Strategic Business Coaching
- Mar 6
- 4 min read
Coaching Your Team
How Great Leaders Develop People (Not Just Correct Them)
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This month’s conversation focused on one of the biggest shifts business owners must make as their companies grow: moving from doing the work to coaching the work.
Many leaders try to fix problems directly. But as teams grow, that approach quickly becomes unsustainable. Instead, great leaders develop the people around them so the business can scale without burning out the owner.
In this session, Samantha Doyle walked through a framework for coaching employees more effectively by focusing on two critical elements:
Clarity and energy.
Why Leadership Must Change as Your Business Grows
In the early stages of a business, leadership often looks like this:
An employee encounters a problem
They bring it to the owner
The owner solves it
With five employees, that works.
With fifteen employees, it starts to strain.
With thirty employees, it completely breaks down.
At that point, the role of the owner or leader must shift from fixing problems to developing people.
But here’s the challenge:
Most business owners are never taught how to coach employees effectively.
That’s why this session focused on the systems and conversations that turn coaching into a skill instead of a guess.
Step One: Create Role Clarity
Before coaching can be productive, employees need to understand exactly what they are responsible for.
Without clarity around roles and outcomes, coaching conversations often feel personal or emotional.
But when roles are clearly defined, coaching becomes objective and constructive.
Instead of saying:
“You need to improve.”
You can say:
“Here are the outcomes this role is responsible for. Let’s talk about what’s getting in the way.”
This is why tools like accountability charts and job scorecards are so powerful.
They shift coaching conversations from criticism to alignment.
The Hidden Leadership Lever: Energy
Once roles are clear, the next question becomes:
Is this work giving someone energy, or draining it?
Great leaders don’t just coach behaviors.
They coach alignment between a person’s energy and their work.
This is where the concept of Working Genius, developed by Patrick Lencioni, becomes incredibly helpful.
The model identifies six types of work energy that show up in nearly every project:
Wonder – asking what could be improved
Invention – generating new ideas
Discernment – evaluating ideas and judging what will work
Galvanizing – rallying people around an idea
Enablement – supporting others and helping work move forward
Tenacity – driving tasks to completion
Every project moves through these stages.
But each person naturally gains energy from some of them and loses energy from others. Understanding this difference can completely transform how teams work together.
A Real Example: Aligning Work With Energy
During the session, Samantha shared a real example from merging two companies earlier this year.
After acquiring another business, she had to combine two teams and restructure responsibilities.
Instead of simply assigning roles based on previous titles, the process looked like this:
Build a new accountability chart for the merged organization
Have each team member take the Working Genius assessment
Hold one on one conversations about what work gives them energy
Align responsibilities with those strengths whenever possible
The result?
Clearer roles, stronger engagement, and far less friction across the team.
When people are working in areas that energize them, productivity and ownership naturally increase.
The Energy vs Skill Framework
Another concept that resonated strongly with attendees was a simple matrix that helps leaders decide how to coach employees.
Every task can be evaluated across two dimensions:
Energy and skill.
High Energy + High Skill
If someone enjoys the work and is good at it, but is struggling, dig deeper. There may be a process issue, personal challenge, or external barrier.
High Energy + Low Skill
Invest in development. If someone loves the work, their skill will grow quickly with the right support.
Low Energy + High Skill
Consider reassigning or automating the task. Just because someone is capable doesn’t mean they should own it.
Low Energy + Low Skill
This may indicate a misaligned role or a need to redesign responsibilities.
This framework helps leaders move from reacting emotionally to making strategic decisions about people and work.
Before You Automate, Look at Your People
AI and automation were briefly touched on during the conversation, especially since next month’s Profits & Pints will focus on AI.
But Samantha emphasized an important sequence:
Redistribute the work among your team first
Systemize repetitive tasks
Then evaluate tools and technology
Automation should support people, not replace thoughtful leadership decisions.
When used well, technology removes friction so employees can focus on work that actually creates value.
Leadership Reflection Questions
The session wrapped with a few questions for business owners to reflect on:
Where do you have someone who is clear on their role but constantly drained?
Where do you have someone who is capable but misaligned with the work?
Where could a simple conversation uncover what someone actually wants to be doing?
Sometimes the solution isn’t performance management.
Sometimes it’s simply realignment.
Key Takeaways
✔ Leadership shifts from fixing problems to coaching people as businesses grow
✔ Role clarity is the foundation of effective coaching
✔ Energy and skill are different and both matter
✔ Aligning work with energy increases engagement and productivity
✔ Automation should support people, not replace thoughtful leadership
What’s Next
Our next Profits & Pints will celebrate the one year anniversary of the series and feature a special panel discussion on AI.
The theme:
AI That Supports People, Not Replaces Them
📅 March 24th
Join us as we explore how business owners can use AI to remove friction, improve workflows, and strengthen their teams.
RSVP for the next Profits & Pints event or join our email list to receive future invites.
Until next time, cheers to smart moves and great conversation.
— Samantha & the SBC Team 🍻
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