If you’ve ever watched a world-class tennis coach in action, you know they’re not just drilling forehands and backhands. They’re teaching mindset. They’re coaching decision-making. They’re showing players how to think the game—not just play it.
The same holds true for leadership.
One of the most powerful (and underused) tricks high performers can use to replicate their success is this:
Don’t just teach what to do. Teach others how you think about the problem.
Let me give you a real example.
I was working with a coaching client recently who had been tasked with building a board deck. Naturally, she approached it the way many of us would: start plugging in content, make it pretty, double-check the spellcheck, and send it in. Task complete.
Only… it wasn’t.
Her boss—who hadn’t really delegated the assignment clearly—was disappointed.
“This is all wrong,” he said. Then he did what many high performers do in frustration: he scrapped it and redid the deck himself.
You can probably guess what happened next.
He handed her the finished deck and said, “See? This is how it should look.”
Helpful? Sort of.
Replicable? Not at all.
Why? Because the next deck likely won’t be about the same topic. The next audience won’t have the same priorities. She might remember what the slides looked like, but not why they looked that way.
The boss missed a key moment for real development.
What Should He Have Done?
He should’ve taken a moment to teach her how to think about the assignment.
Here’s what that could have sounded like:
“When I’m building a board deck, I’m thinking about stakeholders. I know the CFO is going to zero in on quarter-over-quarter results, because annual summaries don’t give him what he needs. I know the CEO wants to show momentum in a tough market—so we need to show progress, even if performance is lagging.”
Now we’re not just giving her a to-do list—we’re giving her a framework. A lens. The beginning of strategic intuition.
That’s how pros teach.
That’s how you build a team that can start anticipating the next move, not just react to the current one.
The Real Trick to Delegation
Delegation isn’t just about offloading tasks—it’s about transferring judgment. Transferring strategy. It’s giving someone the why, not just the what.
The next time you want to develop someone, or delegate something, pause and ask yourself:
“How do I think about this?”
“What mental model am I using?”
“What do I know about the audience that’s influencing my approach?”
Then teach that.
Because teaching someone how you think builds real confidence. It builds capability. It builds the kind of people who don’t just check boxes, but begin making smart plays of their own.