Body of Knowledge · Glossary
Rescuing
Stepping in with the solution the moment someone struggles. It feels like help and is faster today, and it teaches people they cannot be trusted to think. It is the anti-pattern of both coaching and delegation.
Where the standard develops it
- CC-2Coaching versus directingDeveloping judgment in others.
- PL-1Delegation, ownership, and decision rightsMatching scope to capability, making authority explicit, not taking work back.
Related terms
- Coaching versus directing
- Developing someone's judgment through questions, as against supplying the answer.
- Decision rights
- The explicit statement of who may decide what, and at which level of authority.
- Delegation brief
- The written form of a delegation for anything larger than a day's work: outcome, constraints, authority level, who else is involved, and when the work is next reviewed together.
- GROW model
- A coaching structure (Goal, Reality, Options, Will) that gives "ask before telling" a shape a manager can hold in a one-on-one.
- Intent-based leadership
- Replacing "may I…" with "I intend to…".
- Learning organisation
- An organisation designed to turn experience into shared capability.
- Managerial leverage
- Grove's framing that a manager's output is the output of the organisation under them, and that activities differ in how much output they produce per hour spent.
- One-way door
- A decision that is hard to reverse and so deserves deliberation and senior involvement.
Cite this definition
Chicago, BibTeX and licence →Engineering Management Academy. (2026). Rescuing. In Engineering Management Academy Body of Knowledge (Version 3.1, GLO.rescuing). https://www.engineeringmanagement.academy/body-of-knowledge/glossary/rescuing