Your point about different skill-sets (as well as the one below about replacing "smart" with "technically competent") is a great one. These are things missing from my post. Regarding > "the best athletes aren't always the best coaches" i think that's a very good illustration to whole this discussion. If the most talented athlete benefits from the help of a coach. However the critical part comes when the coach makes a mistake. Should athlete just put whole responsibility on his coach? Just lean back and say "my coach is an idiot and all I can do is to rant about it"? I believe it's a mutual responsibility for both sides to address the issues. If the athlete can't properly express his needs/doubts it's something what he should improve because waiting for the coach to "get smarter" may be a recipe for disaster. Of course the same works the other way too. Now if we replace coach/athlete with manager/employee it's clear where so many problems come from.