Leading Results are heavily focused on achieving results and showing how effective coaching can play a huge part in helping organisations maximise their potential.
Many people have different leadership styles based on their experiences and personalities. We have found that constructive, influential coaching stems from asking your team members some powerful coaching questions geared towards generating self-awareness and responsibility.
In the long run, this will help them develop new ways of thinking and hopefully lead them to grow and reach significant breakthrough.
Constantly feeding people information doesn’t have a strong impact, but getting them to think for themselves does. When people think on their own, they learn more.
There are some questions you can use in your coaching sessions to provide the knowledge, skills and confidence to develop your team members, and to enhance both individual and team performance.
Through asking some simple but powerful questions you can expand thinking, create alternatives, remove blocks and encourage discovery.
Below are some example questions you could ask. Notice that the headings provide a fitting acronym that can help you to GROW your team through a coaching style that is right for you and them.
Goal questions
What precisely do you want?
What is it most important that you achieve?
What is your ideal outcome in this situation?
What will that do for you? And why is that important?
How will you know when you’ve reached your goal? What would it look/sound/feel like?
Reality questions
What is the current situation?
What for you, is the crux of the issue?
What have you tried so far?
What has stopped you reaching your goal so far?
What would happen if you took no action?
Options questions
What have you not tried so far?
If you could do anything you wanted, what would you do?
What could make it easy, and hard?
Who could help you?
What’s the worst that could happen? What’s the best that could happen?
Way forward questions
Which of these options seems best for you? Why?
What’s the first step? When will you take it?
What might stop you? How could you overcome it?
What support will you need?
What more do you need from me as your coach/manager?
After this initial interaction, it is important to establish a review process.
Ask your team member how they will review their progress, how success will be measured, and arrange a follow-up session with them to review that progress together. You can then ask them how they plan to maintain momentum and check what interim support they feel they will need from you.
It is worth thinking about this approach in terms of a journey. Firstly, you decide where you are all going (goal) and then establish where you are at the moment (reality). Then you explore the various routes (options) to your destination before committing to the journey by preparing for the obstacles you may face along the way (way forward).
Always bear in mind that when a team member comes to you with a problem, you must keep the responsibility for solving it squarely on their shoulders, otherwise they won’t learn or grow.
Even if you can see the solution at once, refrain from giving the answer as their self-belief will only come from solving problems themselves.
Read more: Why positive leadership is crucial at every stage of a business
Watch: VIDEO – Our passion behind making businesses great places to work
