22 Jul TSLH #029: 2 Skills That Will Make You A Leader And A Coach
Read time: 5 minutes
The one mistake I see many leaders do – especially younger ones, but seasoned leaders are also not spared from this – is to assume that being a leader puts them in a position where they should have all the solutions to all the problems for their team or organization.
This is wrong for many reasons, among which:
- People on your team may have better answers to their problems and challenges than you have.
- Assuming the stance of the “savior” leader puts you in a position where you will progressively not be able to do your job, which is to lead the team or the organization.
- Bringing solutions all the time is actually the best way to NOT create any engagement or accountability on the team.
More and more, leaders are required to engage their team and organization in the resolution of challenges, by letting people come up with their own solutions or suggestions that the team can then assess to make the best informed decision.
For this to happen, a leader has to have a very different mindset than that many leaders have had in the past 40 to 50 years.
A leader needs to also be a coach for their team and organization.
The key question is therefore “How do I become a leader AND a coach?”
The simple answer is you become a leader AND a coach by acting like a coach for your team. And if you want to do that, you need to develop or strengthen 2 essential skills: Listening and asking questions.
Listening. The fundamental difference between coaching and mentoring is that coaching focuses on listening to a person and supporting them in finding their own answers, while mentoring is focusing on speaking and bringing your own experience of how you addressed a specific challenge.
Developing the skill of listening can be very hard, especially if you are an extrovert, because extroverts tend to speak, be loud. This is not what will work in a coaching mode though.
The skill is also hard to master because there are several dimensions or levels of listening.
Listening at level 1: This is about listening primarily at yourself, being focused on your own thoughts.
You are at that level of listening when you are wondering about “What question should I ask next?” or “I have that meeting coming next, what will I say there?” or any thought that makes you essentially only half-hearing what the other person is saying.
Needless to say, that level of listening is usually not very efficient for coaching.
Listening at level 2: At that level, you are more focused on what the other person is saying. You are not distracted by your own inner thoughts and you are fully hearing with your ears what is said.
Getting to this level already requires some practice and if you prepare thoroughly, remove any possible distraction (your computer, turn off notifications on emails or mobile phone), you will usually be able to get to that level of listening. Think of it as being the level of listening you should attain when having a standard 1-1 discussion for instance. The other person is talking to you, and you have all your attention focused on them to hear what they have to say.
At that level, you can already coach, because you are getting information from the other person. Be aware though that you are only getting part of the information supplied by the person you coach.
Listening at level 3: Listening at that level means you are focused not only on hearing what the person is saying but also to everything that has to do with the person: Their body language, their gestures, the emotions they express, the pauses and tone of their voice, their hesitations or strong statements.
At this level, you are not only listening with your ears, but also with your eyes. It’s almost like you could be in the body of the other person and feel with them what they feel.
Being able to listen at that level takes time, and can be learned by practicing with co-workers or friends. When you are able to listen at that level, you are really in the best position to coach someone. This is because you can see how the person reacts to the things they say, how their body language says something different than their voice.
An exercise for you: Find a friend or a co-worker you can practice with. Take turns if you want to make this a learning for the 2 of you. Start having a discussion on any topic (something light), and while one person is speaking – for instance about their last vacation – try to understand at what levels you are listening to. If your friend says something about “I was at the sea” and you’re thinking “I long for my next vacation”, then write down that you listened at level 1. If you heard something specific your friend said and focused on this only, then you’re at level 2. If you spotted specific body language or some feelings, write them down and feed them back after the discussion to see how good you spotted them, because here, you were at level 3.
Continue with another discussion, but this time focus on removing level 1, so focus more. Then, do a third round, this time focusing on level 3.
With practice, you will become much more adept at levels 2 and 3 listening, which in turn will allow you to be a much better coach for your team and organization.
Asking questions. Now that you have some good hints on what it means to listen to someone, the next thing you want to be able to do and develop is asking questions.
Not just any question. In coaching we speak of powerful questions.
Powerful questions have some basic requirements:
- They are curious, open-ended and invite new possibilities and perspectives.
- They tend to be short, for instance “What do you know work in such situations?” or “How did you react to this?”
- They typically start with WHAT or HOW. You may also use WHERE or WHEN in some instances. Be cautious with using WHY though.
You need to be careful with how you ask the questions too.
For instance, WHY questions need to be used sparsely because they tend to sound like an accusation and often invite to provide an excuse. To counter that, you can turn a WHY question into a WHAT question. For instance:
Instead of “Why did you cut development time by 2?”, ask “What was important in cutting development time by 2?”
Of course, occasionally, a WHY question definitely works. For instance if you ask “Why is this important to you?”
You also need to be cautious with questions that may try to camouflage your own opinion or advice – which may mean you are offering a solution and are therefore not coaching.
A poor question would be “Have you considered re-organizing by product line?”
A better question here would be “What sales structure have you considered?” or “What have you tried already?”
With some practice, you can develop your own questions.
As a gift for this week, I’ll give you a list of 10 powerful questions you can ask when coaching someone:
- “What obstacle is in your way?”
- “What is happening for you now?”
- “What is a key take-away for you?”
- “How would you like to address that?”
- “How do you need me to support you?”
- “What is a step you can implement now?”
- “What is important for you in solving this?”
- “How do you feel about that particular issue?”
- “If you had no constraint, what would it look like?”
- “What do you need to drop in order to achieve this?”
Coaching someone on your team essentially means being able to listen at a high level of awareness and being able to ask powerful questions. Practice will be your best friend in developing these 2 skills. I invite you to try and see by yourself all the benefits you create for you, your team or your organization by becoming a leader AND a coach.
I wish you a great read. I’ll see you next Saturday!
TL; DR (Too Long, Did not Read)
2 skills that will make you a leader AND a coach
- Listening.
- Asking powerful questions.
Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:
1️⃣ Work 1-1 with me to step up as the authentic leader you aspire to be.
2️⃣ Hire me to help you build a high-performing team.
3️⃣ Start with my affordable digital courses on Mastering Difficult Conversations for Leaders and Goal Setting