Coaching Questions: The Key to Effective Leadership in the Modern Workplace

Leadership and coaching are vital elements in any organization. Effective leaders demonstrate advanced coaching skills that allow them to inspire, motivate, and guide their organizations and team members. While leadership is about guiding and influencing others towards a shared vision, coaching involves providing guidance to team members to maximize their potential. Daniel Goleman mentions Coaching as being the most impactful leadership style. Its only downside, compared to the rest of the styles, is that Coaching needs a lot of work, patience and dedication from the leaders’ side for it to fully drive results. Time and patience are precious resources that most of us don’t really have in today’s fast paced world. When we are constantly under pressure from being 24/7 connected via e-mails & smartphone & instant messaging applications, coaching needs to move on from being a weekly 1-hour session to a more agile approach. I call it: fast-coaching!

The secret to being a good coach lies in 2 simple things. If you master these, you will be an excellent coach that people will enjoy talking to. Just remember to:

• Stay curious
• Shut up!

This article is inspired by the book of Michael Bungay Stanier, entitled: “The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever”, but will not be a book review. I am going to leave out some parts (don’t be mad at me for that) and will be adding my own personal take on how coaching should work in today’s organizations (don’t get mad for this either), based on the guidelines presented in the book.

If you are interested in reading the whole book yourself, it’s available on Amazon.

Michael Bungay Stanier structures his coaching practice on asking the right questions and then (remember the 2 simple things good coaches do?): shutting up. And of course, while shutting up, also actively listening to what the other person is saying.

To explore the 7 questions a coach could / should / would ask, read the full article here: https://peopleskills.online/coaching-questions-the-key-to-effective-leadership-in-the-modern-workplace/