Coach your employees to success with these strategies

Beyond task management: The power of coaching

One part of being an effective manager is overseeing tasks and ensuring your team is progressing toward goals. The most influential managers also adopt a coaching mindset to help employees grow and reach their full potential.

Coaching isn’t about telling people what to do but guiding them to uncover their own answers and build confidence. If you want to level up your coaching skills, try these six strategies.

1. Stay curious

Great coaches are insatiably curious. They ask thoughtful, challenging questions that encourage individuals to think critically. Resist jumping to conclusions or making judgments. Instead, stay curious, ask open-ended, probing questions, and let the employee do most of the talking.

2. Listen for intent

The most effective coaches are active listeners. Active listening requires tuning out distractions to be fully present, observing nonverbal clues, and asking clarifying questions to gain a deeper understanding.

If you ask an employee how a project is going and their response is, “Fine,” don’t stop there. Follow up with deeper questions like:

• What does “fine” look like?
• What metrics show it’s fine?
• What would it take to make the outcome amazing rather than fine?

These kinds of questions uncover valuable insights and help employees dig into solutions.

3. Hone your question-asking skills

Effective coaching pushes people to think outside their comfort zones. Strengthening your ability to ask powerful questions helps employees develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The most powerful questions are often the shortest, simplest ones. Asking, “And what else?” is a powerful strategy for helping individuals dig deeper.

4. Cultivate trust

Impactful coaching relationships are built on trust. Individuals must feel comfortable enough with a coach to be vulnerable. Maintaining confidentiality and providing psychological safety are essential to any coaching relationship.

5. Incorporate goal-setting and accountability

Coaching is about progress, and progress requires clear goals. Conclude each session with goal setting, and follow up in subsequent sessions to track progress or redefine goals when needed.

6. Celebrate success

Committing to and following through on change is challenging. To keep coaches motivated and committed to growth, remind them to celebrate their achievements, regardless of how big or small they are.

When you adopt a coaching mindset with your employees, you empower them to grow and give them the chance to feel heard. Staff who feel heard are more likely to be engaged in their work and committed to staying in their positions.