Recently, Petra Coach presented a webinar, The Coaching Habit: 7 Questions That Will Change the Way You Lead Forever with Marshall Martin.

You can find the full recording below.

Top Takeaways

Starting Questions:

  1. How would you best describe your leadership style?
  2. Do you consider yourself a leader or manager?
  3. How many of you know the leader or manager has been placed in the leadership role because they’ve been there a long time and need more pay or a higher position but may not even like people?

The Great Resignation

We don’t see people leaving great leaders. Where leaders challenge, appreciate and engage – people aren’t looking to go anywhere.

“Coaching is an art, and it’s far easier said than done. It takes courage to ask a question rather than offer up advice, provide an answer or unleash a solution.” -Brené Brown

About the Author & Book

  • Michael Bungay Stanier
  • Generated from the 15-year Harvard Review article by Daniel Goleman, “Leadership Gets Results” and recognized coaching as 1 or 6 essential leadership styles
  • Heavy impact on performance, culture and bottom line
  • However the coaching style is cited as least used style

Book Recommendation: Emotional Intelligence 2.0

“We’re a reflection of the coaching we’ve received over the years”

Outcomes

You will…

  • Develop a habit of curiosity and slowing down
  • Ask more questions
  • Listen better
  • Teach more
  • Transferring ownership to others for growth
  • Help others unlock their potential

Breaking Out of the 3 Vicious Circles

  1. Creating Over-Dependence on You
    • People have become over-reliant on you
    • You are a bottleneck
    • Everyone loses momentum and motivation
    • Don’t be the rock that the stream has to move around
  1. Getting Overwhelmed
    • Leads to loss of focus
    • White leads to more overwhelm
    • If you’re not in the moment, they can feel that
  1. Becoming Disconnected
    • Inability to focus on more meaningful and purposeful work
    • Helping people do the work has more meaning

The 7 Essential Questions to Developing a Coaching Habit

  1. What’s on your mind?
  2. And what else?
  3. What’s the real challenge for you?
  4. What do you really want?
  5. How can I help?
  6. If yes to this, no to what?
  7. What was more useful for you?

The Kick-Start Question: What’s On Your Mind?

Don’t:

  • Get tied up in small talk
  • Change the agenda often
  • Assume you know what they’re going to say

Do:

  • Show trust and autonomy
  • Talk about what matters most
  • Use the 3P model:
    • Projects
    • People
    • Patterns

The AWE Question: And What Else?

  • Creates more wisdom, insights, self-awareness and possibilities
  • More options lead to better decisions
  • More options – less failure rate
  • Tame the advice monster
    • Resist the urge to give advice or the answer
    • We will rush to give advice ever if wrong
    • Hijacks the conversation
  • And what else?
    • Stay curious
    • Ask it 3-5 times (asked too few times)
    • Recognize success
    • Move on at the right time

The Focus Question: What’s the Real Challenge for You?

  • How to stop spending too much time on the wrong problem
  • High performance cultures are quick at jumping to get a resolution, resulting in
    • Working on the wrong problem
    • You do the work the TEAM should be doing
    • The work doesn’t get done
  • Focus on the REAL problem, not the 1st
  • Remember there is a place for advice
  • Go back to previous question, “and what else?”
  • Start with “what” not “why” questions

The Foundation Question: What Do You Want?

  • We have to understand what each party really wants before we can proceed
  • Creating a safe environment
    • Brain is scanning 5x per second to evaluate safety
    • If we create a safe space, the discussion is more productive
  • TERA quotient
    • Tribe – with me or against me
    • Expectation – Do I know the future?
    • Rank – Are you more or less important than me?
    • Autonomy – Do I get a say or not?
  • Drive TERA quotient higher
  • Silence is a measure of success

The Lazy Question: How Can I Help?

“What Do You Want From Me?”

Lazy as a leader can be a good thing…

  • Makes you more useful to those you lead
  • You will work less hard
  • Forces colleague to make a direct request
  • Stops you from jumping into solving mode
  • Add the question “out of curiosity”
  • You are not asking so they can give you their work or problems
  • A chance for them to arrive at their own answers

The Strategic Question: If you are saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?

Remember the 3 P’s

Projects

  • Which to postpone?
  • What meetings to stop attending?
  • What resources do you need to say yes?

People

  • What expectations do you need to manage?
  • What relationships will you let go of?

Patterns

  • What habits need to be broken?
  • What ambitions need updating?
  • What beliefs do you need to let go?

This is the Stop is Start/Stop/Keep

The Learning Question: What Was Most Useful for You?

Transfer of knowledge and ownership

This is what it is all about:

  • Assumed coaching lesson was useful
  • Asks for the big thing that was most helpful
  • Makes conversation personal
  • It’s learning, not judgment
  • Reminds people on your resourcefulness
  • They don’t learn if you just tell them
  • They learn when they recall and reflect on what just happened

Like what you see? Register for our upcoming workshops & webinars today!