What you Observe
You’ve put together a skilled team with potential. You have delegated projects to key team members so that you can get out of the weeds to focus on big picture and strategy. Team members are fully capable of solving the problems they bring to you, but appear to lack confidence.
How can you Explore
As long as you supply the answers, your team will always be standing outside your door, dependent on you for direction and assurance. What would it look like to move from a “telling” leadership style to a coaching approach?
David Rock calls this Quiet Leadership: “Quiet Leaders are masters at bringing out the best performance in others. They improve their employees’ thinking – literally improving the way their brains process information – without telling anyone what to do.” From Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work by David Rock.
The keys to this approach are: 1) asking thought-provoking questions from a place of curiosity, 2) providing a safe space for the team member to sort through the dilemma, clarify the core issue and generate potential solutions, 3) listen and reflect back to them what you hear.
Time to Reflect
Think about a situation recently when a team member came to you with a problem and asked you what to do. Identify questions you could ask in a follow-up meeting to start a developmental conversation.
- What is a concise open-ended question you could ask to express genuine curiosity about this issue and its root cause?
- Think about the problem from the team member’s perspective. Create questions that are adjusted to the team member’s role, goals and level of experience.
- What are some questions that can help the team member get to the next point of clarity, the next step (even if it will not solve the entire problem)?
Time to Act
- Reset expectations. Meet with each trusted team member to share that you would like to change the way you lead and support them. Explain that you have complete confidence in them and feel them capable of solving problems on their own. Ask them, in the future, to come to you not expecting an answer but for a conversation that will support their development.
- Create a reminder to put within your field of vision in your office that says, “Avoid giving the answer. Start with curious questions. Focus on listening.”
- Try out a coaching approach at the next opportunity. What do you notice? What did you learn?
