6 Key Questions to Help Coach Team Members Through Challenging Situations

One of the key skills of a good manager is asking open-ended questions to help your team members find their own solutions to challenges they encounter, before jumping in to advise them on what to do. Coaching people through this process will help them grow and be confident even as they face obstacles. During 1:1s and other meetings, most of your time should be spent listening and helping people think through how they can solve problems autonomously.

Here are some sample questions you can use to coach your team:

· What does your intuition say?

· If you had a magic wand, what would you do?

· What is your assessment of the situation?

· What is your desired outcome?

· What are your next steps?

· What can I do to support you?

After people take a stab at thinking through solutions on their own, it’s then fine to jump in and add other ideas or help them evaluate different options. The key is to get people comfortable with being able to ideate first on their own.

Suggestion versus Direction

Another thing to keep in mind when serving as a coach is to be clear about when you are asking for something, versus just making a suggestion. One of the things that team members find challenging is when their manager suggests something, but isn’t clear about whether it is a mandate or just a suggestion. Remember to differentiate whether a request is:

Suggestion: Just an idea, which can be used or not

or

Direction: Expected to be done unless someone makes an effective case of why it shouldn’t be

Practice differentiating between suggestions and direction during your 1:1s and other meetings to help avoid confusion around your expectations.