In our pursuit of excellence and leadership, it's essential to continuously refine our approach to managing and developing our teams. One highly effective leadership style is coaching, which focuses on empowering team members to achieve their full potential.

Here are four coaching skills that will help develop a coaching culture within your team.

1. Great Questions: Seeing Beyond Stuck Points

Skill: asking great questions

Why It's Useful: great questions can help team members gain new perspectives and overcome obstacles. They encourage reflection, self-discovery, and deeper understanding.

How to Do It 

Encourage exploration: ask open-ended questions such as, "What options do you see?" or "What might be another way to approach this?"

Promote reflection: use questions like, "What went well? What went less well? What will you do differently next time?"

Shift perspectives: help your team see beyond their current stuck points by asking, "What would success look like for you?" or "What could be another explanation for what’s happening here?"

2. Active Listening: Truly Understanding Your Team

Skill: active listening

Why It's Useful: active listening builds trust, demonstrates empathy, and ensures team members feel heard and valued. It also provides you with deeper insights into their challenges and motivations.

How to Do It 

Be present: give your full attention, try not to get distracted with thoughts of your own experiences but stay connected and curious as you listen, maintain eye contact, and avoid interrupting.

Reflect and clarify: paraphrase what the speaker has said to ensure understanding "So what I hear you saying is..." or "Can you give me an example of what you mean by that?" or "How does this align with your goals?"

Invite elaboration: use prompts like, "Tell me more about that" or "Explain how you arrived at that conclusion."

3. Positive Framing: Motivation and Change

Skill: positive framing

Why It's Useful: positive framing can reframe challenges into opportunities, boost morale, and keep the conversation focused on solutions and growth rather than problems.

How to Do It

Kickstart positivity: transition conversations into a positive space by acknowledging what is working well. Ask, "What are three things that are going well for you right now?"

Motivate change: speak to their motivations and use "yes…and" instead of "yes…but" to validate their ideas while encouraging progress.

Reframe challenges: keep the conversation positive “What strengths can you leverage to overcome this challenge?" or "What opportunities can arise from this challenge?". When offering your perspective and acting as a mentor, share what has worked for you rather than dictating what they should do. For instance, say, "Here’s what worked best for me, and here’s why."

4. Feedback with Empathy: Direct, Private, and Substantiated

Skill: giving empathetic feedback

Why It's Useful: empathetic feedback that is direct, private, and substantiated helps team members understand their strengths and areas for growth without feeling attacked or demoralised.

How to Do It

Be direct but kind: give feedback privately and base it on specific examples. Use "When you did ‘x’, I felt ‘y’" or "Here is where you started to lose me."

Encourage self-reflection: instead of saying, "You need to improve your communication skills," try, "When I don’t hear from you, I worry that…" Instead of saying, "What went wrong?" try, "How did your actions contribute to the outcome?"

Stimulate growth: help them see their progress and potential by asking, "What are your options now?" or "When you’ve experienced challenges like this in the past, how have you overcome them?"

Investing in Your Own Development

To truly embody a coaching leadership style, it's crucial to invest in your own personal and professional development. Stay true to the objective of helping others thrive and excel by continuously refining your own skills and strategies. 

Seek out learning opportunities, gather feedback on your style and approach, and always strive to model the growth mindset you wish to instil in your team.

Remember, the goal is to support your team members in their journey to success. By adopting these coaching skills, you'll not only enhance their development but also build a more motivated, engaged, and high-performing team.

If you'd like to find out about 1-to-1 career change & development programmes, or coaching for your team/organisation get in touch bev@aumida.com or click here to book a call. 

 If you enjoyed this blog, you'll love my newsletter where I share monthly insights and inspiration. Sign up HERE.