What makes you feel empowered?

In order for businesses to help develop their employees, get the best results from their employees, and drive employee engagement, it’s essential that leaders within the organization are equipped with tools to empower their direct reports.

Asking powerful questions is a necessary coaching tool for managers to use to empower others. In a recent post, I mentioned that in order to become a certified coach under the International Coaching Federation (ICF), coaches need tobe proficient in 11 core competencies. Similar to active listening, asking powerful questions is a subset of communicating effectively, one of the 11 core competencies.

What does asking powerful questions look like and why is it important for managers to learn this skill? Powerful questions are open-ended questions that are provocative in nature. They provoke people to “dig deep” and explore what’s possible. Asking powerful questions invokes curiosity and creativity, and typically leads to unexpected outcomes, in a positive way. If you want to empower someone, you have to trust that they can come up with ideas and be “part of the solution”. 

Yesterday, I read an article from the Harvard Business Review that focuses on managing an employee struggling to perform while working remotely. In the article, one of my favorite questions that was posed, which I often ask my coaching clients, is “what would you change if you could?”. This question, and other powerful questions, helps in so many various situations including when problem solving is needed.  In this article, this question was offered as a way to engage the employee who appears to be having challenges performing his job while working remote. What I love about this whole section of the article is that it focuses on empowering the employee to solve and it focuses on letting the employee know that his manager trusts him. This highlights an important leader as coach technique, which is something that I help companies build into their culture.

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced a large majority of employees to work from home. It has created numerous challenges and learning opportunities for all employees, including for leaders. In an effort for leaders to be impactful managing their remote teams, many of my clients have looked to improve or develop skills that will help them not only in managing their teams remotely, but that are essential to being a more impactful manager in general. One such skill is asking powerful questions.

If you are finding it challenging to manage your remote team, or, you or your organization want to help your managers become more effective leaders through the development of coaching skills, let’s connect.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning.” – Albert Einstein