Coaching is the number one thing a leader can do right now. Coaching is nothing more than a conversation to learn and find out how somebody's feeling or what they want to do. If there was ever a time to find out how employees were feeling during this coronavirus pandemic is now!
When leaders coach they build trust in relationships. Coaching is about asking questions; whereas, typical leadership is about directing and telling people what to do. Typical leadership is not what people need right now to a certain extent when in fact coaching will provide greater clarity to the stress and anxiety employees might be feeling at this time.Here are five questions you can ask an employee to build greater clarification and demonstrate empathy at the same time:
- What's going through your mind as we go through these major changes in what can I do to assist you?
- One word to describe how you're feeling currently?
- What are two things that are actually enjoying about this transition is to work from home and what can I do to assist you to make it even better?
- Thinking back to the new normal whatever that might be what can I do to assist the transition to make it more comfortable
- What are two things are learning about yourself positively during this time that you know that you need to keep improving and maintaining?
Coaching helps people revisit the good things. Coaching helps people realize what they learned about themselves. Coaching helps people gain clarity of other people. Coaching helps employees realize that people are listening to them and truly care about them.