"I love learning new things. Being eternally curious has served me well as an executive coach. So many lessons and tips that I’ve gathered about parenting, for example, can be applied in leadership programs."
We’ve all watched our children play outside. And inevitably, they’ll climb something and get themselves stuck. A natural instinct is to say, ‘Be careful,’ but it’s not really helpful at that moment.
In fact, it is ineffectual as it only serves to worry them about their predicament.
If you want to foster awareness, there are other ways to teach them self-reliance and problem-solving. Say things like, ‘Notice how… those rocks are slippery, the branch is strong’.
Help them figure a way out by asking ‘What’s your plan?’ or “Where should you start?”.
The same approach, albeit in an adult situation, works as well. When managing people, ask them questions to help them think about solutions themselves. But make sure they’re open-ended in nature.
It doesn’t do any good to ask, ‘Did you meet the deadline?’. You want to know more about the situation, so ask, ‘How did you go about meeting the objectives? How did you approach it?”
Open-ended questions foster dialogue and explanations. Questions that can be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ leave little room for a discussion. When the employee answers in detail, the conversation fosters a deeper understanding of the employee's perspective and encourages critical thinking."
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