Powerful (management) Coaching questions explained

As you have noticed – coaching industry is booming and evolving very fast, and probably this is the reason why you are attracted here – with a hope to learn how to distinguish yourself, either as a professional coach or a business leader.

To answer that challenge – we have created a specific material – to strengthen your foundations and serve you as an “add-on” to your existing coaching arsenal.

As you probably know – coaching is a dialog – however, instead of focusing on giving answers and “just talking”, there is a huge power in asking questions as an approach. For example – questions force us to think, to create answers we believe in, and motivate us to act accordingly. And, here we don’t think on asking just generic questions like:

– What is your goal?

– What stands on your way?

– What options or alternatives do you have?

– What else?

– Which one would you like to pursue?

– How committed you are? Etc.

Although these are all great questions – you cannot ask them session after session – simply, in that case you are no longer needed. As we believe, successful management coaching nowadays requires process that facilitate human change, and it’s based on a:

– Well-designed curriculum and

– Outcomes;

At the heart of the process, coaches insert a sort of a “powerful” questions – those that serve them to “move the needle”, or to help a client to get an insight, or to see his “topic” from a new perspective. That is why “powerful” questions are always bold, thought-provoking, focused on clarifying distinctions and similar.

Here, you will find a lot of questions explained, targeting different topics relevant for Executives like:

– Goals;

– Strategy;

– How to lead;

– Mindset; etc.

Hopefully, those will serve you well – just “save” them and use them when you need it!

Course structure:

Since this course is intended for two types of people – those aspiring to become a professional Coach, and leaders working on improving their coaching skills – we have structured this course around three Sections:

– Structuring Coaching conversations;

– Examples of a Powerful coaching questions; and

– Additional tips and hints;

As you will see, within our first Section (meaning Structuring Coaching conversations) we are going to talk about basic rules of a coaching, how to structure your conversations (meaning frameworks or models), and to give you a lot of useful hints how to lead your conversations in general. These are the foundations for all coaches, and it will serve well especially those with a less experience. Many leaders who would like to polish their coaching skills are going to like it for sure.

Next – Examples of a Powerful coaching questions Section is a natural next step – here you will be able to find a lot of ready-made questions that you can use in your own sessions.

In order to make it clear about correlation between coaching frameworks and powerful question – we are going to use an analogy coming from a football, or soccer (depending from where you come from). In football – all coaches, on top of a basic game rules, players and skills, are studying different “systems” how to play – for example: 4-4-2 (meaning with 4 players in defense, 4 players in the middle and 2 players as strikers), or 3-5-2, 4-5-1, or maybe 3-4-3 or something else within their game-plan. These “systems” are just like our coaching frameworks called GROW, STEPPA, OSKAR, Wheel of Life and similar (covered in Section 1), and they (meaning frameworks) come as an addition to your own studying of a business in general and a human nature. And, just like in a football, a football-coach will choose his preferred system based on a results he is aiming to achieve, quality of his and his opponent’s squad and similar –a business coach will chose which Framework or a Model he is going to apply based on a:

– His own curriculum and targeted achievements;

– His Coachee’s characteristics and needs;

– His own skills level and competences; and

– Context requirements;

On the other hand, football coach will develop a special schemes, actions or tricks (if you like) how his team is going to play when there is a “Free kick”, have to develop a fast counter-attack, to defend a “corner-kick” and similar. These “special situations” are just like our “Powerful Questions” in a business coaching context – a ready-made special weapons that you are going to use occasionally, when you feel the moment is right. As mentioned before, these are specially designed questions to “move the needle”, or to help a client to get an insight, or to see his “topic” from a new perspective. These questions are collected and explained in detail in Section 2.

In a Section 3, we are going to give you additional tips and hints regarding your coaching practice. For example, when to apply your coaching skills, how to create a bond with a client (or, rapport), or how to avoid some of the most common coaching mistakes.

Enjoy.