Leading Through Powerful Questioning

 “The pandemic has highlighted the urgent need for four interrelated leadership qualities: awareness, vulnerability, empathy, and compassion.” (McKinsey Quarterly, “Your organization is grieving – here’s how you can help”, 17 September 2020).

These four leadership characteristics are also specific coaching qualities and the combination of these along with active listening and powerful questioning can make all the difference between creating an engaged team or producing a disconnected, disaffected team.

Developing the ability to hold effective coaching conversations gives any leader the skills to empower others, encourage independent problem-solving and enable others to recognise opportunity. Leaders that use effective coaching skills also see increasingly higher levels of colleague engagement, motivation and efficiency.

A great coach-leader will demonstrate attentive listening skills, the ability to provide constructive feedback, a genuine curiosity, empathy, the ability to ask powerful, open questions and integrity. Some of these characteristics are inherent, others, however, can be learned. One of the easiest coaching skills to learn is how to use powerful questions.  

In a busy school environment, leaders can ask these strategic and thought-provoking questions that can help foster engagement, connection and drive positive behaviour changes within your team.  These questions can work really well both in succession and independently. 

Firstly ask, “What’s on your mind?”

This is an open and genuine invitation for people to get to the heart of the matter/issue and share what’s most important to them.  It’s a question that says let’s talk about the thing that matters most to YOU.

Secondly ask, “What’s the real challenge here for you?”

As busy leaders we have to grapple with our continuous desire to tackle every problem ourselves to find a solution and rescue.  This question slows down the rush to action so that your colleague spends time solving the real problem, not just the first problem.

Next ask, “What do you want to achieve here?’

We can all get caught in the negativity trap where we can get stuck deep in the issue. This question focuses us on how we can escape from the matter and find answers and discover ways to move past problems.

And then…..“And what else?” 

These may seem like three unimportant words, but they have a hugely powerful affect. That’s because the first answer we think of is never the only answer and very rarely the best answer. There are more answers to be found and possibilities to be generated. Equally as important, it slows us down as busy coach-leaders from jumping straight to the first quick fix.

Penultimately ask, “What could help you right now?”

This question forges connection. Instead of being alone in the issue, it forces people to seek help; ask for support, find resources, prioritise time and brings people towards taking action.

Lastly ask, “What was most useful for you?” 

By asking people to identify and reflect on the process, the question creates the space in which insightful moments of learning can occur. The question also assumes that the conversation was helpful, providing a naturally meaningful conclusion to your robust and simple coaching script.

Incorporated into your leadership coaching toolkit, these questions have the potential to transform one to one communication, team meetings and even those non-meeting, incidental conversations. These questions are also just as valuable to ask ourselves as leaders.

"Most Leaders focus on finding the right strategy. The best Leaders focus on

empowering the right people." - Craig Groeschel

Coaching, of course is just one leadership style and it’s widely known that most successful leaders choose and adapt their leadership style to the needs of the situation and the end goal.  Just learning coaching skills does not make you a great leader and it’s certainly not a quick fix. Regular evaluation of your coaching skills is paramount to learning more how to be an effective coaching leader. Even as a more experienced coach, I access regular coaching and supervision to refine my coaching skills and further develop the experience for my clients.

It’s the coaching process that enables people to feel heard, supported, encouraged and ultimately valued which creates such positive and empowered responses from colleagues.

If you are ready to start experiencing coaching for yourself or want to learn how to develop a coaching style leadership or embed a successful coaching culture within your school, we can help. We’ve three ways in which we support school leaders on their coaching journey.

One-to-one Coaching:

We provide a series of one-to-one coaching sessions, with a DISC® Profile.  The DISC® assesses your behaviour preferences and allows you to reflect and develop a greater self-awareness which can be explored through individual coaching sessions.

“Thank you so much for my coaching session. It was transformative and empowering…I can honestly say that it has given me the most incredible lift that I didn't think would be possible, leading a school in a pandemic. I have already taken steps to change for the better and can feel the impact of that. Amazing!”

Headteacher, Somerset

Group Coaching: 

We also provide action learning sets, Connected Heads, which are group coaching sessions where headteachers work together in small groups to refine their coaching skills and solve common leadership issues.

Want to develop a coaching-style leadership?

We run an ILM approved three-day training for school leaders through our Advanced Coaching Programme. The course has an average score of 9.9/10 from hundreds of attendees.

“A brilliant course where I could practice the coaching methodology so that I can become a better coach. This opportunity coupled with the explicit theory underpinning the practice was excellent.” Primary

Headteacher, Dorset

Want to lead coaching further and gain a qualification?

We are partners with the development partnership and run an internationally recognised ILM Level 5 Qualification in Mentoring and Coaching. 

“A life-changing experience...the quality of training is exceptional; a wonderful blend of deep theoretical learning and the development of coaching skills. Julia and Leonie balance high levels of support and encouragement, with accountability and challenge. I have flourished professionally, developed in confidence and established a coaching network across our federation that is already affecting cultural change.” 

Executive Headteacher, Devon