6 Questions to Unlock a Coaching Mindset

We hear a lot about the need for coaching as a leadership competency.

On the surface, it seems reasonable, but for it to truly become part of our daily actions, we first need to address our mindsets around it. It’s imperative that we believe our key role as leaders is to achieve results with and through others.

Again, seems simple and reasonable, but it’s a belief system we need to adopt. It requires us to fundamentally believe that we must develop the capabilities of others and thus increase the capacity of our teams.

Is your mindset where it needs to be to move into a coaching and mentoring role? Here are six questions to ask yourself:

• • • • • • • Do you genuinely delight in the success of others on your team, even those who may be
              poised to eclipse you in recognition and compensation?
            • Are your thoughts and actions aligned with an abundant or scarce point of view when it
              comes to those around you who might be competing with your time and attention?
            • Are you willing to acknowledge that there are different paths to the same level of success
              and that some of them are better than yours?
            • Can you look introspectively at how you’re lifting and building others and balance that with
              your own needs to grow and learn?
            • How effective are you at championing your team members for new roles, even those outside
              your own division or area of responsibility?
            • Do you remember what it was like to struggle early in your career and relate to the feeling
              of having a leader who shamed or humiliated you for your lack of experience?

Moving into a mindset that ignites your energy and efforts to build others is the starting gate to becoming an effective leader. Add more questions to the ones listed above and wrestle with them.

Which questions did you answer “no” to? Confronting those questions is key to moving into a coaching state of mind.

The best leaders are curious. But they don’t just ask a lot of questions. They ask the right questions—the kind that focus their team’s brainpower on the right problems.