One Powerful Coaching Question That Will Help Your Team Members Open Up To You

Posted on January 29, 2021 by Tony Ang, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

You’re a leader of your team and recently, you noticed a huge dip in your team’s morale, leading to underperformance. Deadlines are not met, email replies take longer than usual, enthusiasm are waning, and everyone looks drained.

Many working professionals are facing work fatigue, struggling to achieve some sort of balance at work and their personal lives while working from home. The constant reports from news media about retrenchment and an economy collapse is not helping either.

In most cases, people are cautious of what they share, especially if it’s towards their direct report. The common challenge is that most problems that employees sound out is usually not the main problem. Reason behind it can be due to certain factors such as portrayed as a sign of weakness, or a fear of judgement.

So how can leaders find out what’s really going on and address this in a non confronting manner?

Firstly, we need to recognize that behind every tangible behaviors, it’s always driven by something intangible. Address the intangibles, and you’ll easily resolve the tangibles.

Specific examples of intangibles:

- Fear of losing their job
- Feeling overwhelmed and stressed
- Burnout
- Undervalued or not feeling appreciated

The biggest challenge of a leader is finding out what’s behind those behaviors.

As coaches, it’s crucial that we first practice empathy and provide a safe, non-judgmental space that creates trust and intimacy for the client. This allow them to open up.

Without them fully expressing themselves, it will be a futile attempt to resolve the issue and see transformational results.

Similarly, here’s how you can incorporate some of the elements mentioned, and start creating open conversations with your team members.

“I’ve been noticing among the team that a lot are looking more tired than usual [shows empathy and highlights the observation].

And because of that, I’m wondering where the challenge really lies and will like to provide better support [builds trust].

Would you say that it’s also a feeling that you have found happening? [allowing them to open up]"

A follow up question may be something like:

“What can we do differently in order to support you better in achieving the desired goals/outcome?”