Leaders find it easy to provide solutions – they have experience, they have seen many things and they know how to fix them. Most leaders fall into the early trap of solving people’s issues and instructing them on what to do and how to execute it. Then they begin to wonder why their people have built up a dependency on receiving solutions from them?
Leaders who engage in coaching conversations empower their people to find their own solutions and therefore build long term sustainability and growth in their people. Such conversations are all about facilitating the thinking of the other person so they see and understand their issue from a different perspective and can create a solution for themselves. Leaders who engage in such conversations guide their people to think differently and so form different connections within their brains……empowering them to create a solution this time and in the future.
Embracing this “fine” form of a coaching conversation requires great discipline as your natural instinct as a leader is to feel it is your job to arrive with solutions and do the thinking to help others and often to “fix” things and people quickly. The truly courageous leader realises it is not about them doing the thinking and making the connections – it is all about them selflessly focusing on the other person and how they can support them to do the thinking and receive the benefits.
So just remember: courageous leaders don’t provide solutions.
