You want to contribute growth and momentum within your company. You want your team to be engaged and succeed, leaving every meeting feeling confident and ready to champion their work and impact. Yet it seems like when everyone goes back to their desks that’s where the spark fizzles out. Nothing changes. And it could be due to not setting up your conversations as effective coaching sessions with these three non-negotiable coaching skills for leaders:
- Three-tiered listening.
- Asking open-ended questions.
- Pausing.
It’s what I like to call LAP coaching: listen, ask questions, pause.
Seems simple enough, right? But it’s all about your approach and how you put these skills into action.
I’ll show you how, so you, your team, and company can drive meaningful results.
Are You an Audio Learner?
Learn the LAP coaching skills and process by tuning into episode 204 of the Your Brilliant Difference Podcast. Only 40 minutes of listening, but a lifetime of shining in your career.
Why Workplace Coaching?
Some managers and leaders want to do more coaching, while others fear adding another task to their plate. No matter which category you fall under—eager adder or fearful avoider—I get it.
The issue is a lack of time. You’re spread thin and can only do so much with your day, but I promise you that when you use the LAP coaching skills, it will actually save you time, headaches, and stress.
Let me explain.
Traditionally, workplace coaching is positioned with the coach taking on the brunt of the work, leaving the session with extra to-dos piled on their plate.
But with my approach, it isn’t like that. Not only will you have less work, but you and your employee will both experience valuable transformations that will support your career and leadership growth.
The impact of coaching on employees:
- Increased self-awareness.
- Increased self-efficacy and confidence.
- Brilliant Difference discovery.
- Unlocked potential and elevated performance.
- More eager to take responsibility for actions.
Over 70% of individuals who receive coaching benefit from improved work performance, relationships, communication, and more. — International Coach Federation
The impact of coaching on managers and leaders:
- Inspiring and empowering others to action.
- Increased influence.
- Facilitating change and breakthrough transformations.
- Decreased ownership of employee outcomes.
- Improved time management and productivity.
Remember: the goal of coaching is to help people cultivate courage to change their behaviours so they can reach their desired outcomes.
Which you can do more easily with LAP.
LAP Coaching Skills
I compare Brilliant Differences to diamonds. You have skills and talents inside you that help you shine and create an impact, and they’re often enhanced under pressure when facing challenges. A diamond wouldn’t be a dazzling gem without immense amounts of pressure and chiseling.
This is what using LAP coaching skills is like. When you listen, you strive to find clarity. When you ask questions, you’re cutting your employee’s diamond to help them find answers. When you pause, you give them the pressure they need to create their own solutions.
LAP 1: Listen
I always start every coaching session with, “What would you like to focus on today?” This requires you to listen to your employee’s answer. But did you know there are three ways in which you listen?
- Level 1 (internal): Your own thoughts, reactions, judgments, and opinions as the other person speaks.
- Level 2 (focused): The speaker’s words, tone, and meaning. The emotions, values, and intentions behind what is being said.
- Level 3 (global): Everything in the environment, including the speaker, yourself, and the broader context. It includes non-verbal cues, energy shifts, the atmosphere, and dynamics in the space.
I encourage you to use all three levels when listening to your employee, as it will generate more meaningful outcomes and takeaways at the end of the session.
On top of that, there are five things you want to look for when listening to their answers:
Emotional Needs
- Unspoken desires for security, recognition, or belonging.
- Tone shifts that signal emotional importance.
- What energizes or deflates them when speaking.
- Words carrying emotional weight or repeated with emphasis.
Internal Barriers
- Self-limiting beliefs (“I’m not good at…”).
- Patterns of self-sabotage or hesitation.
- Cognitive distortions and assumptions.
- Areas where they’ve stopped trying.
Edges
- Areas where they express both interest and hesitation.
- Growth aspirations mentioned, then quickly dismissed.
- Topics that create visible energy yet uncertainty.
- Skills they admire in others but haven’t developed themselves.
Brilliant Difference
- Natural strengths mentioned casually or overlooked.
- What they do differently from others.
- Stories where they felt most alive or effective.
- Values that repeatedly surface in their narrative.
Edge Moves
- Small steps they’ve already considered but have not taken.
- Incremental actions that build toward larger goals.
- Low-risk experiments they could conduct.
- Resources or support they already have access to.
LAP 2: Ask
Once they divulge all the details of the themes and topics they’d like to focus on, it’s time to dig deeper with questions. But you can’t ask just any questions. You need to format them in a way where the employee goes on a journey of discovery and comes out on the other side forming their own conclusions.
You can’t tell them what to do. They need to discover the answers all on their own. You’re simply guiding them.
And you can do so effectively with my list of open-ended question techniques that work every time:
- Start with “what” or “how.”
- Ask “What else?”
- Ask think/feel questions: “What do you think about that?” or “How do you feel about that?”
- Ask “I wonder what…?” or “I wonder how…?”
- Ask a question in response to their question.
LAP 3: Pause
A common misconception when having conversations and coaching sessions? You always need to be talking, to fill the voids of silence with words.
Wrong.
Pausing is powerful. It gives your employee room to think about their thinking, providing them a chance to find a solution they may not have come up with before due to the tornado vortex of their professional and work lives.
If they don’t have an answer right away, that’s okay.
When you feel the urge to jump in and interrupt the silence, try these two techniques:
- Count to three and observe the sensations and thoughts coursing through your body and mind.
- Set up a pause by saying, “I’ll give you some time to think about this,” or “Take your time.”
Coach to Create Transformations
Coaching isn’t about telling people what to do and adding more tasks to agendas. It’s about creating transformations that bleed into the success of your career, the careers of your team, and the results of your company.
But those transformations can only come full circle when you listen (with all three tiers), ask (open-ended) questions, and pause (giving people room to think).
If you want this type of training for all leaders and managers on your team, to help employees champion their work and results at all levels of their careers, book a call.
