Why you should ask your employee these 2️⃣ questions today!

Once upon a time, there was a leader who was struggling with her staff. Let's say her name was Lena.

Lena's Challenge (Maybe you can relate)
Lena's staff would come to her with problems and Lena would tell them what to do to fix the problem with the hope they would learn for next time. Next time came, and the staff would knock at her door and although this time the challenge was slightly different, for all intents and purposes the same. But for whatever reason, the employee couldn't figure out what to do, didn't have the confidence to do it or wanted reassurance. Lena would once again, albeit a bit frustrated with the interruption, walk them through how to deal with the problem and hope this time they would learn. I don't have to tell you what happened. You can already guess!

What Lena learned
One day Lena was in a session talking about the need to have a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset. Lena learned about the two basic mindsets we have. The first is a fixed mindset, the second a growth mindset.

Carol Dweck, a professor at Stanford University, has been studying mindset. She says that the view you adopt of yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life and I would say lead.

The two mindsets

• The first is a fixed mindset.
• When you have a fixed mindset, you have an underlying belief that our qualities are carved in stone. Who you are is who you are. Period. You think that characteristics such as intelligence, personality, and creativity are fixed traits, rather than something that can be developed.
• The second mindset is a growth mindset.
• Individuals who have a growth mindset believe that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through effort. With this frame of mind you understand that while people do differ greatly, for example in aptitude, talents, interests, or temperaments, you fundamentally believe that each of those can be changed and grow through effort, hard work and time.

Mindsets applied to leadership
In Lena's session, she learned that when we are working with our employees, many of us have a fixed mindset about employees. When we see them through that lens, we view ourselves as the boss or supervisor. With this view, we feel the need to manage, discipline, control, and direct our employees. We believe it is our job to tell them what to do and how to do it.

However, leadership is about growing, developing and inspiring our employees to reach their full potential. To do that, we need to have a growth mindset. A growth mindset is one that believes that with work and effort, it is possible to grow new skills and develop new abilities. When we believe that about our employees...

• we start to ask them questions rather than solve their problems
• we begin to get curious about how they would solve problems rather than fix it for them.

Curiosity and asking questions are foundational
for coaching conversations.

Coaching conversations grow our employees
When we coach our employees, we help them to develop themselves and to grow into their full potential. It is coaching rather than managing controlling and directing that has organizations meet new goals, provide stellar service and keep people motivated, engaged, loyal. This creates workplace cultures that people want to be in, rather than run away from!

How Lena applied this to her leadership
As you can guess by now, that when Lena went back to work and started to ask her employees more questions and get curious about both how they would solve problems and what they need to have the confidence to do that. Lena has seen tremendous improvements!

• Her employees became excited about their own growth, potential and development.
• What's more, Lena saw the trickle-down effect.
• At team meetings, she would see her subordinates coaching their team members. Over time the culture of her team shifted from a crisis and putting out fires model to a proactive growth mindset culture!

Do you want to be like Lena? Try this:
Ask more questions!
👉Here are a couple of questions that you can start with:

1. What alternatives can you think of? ✅
2. How can I support you?✅

Coaching Conversations training for you!
If you want to become more comfortable with coaching your employees, join me for this month's webinar where you will learn the 3 Step Strategy for Creating Comfortable Coaching Conversations!

✨✨Remember, our job as leaders, is to bring out the best in our employees and to help them to reach their full potential so that together we can make an incredible difference in the lives of those we serve.

• We do that when we coach, grow and mentor our team to be their best!

That starts with you and your mindset! ✨✨

It's time to🌱grow 🌱baby🌱grow!!🌱

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Each month as part of The Training Library, I offer ongoing training to grow women leaders in Canada's Nonprofit Organizations, to support your growth and development as a women leader.

Because, here's the thing...if you are not growing,
you will stay stuck right where you are!! 
Personal and professional development is your path to success in both leadership and life!