10 Fantastic Coaching Questions to Ask Your High Potential Talent
By Natalie Michael, CHRP
When I teach coaching courses, executives often ask me: Do you have some great coaching questions I can ask my best and brightest people? My answer: Do I?! I don’t have great ones…I have fantastic ones. One of “my little hobbies” is seeking out powerful questions. When I am reading articles, watching TED talks, or cruising the web, my brain is always subconsciously turning impactful headlines and articles into questions. Here are the 10 I like best for exploring issues with high potential talent.
- Five years from now what does an amazing career look like for you? A mediocre one?
- Over the next year, what contribution are you most inspired to make, and why?
- Let’s assume that as you try to achieve your priorities you will be super busy and distracted. What systems do you need to put in place to see your priorities through?
- Let’s imagine for a minute that your ability to achieve your vision will be in direct proportion to the extent to which you keep your word. What does this mean to you?
- Given what you are facing, how would you like to evolve and grow as a leader?
- What needs to change in your inner world to become the kind of leader you want to be?
- On a scale of 1 to 10, how do you believe your team is doing? On a scale of 1 to 10, how well do you think they need to doing?
- I know you are great at what you do, yet where would it be valuable for you to be a beginner again?
- When you look at the business and your life, what’s clear and obvious to you?
- How can I help?
Natalie Michael and Michael Timms are presenting at HRMA’s 2016 Conference + Tradeshow. Their session, Succession Planning That Works, is on Wednesday, April 27. For more information on this and other sessions, please visit hrma.ca/conf2016.
Natalie Michael, CHRP is a CEO and executive coach with The Karmichael Group and a MacKay CEO Forums chair. She coaches executives who want to extract more meaning from their work, refine their leadership style and be more influential in challenges (and sometimes political) environments.
