In a situation like this it is extremely important to retain employees and motivate them to higher performance. But how do you do that?

Most leaders are typically excellent at 'telling' others what to do. Now don't get me wrong, 'telling subordinates what to do' is the right thing to do at times. Telling provides the right answer in a controlled setting, is fast, responds to what the subordinate wants to hear, is easy and simple, ensures quality and is an ego boost to the leader.

But to get a higher performance out of your employees, the coach approach is a more effective way. The coach approach requires 'asking'. Asking has many benefits. It builds confidence in others, gets people involved and produces buy-in (people love their own ideas), increases the generation of creative ideas resulting in more options, supports long term development, generates a feeling of value, reduces questions in the future, empowers employees, increases awareness and takes the pressure off of the leader to always be right. Taking a coaching approach requires the leader to use an 'asking' strategy.

What are the basic skills that a leader has to master for the coach approach?

1. Create a coachable moment
An effective coaching approach requires a Coachable Moment® which is the time when an individual is open to taking in new information that will affect a shift in his/her knowledge and behavior. The leader creates the environment where such moments can happen. To be effective, the coachable moment requires a level of mutual trust. Trust is possible when the leader's intention and words are aligned with the agenda of the individual and the two have a supportive relationship. The leader is responsible for creating a coaching environment.

2. Contextual listening
Contextual listening is listening for context by hearing the words and knowing enough about the person's circumstances to discern what is really being said. You basically listen to everything: what is said, what is not said, what is behind the words, and the person's total known context.

3. Discovery questioning
Using the coach approach requires an asking strategy with powerful questions. It is a systematic process of asking sharply focused questions to help the individual discover their truth.

4. Laser Informing
Coaching is not only a question - answer process but sometimes a person needs new information from you the leader that they don't have in their personal knowledge base. Laser informing is the delivery of a truthful message, that is timely, personally relevant and succinct to allow for the possibility for a shift to occur in the other person.

5. Gap Bridging
Having a coach approach conversation with an individual is an action-oriented process that means that during the conversation the individual needs to clarify where they are and create the actions necessary to reach where they want to be, which is called the gap bridging process.

About the author:
Iris Grimm is founder of the Balanced Physician Program. She is a licensed, certified facilitator of The Coaching Clinic®, a 2-day management workshop.
Content for this article was taken from The Coaching Clinic® and is used with permission from Corporate Coach U International www.ccui.com.