For a team member overwhelmed by work and unable to prioritise, a couple of targeted questions can make all the difference.

Show don’t tell 

If a team member comes to you with a specific problem, you are disempowering them if you step in and solve it for them. Think about driving the team member’s insight into their situation rather than trying to fix it yourself. Your input lies in guiding your employee towards finding the right solution – a far more satisfying conclusion. This transformational way of managing gives employees the confidence to flex their creative muscles.

Touchline coaching 

Touchline coaching normally happens after you have delegated a task, and provides a supportive platform to help team members tackle their own problems. A coaching conversation offers your team members the opportunity to decompress and to explore those things that need addressing. Questions to ask include: How are you getting along? What challenges are you facing? The coaching conversation is designed to empower them to fix things themselves within a supportive framework.

Stand back 

When we see that employees are struggling, many managers will be tempted to step in and save their team members. But this dis-empowers the team. And you are storing up more trouble if you don’t allow your team members to really consider the actions they need to take to get their work back on track. Would it be easier to step in and ‘save the day’? Perhaps, but it would be more valuable to guide your team members to find their own solutions.

Hybrid working makes these conversations more important than ever. What perhaps happened by default because you sat near your colleagues now has to happen by design.

If you want to empower your team, consider how you can turn everyday interactions into coaching conversations.