Situational Coaching in times of crisis

In special times of crisis like these, situational coaching is more important than classical coaching.

Leaders are expected to provide guidance. Despite massive stressors, they are expected to remain calm and tackle each day anew, even if nothing is as it was planned yesterday. Leaders need spontaneous support in situational coaching sessions. Sometimes such coaching lasts only half an hour. What leaders need:

Reducing stress; being allowed to think out loud; to be seen with their own concerns but also brainstorming ideas for crisis management; recharge their batteries and gain clarity;

What to do as a coach: Listen, listen, and listen again; Affirmation and literally BEING THERE; Focusing even more on the person; Going through options together; Encouraging without ignoring real problems;

These 30 minutes do not primarily belong to the goals or improvement projects (even if this can be the result) but to the well-being of the leader. Executives in particular can be under the misapprehension that they are not valuable enough if they do not find solutions to the acute situation.

Some general attitudes (for times of crisis and) for leaders as well as coaching conversations:

Rate behavior, never people
People are valuable independent of performance and so-called success
Sometimes there are situations that cannot be solved at first, and even heroes (who do not exist) would "fail"
Reduce pressure instead of passing it on unfiltered
Perceive feelings, allow them and let them go
Build in time-outs to become clear or to stay clear
Build in rituals that give security (also important for leading teams)
Do one thing at a time and implement what is possible
Do not speculate too far into the future - stay in the moment

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