Leader conversations
Don’t just counsel the Marine. Coach the Marine to think.
Traditional counseling can become leader-centered: identify the problem, assess it, give the answer, and direct the next step. A coaching approach adds purposeful questions, attentive listening, curiosity, and constructive challenge. It helps the Marine see what is happening, generate alternatives, draw on strengths and resources, and own the next action. This approach draws on Co-Active Coaching and Gallup’s strengths-based coaching practices.
Use the right leadership mode. Coaching does not remove command authority, standards, accountability, formal counseling, or professional care. Direct, correct, evaluate, or refer when needed. Coach when the aim is development, learning, adaptation, and ownership. This is a way to improve conversations leaders already owe their Marines, not another administrative requirement.
Under pressure, surprise can narrow perception. Steadfastness can become rigidity. Conflicting information can produce ambivalence and hesitation. A good leader conversation creates cognitive maneuver space.
Expand the Marine’s options.
Move from recognition toward useful action.
Reconnect the Marine with purpose, people, strengths, and reality.
Return meaningful ownership and action to the Marine.
Ask. Listen. Expand. Align. Act.
Ask
Begin with curiosity rather than an assumption.
Listen
Hear facts, emotion, energy, contradictions, strengths, and what may not be said.
Expand
Help the Marine generate more than one interpretation or course of action.
Align
Connect options with mission, values, strengths, relationships, standards, and commander’s intent.
Act
End with ownership: What will you do next?
Questions that create room to maneuver
Open one set before or during a conversation. Choose the question that helps the Marine think, then listen.
VarietyCreate options
- What are you seeing right now?
- What might you be missing?
- What surprised you?
- What assumption are you making?
- What else could be true?
- Give me three ways you could approach this.
- If your first option disappeared, what would you do?
- Who sees this differently than you do?
Leader cue Don’t provide the second option too quickly. Make room for the Marine to generate it.
RapidityMove toward useful action
- What changed?
- What matters most right now?
- What decision actually needs to be made?
- What can you act on now?
- What are you waiting to know that you may never know?
- What is the smallest useful move you can make?
- When will you reassess?
Leader cue Rapidity is not rushing. It is shortening the distance between recognizing change and making a useful adjustment.
HarmonyReconnect
- What is the mission asking of you?
- Who needs to understand what you understand?
- Who do you need to hear from?
- Where are you strongest in this situation?
- What strength or talent can you lean on?
- What support or resource are you not using?
- Where is trust strong? Where is it strained?
- What does the team need from you right now?
Leader cue Look for disconnection—from mission, team, reality, strengths, or purpose. Harmony restores connection without demanding conformity.
InitiativeRestore agency
- What part of this belongs to you?
- What can you influence?
- If you knew I trusted your judgment, what would you do?
- What decision can you make without me?
- What are you willing to try?
- What does good initiative look like within my intent?
- What will you do next?
- When should we talk again?
Leader cue The conversation should return ownership to the Marine, not create dependence on the leader.
Use the Fitness Report as a development map.
These questions draw on the current Fitness Report’s five performance sections. Use them to explore growth, not to produce a grade.
Section DMission AccomplishmentDevelopment questions
- Where are you creating the most value for the unit?
- What is getting in the way of better performance?
- What would “better” look like during the next 30 days?
Section EIndividual CharacterDevelopment questions
- Where have your values been tested recently?
- What decision are you proud of even though it was difficult?
- Where do you need the courage to say or do something?
Section FLeadershipDevelopment questions
- Who is better because you are leading them?
- Who on your team needs something different from you?
- Where are you giving people initiative—and where are you holding too tightly?
Section GIntellect and WisdomDevelopment questions
- What have you changed your mind about recently?
- What assumption should you test?
- What are you learning that changes how you approach the mission?
Section HFulfillment of Evaluation ResponsibilitiesDevelopment questions
- How are your evaluations helping Marines understand their performance?
- Where might your feedback be too vague or delayed to help them grow?
- What evidence supports your assessment, and what might challenge it?
Section H applies to Marines with reporting official responsibilities. Section names follow MCO 1610.7B, Performance Evaluation System ↗. The questions are TRACM developmental prompts, not official Fitness Report language.
Talk before, during, and after friction.
Development should not depend on an occasional formal counseling session. Short, meaningful conversations build the habit of adjustment.
Shape
What might change? What options do you have? Where do you need freedom to act?
Adapt
What changed? What are you seeing now? What do you need to adjust?
Learn
What surprised you? What worked? What would you do differently? What will you carry forward?
A leader does not build adaptable Marines by giving them every answer. A leader builds adaptable Marines by creating the trust, questions, practice, and freedom that help them learn to find answers under pressure.
The goal of the conversation is not compliance with a counseling requirement. It is increased capacity for judgment and action.