408. Great Leaders Ask Great Questions
Asking questions can help leaders get deeper analysis and more insightful answers leading to better overall results. The challenge is that not all questions are created equal.
As a leader, the right question at the right time is a powerful tool that can help in many areas.
Questions can help you learn how your team thinks. They can be used to gain insights into decisions, allowing you to provide feedback and coaching.
Questions can help connect dots that turn into big ideas. They can help you discover insights that lead to innovations.
Questions can help teams collaborate and build buy-in.
However, your takeaway shouldn’t be, ‘I need to ask more questions.’
Not all questions are created equal. Asking questions just to ask isn’t helpful.
Asking a great question at the right time is the challenge. Only then will you get the benefits of deeper analysis and perspective.
Knowing what to ask and when to ask is a skill worth developing.
Supporting Insights
“Instead of making Questioners feel that their decisions are being questioned, others can ask them to explain how they reached their conclusion. Questioners often enjoy teaching or sharing knowledge.” - Gretchen Rubin
“Curiosity doesn’t just spark stories, it sparks inspiration in whatever work you do. You can always be curious. And curiosity can pull you along until you find a great idea.” - Brian Grazer
“Great leaders ask a lot of questions. Remember, people support what they create. When people get to contribute ideas, they have mental skin in the game. They want to back the ideas they helped shape. They feel that they’re part of the process, not a cog or some faceless minion.” - Brendon Burchard
“One good way to find out the other person or party’s perceptions is to ask questions. In a negotiation, questions are far more powerful than statements.” -Stuart Diamond
Keep Learning
The Surprising Power of Questions
“Questioning is a uniquely powerful tool for unlocking value in organizations: It spurs learning and the exchange of ideas, it fuels innovation and performance improvement, it builds rapport and trust among team members. And it can mitigate business risk by uncovering unforeseen pitfalls and hazards.”
The Art of Asking Great Questions
“Many of us find ourselves worrying more about saying the right thing in a conversation, as opposed to asking the right question. I can tell you that’s a missed opportunity because personal development and growth begin when you demonstrate curiosity by asking questions.“
A Curious Mind
“Being curious and asking questions creates engagement. Using curiosity to disrupt your own point of view is almost always worthwhile, even when it doesn’t work out the way you expect.”
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“Exceptional leaders think of leadership as a craft. They know they will always be working to improve, and that what worked today may not work tomorrow.”
- Tracy Spears & Wally Schmader, The Exceptional Leaders Playbook
Humble curiosity is so powerful. For leaders to question each other is a great way of role modelling this behaviour which contributes to a feeling of psychological safety for others.
100% - there's always the tendency to jump straight to advice, but questions offer an opportunity to gather information such that our advice and coaching address the root issue.