The 3 Most Important Questions

The most powerful tool a leader brings is the provocative question. Good inquiry leads naturally, I think, into the best discussions about the future and about both individual and organizational potential. How well do we discuss who we are and who we intend to be? Questions often make us uncomfortable, especially good questions, but they can be the source of insight and the beginning of real progress.

To get us started, here are three questions for you to think about. I invite you to reflect briefly on each question. Take time to write them out. There is no trick to this. This is for your benefit, to provoke your thinking. Your answers to these questions may be the most important information you ponder while reading this post.?

What is the most important thing in life to you?

Projecting forward to the end of your life, what do you want to be known for?

At this stage in your journey, what do you need to learn next?

Okay, why these questions? I believe that, if you were honest, what you wrote has direct impact on the productivity of your enterprise, the success of your company, or accomplishment of your mission. How you answered the questions touches the bottom line of your organization, however you measure the bottom line.?

The first question is the question of character. Who are you? What values do you bring to your role? It begins to get at our passions and the commitments that drive us, that shape the way we relate to people, use our time, and set our priorities. Whatever is most important to us will impact the productivity of our organizations.?

When this equation was first suggested to a young man, he scoffed and said “No way. I wrote down my fiancée’s name. What does she have to do with my company?” Then he paused, and after reflection continued a bit sheepishly, “Well, maybe you’re right. I’m in Minnesota now. Mary is in California. I route every business trip I make through California and spend a considerable amount of time trying to figure out how to get to California as often as possible. I suppose that does impact the way I do my work here.” Exactly. Our commitments and passions do shape our leadership, and leadership impacts outcomes.?

The second question is the question of legacy. What do you want to be known for? It touches on purpose, calling, meaning, and accountability. We travel through life like ships at sea, leaving a wake behind us. We are leaving a legacy as we live, as we work, as we serve in our roles. What do you want to be known for? What kind of wake, what kind of legacy do you want to leave? This is a key question for leaders: Who do you intend to be? What legacy will you leave? Because, again, the question has direct impact on the productivity of our organizations. Our sense of calling, of purpose, of meaning will shape the way we relate to people, the way we exercise leadership. Leadership flows from character and it leaves a legacy.?

The third question focuses on the present: What do you need to learn next? It opens the door to growth, to learning, and, of course, to risk and vulnerability. Growth always is a risky business. Growth—new learning—implies change. It suggests movement into new territory, new ideas. And that leaves us vulnerable.

We all know that organization need to learn and grow to stay relevant, and organizations learn and grow only when people learn and grow. Only a group of people who share a body of knowledge and continually learn together can stay vital and viable. When we know what we need to learn next, we often look for a mentor to help us learn. The ability to create human connections, by the way, is one area where a mentor can be a special help.

Relational leadership

One of the particular skills that leaders are required to exemplify in practice is the indispensable knack for building and nurturing relationships. To a greater degree than ever, we all live and work in interdependent groups and organizations. This means, of course, that the exercise of our special gifts and unique experiences will be affected by the presence of the gifts and experiences brought to our lives by the people we work with. This is what I mean when I counsel organizations in the midst of digital transformation that we cannot reach our potential technologically until we reach our potential relationally. There is such a thing as relational leadership. ?

In the role I now have with Encouria, I strive to teach people how to be effective relational leaders. Leadership is a relationship of influence that connects the character of the leader with the culture of the community and ultimately impacts the bottom line productivity of the organization.

After more than ten years coaching executives, I have learned that leadership cannot be taught. It must be lived. It can be learned, but it cannot be explained in a neat package or formula. The article titled “Leadership as muddling through” says it all. Leadership is a messy mixture of people, passions, vision, and constraints, pushing and pulling in multiple directions. It's more a matter of how “to be” than how to do it. All the how-to's won't work until the how-to-be's are defined and embodied in every communication, every action.

Consequently, I have not been very gracious with the many leadership models that have emerged over the years, with their neat steps, habits, rungs, rings, or paths. I do not believe you can tell someone what to do in a future leadership situation. You have to be present and to act out of your vision and your values with the full vulnerability that you might be wrong. Maybe that’s why one of the definitions of leadership that I like is: Leadership is the risk of deciding when the alternatives are equal. It doesn’t require leadership to choose when one choice is better. The risk of leadership is leading in the midst of ambiguity.?

Asking questions that define reality

In 1993, Ernest Gaines published an award winning novel called A Lesson Before Dying. In this novel, Gaines sets forth a realistic picture of life in the rural south of the United States in the 1940s. The story focuses on the relationship between two men: Grant and Jefferson. Grant is the local school teacher. Jefferson is a 21-year-old, poor, nearly illiterate, black plantation worker. Jefferson is in prison. He is the only surviving (and maybe innocent) participant in a liquor store hold up gone bad. Segregation was the law and Jefferson was easily convicted by the all white jury.?

It is Grant’s job to teach Jefferson who he is and how to live before the State of Louisiana executes him. As the story unfolds, a small community of people — black and white — face three questions:

Who am I?

Who cares?

How do I live before I die??

Those are the questions of life. They define the work of mentoring. They shape the agenda of leadership. The questions are about us. But the answers define the reality in which we live and work and exercise leadership.?It is through questions that leaders shape the future. When I think about relational leadership, I see a string of questions.

Who are you?

Character: What shapes you?

Charisma: To what are you committed??

Who cares?

Connections: To whom are you committed?

Culture: What are you reinforcing??

What legacy are you leaving??

Community: What are you building??

Contribution: What do you measure??

These are questions that define reality. These are the questions of leadership. They encourage us to reflect on who we are, what is important, and how we are shaping the culture of the organization.

Vulnerability

Now, just as you thought I was finished, I want to add a final question. Where are you most vulnerable? This brings us back to the third question I asked at the beginning. What do you need to learn next? Much of the language of leadership has to do with the language of teaching and learning. Leaders or followers, we're all faced with a mandate to become lifetime learners.

There are some beautiful and fundamental reasons why vulnerability is a good thing for leaders. First, vulnerability frees you to keep learning and growing. It forces you to stay curious a bit longer, not rush to well-understood alternatives. Second, vulnerability reminds us of the importance of integration. The process of integration is simply abandoning ourselves to the strengths of others, being vulnerable to what others can do better than we can. The goal of integration is to be a corporation that gives us space to reach our potential as individuals and, through that, as a corporation.

Channeled correctly and integrated properly, vulnerability affirms the crucial nature of community building. We think about the gifts and talents and commitment that each of us as individuals bring to the group effort. In communities we are all given opportunities and the chance to make the most of them. Only in communities can we set meaningful goals and measure our performance. Only in communities do we respect and honor and thank the people who contribute to our interdependent lives. Only in a community — whether a corporation, nonprofit, or sport team — can we serve and come to know other people. Good leaders see it as part of their calling to help a group of people move in the direction of maturity as a community. Knowing who we intend to be always determines what we will do with our lives.

Let's return to the three questions we began with on this journey. Actually, I have a fourth question as you ponder your journey: What is really important to you in life? What do you want to be known for? What do you need to learn next? And one final question: What is the question to which the answer will set you free?

I believe the value of this post will be directly proportional to the questions you take away. If I have done my job well, you will close this reading with more questions than you had at the beginning.?