Transform Your Leadership: The Power of Questions and Active Listening

Build a more engaged and motivated team by mastering the art of asking questions and truly listening. Discover how understanding your employees' strengths, fears, and aspirations can transform your leadership style, making you not just a boss, but a leader whom people genuinely want to follow. By fine-tuning these communication skills, see the profound effect of creating a workplace culture where employees are not merely going through the motions but are actively invested in the success of the organization.

Read these practical strategies and learn how asking the right questions can drive self-awareness and accountability within your team, cultivating a dynamic and collaborative environment. We'll teach you how to effectively balance directive leadership with the empowerment that comes from involving your team in decision-making processes. Elevate your leadership game by ensuring that your team isn’t just present, but engaged and thriving.

The greatest gift a leader can have is understanding his or her own employees. How do we really understand what people can do, what they can't do, what they're confident in, where they have fears, where they want to go with their careers, where they want to engage with the rest of the team, what they're motivated by, what they're not motivated by, what they like, what they dislike, and what they love?

The greatest thing leaders can do is to ask questions and listen. Not just listen to respond, but really listen and even paraphrase back what they said. So that we have a true, deep understanding.

When I've shared this very simple notion, I'll have a leader typically counter me with, "I'm the type of leader who..." and they start telling me about how they execute strategy. Many times, it's similar to, "I have the organization's mission in the palm of my hands, and I have to have people that follow me and do what I say." I always look at them and reply with, "If that's your mantra, how do you know they're following you mentally?"

I just had this happen recently and the guy looked at me and said, "Excuse me?"

Me: "How do you know they're following you?"

Leader: "I just told you, I'm the type of person--"

Me: "I didn't ask about you. I asked you how you know your people aren't just going through the motions? Not begrudgingly, but are truly following you and enjoying it? If you can't answer that question, you've made a huge assumption. That doesn't mean you're wrong. That doesn't mean the way you're leading and executing is wrong." (Continue the article below the video.)

I remember asking this one question to a few clients in recent years, and I'm always intrigued by their replies. Leaders typically have to climb these hills in front of their people, executing strategy, change, implementations, and all these things that leaders face. When you go up that hill, do you ever look over your shoulder and see if people are following you? If they are, are they smiling? If you can't answer that, ask yourself what if they were? What would the benefit be to your leadership acceptance?

One of my long-time (and favorite) clients replied with something I'll never forget. He paused, thought, and from that day on he has been one of the best leaders that I've seen care and invest in culture. He said, "What does Peter Drucker always say? 'Culture eats strategy for breakfast.'" Strategy is not a bad thing. Strategy with happy, following, and smiling people is really powerful.

When we talk about coaching application, questions are really where it starts. Here's the great thing about questions. Questions drive self-awareness. Think about that.

If I go up to someone and say, "Bob, you're a jerk. Or Lisa, you're so hard to work with." Are both those people going to hug me and say, "Wow, thanks for the revelation." No, of course not. They're going to push back. Instead, how perceptive will they be if instead I say, "Bob, what are you going to do to energetically work with that teammate, and what's the benefit to you?" That will elicit and trigger a different thought process than being told what to do.

Now, the flip side of the coin sometimes, as leaders, we have to tell people what to do. There's nothing wrong with that.

I always encourage people who are what I call tellers that if you're going to tell somebody what to do, follow it up with a question. "I need you to complete this project by Friday." Then follow it up with, "Hearing that, what are you going to do to successfully pursue that, and what assistance do you need to reach that ultimate success?"

There's nothing wrong with giving a directive. Just follow it up with a question. It creates greater ownership and accountability.

If you want to become a great leader, understand the value and the practice associated with becoming a great application specialist when it comes to asking questions of your teams.

QUESTIONS TO INCREASE SELF-AWARENESS & RECEPTIVENESS:

#1: Everyone has blind spots. What do you think is one blind spot you have overcome?

#2: What is a blind spot you know if you addressed it, it would help you achieve greater success?

#3: When it comes to self-awareness specific to feedback, what can you do to receive feedback? It doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with the feedback, just where you can more comfortably and thoughtfully receive feedback moving forward.

#4: If your best friend suggested you do something to improve your self-awareness, what do you think he/she would suggest?

#5: What is one area of self-awareness you know the team needs to improve, and how could you go about as an influential leader assisting in that process and yourself?

#6: What does active listening look like to you? How do you feel when you know people are actively listening to you? How do you think they would feel if they knew you actively listen to them?

#7: How do you think active listening serves you well as a leader? What benefits would you see if you increased your active listening?

#8: What is one recent experience where you know you weren't actively listening as well as you should, and how do you think that went? What are some ways you can improve your active listening skills?

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