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You Only Get Answers to the Questions You Ask
IBM founder Thomas J. Watson said, “The ability to ask the right question is more than half the battle of finding the answer.”
Questions Unlock and Open Doors That Otherwise Remain Closed
Management expert Peter Drucker said, “My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.”
Questions Are the Most Effective Means of Connecting with People
Questions Cultivate Humility
Too often, fear keeps us from being vulnerable and feeling secure enough to ask questions.
Questions Help You to Engage Others in Conversation
“Why?” is the greatest question ever asked, and it always will be. And it is certainly the surest way of keeping a conversation lively and interesting.
Questions Allow Us to Build Better Ideas
What is the greatest lesson you have learned? By asking this question, leaders seek the wisdom of their team members. What are you learning?
As speaker Brian Tracy says, “A major stimulant to creative thinking is focused questions. There is something about a well-worded question that often penetrates to the heart of the matter and triggers new ideas and insights.”
Questions Give Us a Different Perspective
Too often, as leaders, we get fixated on our own point of view and spend our time trying to convince others of our opinions instead of trying to find out theirs.
A wise leader once said, “Before you attempt to set things right, make sure you see things right.” Most miscommunication is a result of people’s having different assumptions.
Questions Challenge Mind-Sets and Get You Out of Ruts
Speaker Anthony Robbins observed, “Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.”
As a young Pastor, John Maxwell visited the churches of several strong leaders, and he asked them questions about their success. When he finished, he reached this conclusion: “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” That truth has been the centerpiece of Maxwell’s leadership journey, and has prompted him to teach others to lead for the rest of my life.
Then, he asked his author friend Les Parrott why he wrote. Parrot’s answer changed Maxwell’s life when he responded, “I write books to influence people I will never meet. Books increase my audience and my message.”
Questions Have Power
When you look back over your life, you will undoubtedly see that questions mark your way for growth, prompt positive changes of direction, and lead to many successes. Questions are not only the basis of learning, but they are also a foundation for better leadership.
Am I Investing in Myself? A Question of Personal Growth
Motivational speaker Joe Larson once said, “My friends didn’t believe I could become a successful speaker, so I did something about it. I went out and found some new friends.”
The Three Questions People Ask of Their Leader:
- Can you help me? That is a competence question.
- Do you care for me? That is a compassion question.
- Can I trust you? That is a character question.
Good leaders need to exhibit three important qualities:
- Humility: Understanding Your Place in Light of the Bigger Picture
Rick Warren says, “Humility is not denying your strengths. Humility is being honest about your weaknesses. All of us are a bundle of both great strengths and great weaknesses and humility is being able to be honest about both.” A grounded leader who is humble is willing to take on a new challenge, even though it means taking risks, giving up power, and losing a degree of autonomy.
- Authenticity: Being Comfortable in Your Own Skin
- Calling: Having a Purpose That Is Bigger than You
John Wooden told John Maxwell this, “There is one question I ask myself every day.” Here’s what he said: “Every day I ask myself, how can I make my team better?” C.S. Lewis took that thought one step further. He wrote, “God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons we could not learn in any other way.”
Am I Staying in My Strength Zone? A Question of Effectiveness
Of all the questions I ask myself as a leader, this one has done the most to help me reach my potential. Do the most important things every day.
- Faith
Former president Jimmy Carter asserted, “My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.” That’s a great perspective. Because I agree with that, I must be sure to exercise and live out my faith every day.
- Family
For many years now, Maxwell’s definition of success has been having those who are closest to me love and respect me the most. Relationships are important to every area of life. They help define who we are and what we can become.
The greatest legacy any leader can leave is the other leaders he raises up before he’s finished. That means finding the right people and investing in them continually.
Author Noel M. Tichy says, “The ultimate test for a leader is not whether he or she makes smart decisions and takes decisive action, but whether he or she teaches others to be leaders and builds an organization that can sustain its success even when he or she is not around.”
How Good a Listener Are You?
If you want to become a better leader, you must become a better listener. One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears. That may seem counterintuitive, because we expect persuasion to involve speaking.
Mary Kay founder Mary Kay Ash asserted, “Listen long enough and the person will generally come up with an adequate solution.”
Interrupting translates to “What I want to say is more important than what you are saying.”
Good leaders ask great questions that inspire others to dream more, think more, learn more, do more, and become more. Your team members say, “When you ask for my skills, you get my strengths. When you ask for my passion, you get my heart. When you ask for my ideas, you get my mind. But when you ask me for answers, you get my strengths, heart, and mind.”
Sam Walton said, “Asking and hearing people’s opinions has a greater effect on them than telling them, ‘Good job.’
Essayist Joseph Joubert asserted, “It’s better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.” Questions lead to thinking and discussion. The process is often more valuable than the answer.
Great ideas are a result of several good ones put together.
Purpose: Let Your Why Direct Your What
The more you lead and the more you succeed, the more others will expect from you. If you don’t make an effort to replenish your energy, feed your soul, and renew your mind, you will run out of gas. If you could cultivate only one habit to practice every day of your life, I believe it should be this: giving more than you receive.
Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus observed, “It is the capacity to develop and improve their skills that distinguishes leaders from followers.” The one thing you can do to have the greatest impact on your leadership potential is to be intentional every day about becoming equipped to lead.
Groundbreaking Major League Baseball player Jackie Robinson observed, “A life isn’t significant except for its impact upon other lives.” Author Norman Vincent Peale said, “To be successful is to be helpful, caring, and constructive, to make everything and everyone you touch a little bit better. The best thing you have to give is yourself.”
Robert K. Greenleaf, founder of the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, observed, “The servant-leader is servant first.… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.… The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are served.”
One of Maxwell’s favorite sayings is, “There is a choice you have to make in everything you do. So keep in mind that in the end, the choice you make, makes you.” People’s choices define who they are and determine where they go.
Martin Luther King Jr. asserted, “If a man hasn’t discovered something he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.” We should seek to fulfill our purpose. The key is to be yourself. No one is better qualified to be you than you. God only made one of you, so be yourself and do what he created you for. You should not try to change your personality to become a better leader. That will only make you come across as phony. You just need to become your best self by focusing on your gifts and maximizing the best qualities of your temperament.
Aristotle asserted, “Who would learn to lead must… first of all learn to obey.” That’s why leadership-intensive institutions like the United States Military Academy at West Point teach followership first.
If you encourage people to strive to go farther than they ever have, and you give them the freedom to fail, they will take risks, and you will help them to determine what their true capacity is. That’s no small thing. Daniel H. Pink says, “One source of frustration in the workplace is the frequent mismatch between what people must do and what people can do. When what they must do exceeds their capabilities, the result is anxiety. When what they must do falls short of their capabilities, the result is boredom. But when the match is just right, the results can be glorious.”
At a 2013 Catalyst Event for Emerging Leaders, former Navy SEAL commander Rorke Denver asked everyone to reach up as high as they could. Once everyone had, he said, “Now reach one inch higher.” As Maxwell watched, he saw all the arms in the room go up just a bit more. We are literally capable of doing more and going higher than we believe we can.
President Abraham Lincoln said, “When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say—and two-thirds thinking about him and what he is going to say.” That’s probably a good rule of thumb.
CEO coach Mike Myatt says, “After character, the ability to create, articulate, evangelize, and execute on your vision is what will make or break you as a leader.”
Former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Leaders cannot devalue you without your permission.
Zig Ziglar said, “You can get anything in life you want, if you help enough people get what they want.”
As General George S. Patton said, “A good plan vigorously executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week.”
Life’s greatest rewards come from your inner self, from the choices you make, from how you decide to live under whatever circumstances you find yourself in.
Achievement comes to people who are able to do great things for themselves. Success comes when they lead followers to do great things for them. But a legacy is created only when leaders put their people into a position to do great things without them. The legacy of successful leaders lives on through the people they touch along the way.
Leaders Are Catalysts
Maxwell points out that every leader he’s ever known has had the ability to make things happen.
Good leaders like people and people like them. They work at connecting with others and they continually look for opportunities to connect. That’s why you need to select potential leaders with excellent people skills.
Jack Welch asserted, “If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings—and put compensation as a carrier behind it—you almost don’t have to manage them.” That’s what you’re going for.
If you’re familiar with The 5 Levels of Leadership, you know that both permission (the relational aspect of leadership) and production (the results aspect of leadership) are essential to developing influence with people and becoming an effective leader.
When you express belief in people, it goes right to their souls. It gives them hope. It stirs their sense of purpose. It helps them be someone they’ve never been before and do things they’ve never done before.
Your goal should always be to work yourself out of a job. Keep giving your leaders more and more weight to carry. Keep showing them the ropes.
Treat the people around you as they could be instead of as they are.
Mentor your best people. Give them time one-on-one. Give them access to you and build a developmental relationship. Your most talented people have a strong desire to learn and grow. Feed that desire. And encourage them to engage in this same process with people who are behind them and coming up.
The only thing worse than developing people and losing them is not developing them and keeping them.
What’s the Most Important Thing a Leader Must Learn in Order to Be a Leader of Leaders? There’s only one way to lead leaders. Become a better leader yourself.