Transform Your Leadership: The Power of Questions and Active Listening

Unlock the secret to building 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 that people genuinely want to follow. This episode dives into the profound effect of communication in creating a workplace culture where employees are not merely going through the motions, but are actively invested in the success of the organization.

We challenge conventional leadership approaches with compelling anecdotes and practical strategies that highlight the transformative power of inquiry. Learn how asking the right questions can drive self-awareness and accountability within your team, fostering a dynamic and collaborative environment. Through actionable insights, we guide you on how to effectively balance directive leadership with the empowerment that comes from involving your team in decision-making processes. Tune in and learn how to elevate your leadership game by ensuring that your team isn’t just present, but engaged and thriving.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:37

I think 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, trepidations, 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, what they love it's really twofold. It's the greatest thing leaders can do, and that is to ask questions and listen, not just listen to respond, but really listen and even paraphrase back what they said. So we have true, deep understanding. Now, when I've actually shared this very simple notion, I'll have a leader typically counter me and say well, I'm the type of leader and they start telling me about how they execute strategy and I have the mission of the organization in the palm of my hands and I have to have people that follow me and do what I say, and I always look at them and say so. If that's your mantra, how do you know they're following you mentally? And recently I just had this happen and the guy looked at me and said excuse me. I said how do you know they're following you? He said I just told you I'm the type of person I said I didn't ask about you. I asked you how do you know your people aren't just going through the motions, aren't begrudgingly, but are truly following you and enjoying it. And if you can't answer that question, you've made a huge assumption. Doesn't mean you're wrong. Doesn't mean the way you're leading and executing is wrong.

Speaker 1: 2:21

See, I always use this as a question and one of my favorite people I won't mention by name or company that I meet with and we meet in some odd hours early morning and I love working with this guy and I remember saying to him you know, you're going up a hill and leaders typically have to go up hills in front of their people, executing strategy change, implementations, all these things that leaders face. And I said when you go up that hill, do you ever turn around, look over your shoulder and see if people are following you and if they're smiling? And if you can't answer that now ask yourself what if they were? What would the benefit be to your leadership acceptance? I'll never forget it. He paused, he thought, and he has been one of the best leaders from that day that I've seen care and invest in culture. What does Drucker always say Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Strategy is not a bad thing. Strategy with happy following, smiling people, is really powerful.

Speaker 1: 3:26

So when we talk about coaching application, when we talk about coaching application, questions is really where it starts. And here's the great thing about questions Questions drive self-awareness. Questions drive self-awareness. Questions drive self-awareness. Think about that Questions drive self-awareness.

Speaker 1: 3:48

If I go up to someone and say, bob, you're a jerk, lisa, you're so hard to work with, are both those people going to hug and kiss me and say, wow, thanks for the revelation? No, they're going to push back Versus saying Bob, what are you going to do to energetically work with that teammate and what's the benefit to you? That will drive, elicit, 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.

Speaker 1: 4:18

I always encourage people who are what I call tellers. 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. So when you give a directive there's nothing wrong with that Follow it up with a question. It creates greater ownership and accountability. If you want to become a great leader, understand the value and understand the practice associated with becoming a great application specialist when it comes to asking questions situationally.