The Questioning Leader

Yes, I am still on the question kick. My focus on questions got me thinking about the importance of questions to leading.

Leaders may use questions to focus followers’ attention. Asking questions is a gentle way for leaders to move followers’ attention to whatever the leader thinks is important. Questions also initiate learning. Learning is prompted by the desire to know something, either out of mere curiosity or because of a need to solve a problem or to improve in some way. Asking questions prompts the search for answers. The search for answers cultivates growth and development.

Questions can introduce us to new ways of thinking. Asking “what if” questions can spark creative thinking that may lead to innovative solutions. Questions can lead us to adopt new perspectives and acquire new skills. Questions can draw us beyond our conceived limits to explore new possibilities.

Questions are a leader’s tool to get followers to take ownership of goals and plans. When asked questions and guided in discovering answers, followers actively participate in the identification and implementation of solutions to shared problems. The answers that emerge are those of the followers and not the sole possession of the leader. This empowers followers. They experience the power of taking responsibility for their own destiny.

A key way leaders can contribute to the growth and development of followers, and thereby to the development of leadership, is to ask questions. So, when leading, rather than promote answers, prompt questions. Then lead the followers to answering those questions.

101 Questions

Another question. If everyone thinks of himself or herself as being right, what can be considered as wrong? Facts are disputed, scholars disagree, morals differ. Who is right? Who is wrong? Is there a right and a wrong?

What are the implications of this question to leadership? Are there good leaders and bad? If someone is a leader, then there are others who choose to follow that person. Do people choose a leader they consider to be bad? I am not referring to people obeying an authority out of fear. I am speaking of someone who is truly a leader; someone who people freely choose to follow. There are those who choose to follow the lead of George W. Bush. They even follow him to war. There are others who would not follow him to the corner store. Those who consider him to be a leader think he is doing a good job. Others do not consider him to be a leader at all. Who is right and who is wrong?

When we are in a lead role, how do we determine when we are right and when we are wrong? Does it depend on how many people choose to follow us? How about those individuals who we now hold in high esteem who in their time were generally rejected?

I don’t have answers to the questions I pose. Even if I did, would it make any difference? If you agreed with my answers, you would consider me to be right. If you disagreed with me, you would say I was wrong.

There is always “maybe.”

100 Questions

Last September Dropping Knowledge brought together 112 leading thinkers from 56 countries to respond to the top 100 questions posed by individuals from around the globe. The questions and answers are posted on the organization’s website (www.droppingknowledge.org).

What question would you pose? One I have is why do we continue to do what we know does not work? I continually hear people complain about their jobs, their organizations, their relationships. Yet when asked what they will do to change the situation, the answer I usually hear is that nothing can be done. Then I hear all the rationalizations explaining why change cannot happen. As I heard one speaker say, to rationalize is to perpetuate “rational lies.”

It is not that changes cannot be made; it is that we won’t make the needed changes. It is easier and safer to stay with what we know even when it doesn’t work than to exert the effort and take the risk of creating something different.

Why won’t we change what we know doesn’t work? I say the primary reason is fear. Change requires courage, commitment, and community. The leader is that individual who is willing to step forward with a vision and to provide the support and create the community needed to facilitate change. Change can happen if we work together.

So, what question would you pose to the world?

From Good To Great

What differentiates a good leader from a great leader? Good leaders have a passion for their vision. Great leaders, however, go beyond possessing passion for a vision. Great leaders also care passionately about their followers. Great leaders are energized by a vision because they understand how that vision will serve the followers. What drives great leaders is not their passion for their vision but their compassion for their followers. Great leaders understand how the vision they hold can benefit their followers. Followers respond to great leaders because the followers feel cared about. What moves leaders from being good to being great is moving from caring primarily for the vision to caring more about the followers.

There is no set formula for leading. Different approaches are employed by different leaders with equal success. What really matters, in my view, is the connection between leader and follower. The great leader answers the key question in followers’ minds—“Why does this vision matter?” Great leaders make the vision relevant to followers’ lives now and for the future.

Great leading, then, fulfills the call to serve. It is not a mission or a vision or a goal that leaders are called to serve. Leaders serve human beings. If leaders do not serve who they lead, then it does not matter how good the leadership techniques. It is when followers experience what is in the hearts of their leader that the leader will move from being a good leader to being a leader who is great.