Why questions are the leaders best friend

Questions are useful in many ways for leaders. A great leader can lead by only asking questions, once the vision and direction of the company are clear. Practice your ability to ask questions, and you will see a massive change in your outcome.

Use open-ended questions where the other person is not able to answer just yes or no.

The quality of your life is also dependent on the type of questions you ask yourself. The person that is hardest on yourself is you. For instance, if you ask yourself, “Why don´t I Lose weight?”

Your mind will tell you, “Because you are a lousy pig!”.

If you instead ask, “How can I lose 5 kg in 3 months, and enjoy the process at the same time.”

Then your mind will come up with a better answer.

Here are a few reasons why questions are so powerful to use in leading your people:

You will learn from others

If you want to learn as a leader, you need to ask questions. Be humble enough to and ask for help. Many leaders think they need to know everything when they get a leadership position.

You will be able to listen to others.

There is a reason why we have two ears and one mouth. When you let the other person talk, you will build a connection, and the person will feel important. People are interested in people that are interested in them.

You will be able to understand the other person point of view, and that can be valuable when you are going to help that person to succeed.

“You will get everything in life if you help enough people to get what they want” Zig Ziglar

You will show empathy.

“People don´t care how much you know until they know how much you care” John C Maxwell

Questions show that you care and that you want what´s best for your people.

You will show trust

By asking questions, you show that you trust someone with their opinion, instead of telling them what to do. Clarifying questions can guide the person in the right direction. If you give them the answer to their problem, they will only come back to you again instead of trying themselves first.

Frame the problem and come up with the solution with the group

A technique I use is facilitated in front of a board when there is a complex problem that needs to be solved. With questions, the group will be engaged in solving the puzzle together, and the outcome is always great. The valuable leadership hack here is to facilitate what need to be done, not how it should be done.

You build accountability

When you have a group intervention like the one, I just described the likelihood of the result to occur is much higher than if you do the work yourself and then telling others what to do.

When you manage people with little interaction, studies have shown that 50% understand what you mean, 25% are willing to accept, and 12,5% are eager to go through and incorporate the new directive.

It is beneficial to involve your management team or the people that you lead and asking questions to foster accountability.

Instead of telling a person when you want a task to be done, you can ask the other when the job could be finished. If you have that person also saying the date in front of others, there´ll be a social commitment that is harder for that person to brake.

You will grow others

Questions are the foundation in coaching. Most often, the answer to a person’s problem lays within themselves and questions can bring that forward.

“I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think” Socrates.

To grow other leaders and be able to harvest the benefits of better leadership, you must master the skill of questions.

You are stating an example.

Leadership is visual, and if you lead by example, more will follow. I ask the same questions several times, and people will know that they will receive specific questions back. Some of my regular questions are:

1. Come to me with the alternatives to solution, not only the problem.

2. Is your proposal anchored with everyone affected by it?

3. Are we helping others to succeed?

4. Are we working together?

5. Are we learning and developing others?

6. Are we appreciating one other?

Etc…

You get the picture.

Question are the leaders best friend, and the better you are in asking questions , the better your result is going to be both for yourself and for you as a leader.