As a leader, how many questions do you typically ask your team? This is often an underutilized leadership super-tool. In this article, we’ll explore a range of powerful questions that can help enhance your leadership skills.
Effective Leaders Embrace the Power of Questions
Questions are a key source of knowledge and growth. To uncover new insights or find innovative solutions to challenges, we must learn to ask the right questions.
Developing the ability to evaluate the types of questions we ask—and the logic behind them—is a powerful leadership skill. Questions not only serve an exploratory purpose, but they also hold the power to influence. The questions we ask shape our focus and that of others, guiding what we notice and pay attention to. Moreover, the questions we pose impact our relationships within the organization and play a significant role in shaping its culture and fostering development.
Clarifying the Situation
- From your perspective, what is the core challenge?
- How is this challenge impacting your performance?
- Who else is involved in this situation?
- How long has this issue been ongoing?
Exploring Perspectives
- How do others perceive the challenge?
- What does the organization consider the most important aspect of this situation?
- When is the challenge most or least prominent?
- What actions have you taken in those moments?
- What personal values are at play for you in this situation?
Exploring Possibilities
- What would the ideal solution to this challenge look like?
- What aspects are most important to you in finding a solution?
- What do you hope to achieve moving forward?
- What solutions might others propose?
- What are the key obstacles preventing success?
Clarifying Action
- What actions will you and your team take next?
- What would be a smart first step to address the issue?
- What support do you need to move forward?
- How should we follow up after this conversation?
Take it to Coaching
Being mindful of the questions we ask and learning to ask them in a reflective and focused way are crucial skills for everyone—especially for leaders and managers who are responsible for fostering engagement, development, and results. Coaching provides an excellent opportunity to practice and refine the ability to know which questions to ask, and when to ask them.