Leaders who answer too many questions are creating more work for themselves and depriving coworkers of participating in their company’s growth according to Gar B. Cohen in Just Ask Leadership: Why Great Managers Always Ask the Right Questions.
Instead, they should ask specific questions that encourage others to brainstorm and take responsibility as opposed to leaning on one leader for all the answers.
There are five areas Cohen focuses on in Just Ask Leadership that will empower others while developing question based leadership.
Improve Vision: Gaining Insight from All Levels of the Organization
This involves establishing a unified vision with shared values in an organization. Each individual needs to align their values with the organization so that everyone is unified with the same goals. If there’s a gap between stated values and operating values, it reflects poorly on the company and detracts from the developing leadership.
Ensure Accountability: Increasing Team and Organization-Wide Performance
When job descriptions are clear, it’s easier to see who made the mistakes and who’s to blame. Leaders are advised to focus more on job descriptions, performance reviews and resource allocation rather than trying to manage everything themselves.
Build Unity and Cooperation: Creating a Culture of Trust
It’s important to listen respectfully to coworkers’ questions and opinions since they’re all a part of the team. Getting everyone to participate isn’t always easy, but when coworkers realize their ideas have value and the organization is receptive to them, they’re more apt to share.
Create Better Decisions: Getting the Right Answers by Asking the Right Questions
In order to avoid the blame game, it’s important to know who is responsible for specific problems. Otherwise people who don’t want to make decisions will bounce them off to someone else, which doesn’t contribute to leadership development.
Also covered is how not to be pressured into making quick decisions when busy or distracted. Children learn to ask questions when parents are distracted and employees do the same thing with leaders in the hope that they’ll come up with a quick decision. Other useful subjects include how to keep meetings on track and when to seek complex solutions to problems.
Motivate to Action: Asking for Success
It’s a balancing act for a leader to able to create a sense of urgency without becoming intimidating. Even under the most urgent circumstances, asking others for input is recommended rather than making quick decisions in a panic. There are also excellent tips in Just Ask Leadership for building rapport, customizing incentives and developing leadership in this section.
- Just ask Leadership (publisher McGraw-Hill, 2009, ISBN: 9780071621779) is a straightforward guide to effective leadership development. Each chapter is broken up into insightful questions that contribute to strengthening each member of the organization. Asking questions rather than making demands is the main difference in this question based leadership style. If the right questions are asked, everyone is happy, mutual respect is maintained and the organization excels.
Gary Cohen interviewed almost 100 effective leaders to find out how they used questions to improve their organization. He’s the founder and partner of CO2 Partners, LLC working as an executive coach and consultant. He’s also the president and co-founder of ACI Telecentrics, Inc., a company he helped grow from one to 2,200 employees.
Other books related to leadership development:
12 Qualities That Make You a Leader
The Good Person Guidebook
The Offsite by Robert H. Thompson
Sandra Williams - Sandra's a book addict and writer from Ontario, Canada. Her interests include cooking, health and personal development, so many of her ...
