Why lead with questions?

Do you have budget to confirm before 30 June?
The end of the 30 June finanicla year is on its way. If you have budget to confirm before then, let's make something good happen. Email if you'd like to chat about: Your next team offsite One-on-one coaching for your emerging leaders. Training your team to facilitate with less stress and more impact.

Do you have budget to confirm before 30 June?

The end of the 30 June finanicla year is on its way. If you have budget to confirm before then, let's make something good happen. Email if you'd like to chat about:

Your next team offsite
One-on-one coaching for your emerging leaders.
Training your team to facilitate with less stress and more impact.

People leadership can feel like a poisoned chalice sometimes.

You work your arse off to get the promotion. Yus! You've made it!

But suddenly your weeks are consumed by other people's priorities.

You can barely breathe under all the one-on-ones.

You get invited to all these meetings "just in case" it relates to your team.

And don't even get me started on the joy of managing poor performance. That's nobody's idea of a good time.

Soon, you might be going: Remind me why I became a manager again... Yeah, the pay is better and the title is nice. But is it worth the stress?

Leading with answers is stressful

We've been sold a lie about leadership - by the media, our education system and our politicians.

We've been conditioned to believe that leadership is about being bold, visionary and certain.

The prevailing wisdom says that it's your job to have things figured out. Vision. Strategy. Culture. You set these, filter them down to everybody else and then inspire compliance.

Mark Zuckerberg exemplifies this prevailing worldview.

Writing in 2015, Stephen Robbins, the world’s best-selling management textbook author, wrote about Zuckerberg’s “immeasurable influence on shaping the culture of their organisation”.

Apparently, Zuckerberg would end meetings by pumping his fist in the air and leading employees in a chant of DOM-I-NA-TION!

Today, Zuckerberg's dominating leadership style is driving investors to frustration as he doggedly pursues his vision with scant regard for the consequences.

Zuckerberg's approach to leadership is based on telling. He leads with answers. It gets results in the short-term, but can be disastrous in the long-term.

Leading with questions invites curiosity

The latest brain research shows that questions light up our brain far more than answers. They flick a switch and vrrrrrooooom away goes our brain.

As a leader, you face a simple choice multiple times a day.

Should you respond with curiosity (and a question)?
Or should you respond with judgment (and your answer)?

Put this filter across everything this week and notice what happens.

You'll notice that questions invite contribution while answers invite critique. Questions focus people on future possibilities; answers focus people on past frustrations. You'll observe how questions open people up; how answers shut them down.

If you're doubting your leadership role this week, let me ask you this: What if you started leading with questions?