Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes
I’m devoting this week’s articles to author Gary B. Cohen’s recent book, Just Ask Leadership: Why Great Managers Always Ask the Right Questions. In previous articles I reviewed the book and shared an interview with Gary. Today’s article is a guest post from Gary on how Just Ask Leadership intersects with Reflection Leadership.
With so many organizations, governments, and industries imperiled by poor decision-making, leadership has come under question. And justifiably so. The knee-jerk response in times of crisis is for leaders to command more and ask less—to entrust decision-making to fewer and fewer people. But exceptional leaders know that it’s time to ask more, not less.
Reflection Leadership asks leaders to put a mirror up to themselves, the environment, their followers, the organization’s vision, and the systems they use. Reflection requires a pause – deliberation that’s not corrupted by a full schedule book. And reflection is by its nature a question-asking process. Witness some of the questions in this blog’s posts:
- Do we tend to just be a group working on the same stuff or are we a real team?
- Why is it that Erin always seems to be doing work above and beyond, but Julie is content just doing the minimum required and what should I do about it?
- What is the current state of governmental regulation related to our organization and is it likely to change?
- Who are our direct and indirect competitors?
Questions put us in a thoughtful, open-minded mode. They create an environment that allows meaningful changes – personal, leadership, and organizational – to occur.
Not all questions do this, of course. Some questions can spoil discovery (Why did it take so long to figure that out? Why don’t you give your other work this much attention and effort?), undermine authority (Have you gotten proper clearance for that? Why will they care what you think?), or feel like outright attacks (Are you insane? What makes you think you can encroach on my area of expertise?).
At their best, though, questions lead to more engaged and accountable coworkers. Leaders who ask open-ended questions, customized to their audience (that demonstrate knowledge of their preferences and skills), will attract followers. These followers are more apt to become future leaders because they’re being asked for their opinion on matters that concern them and the organization. They know that they have some control over how they do their work, but must be accountable for and learn from their results.
Just Ask leaders know that asking great questions is the first step. They must also strike the right tone – verbally and with body language – and demonstrate that they are truly listening to the answers their coworkers give.
It’s a big step for leaders to stop being answer-providers and become great question-askers. Leaders pride themselves on successful actions and decisions. These actions and decisions are what propelled them into their leadership positions, and some leaders feel compelled to keep acting and deciding in order to justify their titles and paychecks. It’s tremendously hard for leaders to resist the temptation to do others’ work for any number of reasons (both selfish and self-less), but they must. Leaders should focus on serving as a resource, asking important questions, and providing vision, and allow others a chance to shine, so that their energy and intelligence isn’t wasted.
Leader’s Reflection: Asking sends the message that we’re all in this together. Asking creates cohesion and resiliency, which is critical in these uncertain times. A culture of question-askers will test all answers, rigorously and often. And everyone, on all levels, will be inspired to contribute (both questions and answers), knowing they will receive credit for their contributions.
Gary B. Cohen is Partner and Co-founder of CO2 Partners, LCC, working as an executive coach and consultant. He is the author of Just Ask Leadership. For more information please visit: www.justaskleadership.com.
Hi Tom,
Thanks for asking Gary to write this piece about the importance and benefit of leaders opening themselves up to asking their team questions. I think fundamentally one of the problems is that there’s this tendency to think that being a leader means you already have all the answers, so having to ask your team for them would bring into question why they should be following you if you don’t know everything.
That’s why I think this piece hits the nail on the head by pointing out that it’s not so much the answers, but what questions we ask that’s important and what becomes the guiding force for what direction the team and company takes.
Good reminder; thanks for sharing, Gary and thanks Tom for sharing this on your blog.
Tanveer,
Thanks for the comment. It seems so self-evident an yet more leaders Tell than Ask. I really think it is about what I call “Addicted to Knowing.” We just feel good when we have the answer so we over rely on that behavior.