Hello everyone, Mike here from People Centred Excellence. I hope everyone is keeping well in these unprecedented times.
In this blog I wanted to revisit one of the most powerful tools a leader can deploy to develop an improvement and problem-solving mindset in his or her organisation. The incredible power of leading with questions.
The real value of leading with questions is twofold; leaders become better positioned to evaluate the maturity of their people’s thinking and assessing various situations to take appropriate action; and the people themselves are engaged in thinking for themselves in how best to overcome the challenges and daily problems we all have. Ultimately becoming more resourceful and effective in taking action and making decisions that affect both their teams and the organisation.
It is a powerful leadership approach, as Galileo Galilei is quoted “We cannot teach people anything we can only help them discover it within themselves” and asking thoughtful questions is one means to developing that capability in our people so they can be successful in their roles.
Timothy Gallwey in his “Inner Game” series of books talks about “unlocking people’s potential to maximise their own performance, helping them to learn rather than teaching them” fundamentally it is helping people to help themselves. A leader should be thinking of his or her people in terms of their potential not just their performance and the collective potential is huge when you consider our capacity for both creative and innovative thinking to take organisations forward.
When as a leader we ask questions in a meaningful way, with the intention for developing someone, we build trust, we demonstrate respect and we show we care, these are impactful traits of leadership that go a long way towards shaping a high performance culture.
In a webinar we did earlier in the year on Leading with Questions (in a time of crisis!) I shared my research and experiences in teaching and coaching leaders to better lead with questions. One model I shared was the five levels or maturity of questioning, to help leaders understand the impact of their questions and how important it is to have intentionality behind the questions. To give clarity to this, the five levels of questioning are:
The 5 Levels of Questioning Maturity Model (Mike Denison, 2020)
If you’d like to know more about the Leading with Questions Maturity Model I have developed, send your details and we will send you a short, free PDF guide explaining each level of the model, and examples of questions at each level.
It was a pleasure to share my thoughts, methods, and experiences through the Leading with Questions in a Time of Crisis webinar earlier this year. If you didn’t catch it then, please take a few minutes to check it out on our YouTube channel. If you want to know more about this subject, and other key skills for leaders leading in a lean environment join me in February 2021 for the next run of our innovative online Lean Leadership Programme:
https://peoplecentredexcellence.co.uk/events/lean-leadership-development-course-the-role-of-leader-feb2021/
In the meantime, please try out Leading with Questions with your people; you can’t do it wrong, it will either be slightly more or hugely more effective in helping you engage with and develop your people.
Take care.
Mike.
Mike Denison
