Download of great leaders ask great questions pdf

If not, its uncertain at best. Most people do not push themselves to their full capacity to reach their potential. Gerald Brook says it this way: If life is like an elevator ride, most people will get off one floor lower than they have to. How can I succeed working under poor leadership? Consider whether or not you might actually be the problem? Determine whether or not you have specific evidence to support your opinion? Ask to speak with your leader privately.

Determine whether or not you should stay or move on? A person with a clear purpose will make progress on even the toughest road. A person with no purpose will make no progress on even the smoothest road. How can I successfully navigate leadership? Weigh the risks and rewards. All change does not represent progress, but without change there can be no progress. Bill Gates said this: In three years every product my company makes will be obsolete. The only question is whether we will make it obsolete or someone else will.

They struggle to focus on the best opportunities. Succession plans do not develop anyone, only development experiences develop people.

How can I develop leaders? Look for potential leaders. Leaders are catalysts. Leaders are influencers. Leaders are relationship builders. Leaders are value adders. Leaders are gatherers.

Leaders by definition are out in front. Leaders are finishers. Teachability: Are the growing now and are they open to growing more. Capacity: What is their potential? Is there plenty of room for growth. To your success and your future. Like this: Like Loading Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:. Are your efforts at work making your family stronger or putting them at risk?

How can I help you here? Aside from profit motive, how does this change lives — how does this make the world a better place? How do we know what our [team, organization, culture, business] need to look like three years out?

Can you give me a bit more detail on the logic used to arrive at your [costs, timing, return estimates, etc. How will this impact [individual, team, business unit, competitive advantage, brand perception, customer satisfaction, etc. What are the greatest challenges you face in pulling this off, and how do you plan to deal with them? Which markets, partners, clients, or other opportunities can add significant value to our business?

What will be the key performance indicators for this? How will we measure them, and what hurdles do we need to hit to be successful? Do you have the necessary resources financial, technology, talent, infrastructure, etc. How can we improve the risk management, governance, control, and reporting functions for this? Why should we make this investment? As I mentored you from afar, I watched you grow from a good to a great leader.

Now I enjoy mentoring you personally and am delighted to count you as a friend. Why Are Questions So Important? How Does Leadership Work? How Can I Develop Leaders?

Q uestions for forty years Ive asked questions on the subject of leadership. You might think that as time has gone by, and Ive received thousands of answers, questions have become less impor- tant to me. But the opposite has been true. The more questions I ask, the more valuable I recognize them to be. Without the wise counsel and insightful answers Ive received to questions over those decades, I wonder where I would be today. Certainly I would not have grown as much or come as far.

The people who cared enough for me to give me guidance and advice when I asked questions have made a world of dif- ference in my leadership. Now that Im in the second half of my life, people are asking me questions more and more. I think its because they have come to see me as a father gure in the eld of leadership. Thats partly due to my age. But its also because people sense my desire to add value to them and those who are hungry to learn often seek me out. When I rst began teaching leadership, I spent nearly all my time giving lectures.

Today, at almost every speaking gig, people want time to ask me questions about leadership, which I welcome. As people share their issues and concerns with vulnerability, I try to share my experiences with transparency. I always want to help people who want to make a difference. Ive come to enjoy and value this experience so much that I wanted to write this book.

Its my desire to show the impact that questions have made on my life, share the leadership questions I ask myself and others, and answer questions from people from many countries, back- grounds, and professions. The Value of Questions If you want to be successful and reach your leadership potential, you need to embrace asking questions as a lifestyle. Heres why: 1. I have! Too many times Ive allowed my desire not to look foolish to keep me from gaining knowledge that I needed.

Richard Thalheimer, the founder of the Sharper Image, once asserted, It is better to look uninformed than to be uninformed. For that reason we need to curb our egos and ask questions, even at the risk of looking foolish.

If youre worried that asking questions will make you look bad, let me give you some perspective. I enjoy reading Marilyn vos Savants column in Sundays Parade magazine. Are you related? Do you think daylight saving time could be contributing to global warming? The longer we have sunlight, the more it heats the atmosphere. I see falling stars nearly every night. They seem to come out of nowhere. Have stars ever fallen out of any known constellations?

When I dream, why dont I need my glasses to see? Can a ventriloquist converse with his dentist while his teeth are being worked on?

I just observed a ock of geese ying in a V formation. Is that the only letter they know? If you want answers, you must ask questions. No one has helped me understand the value of questions more than my friend Bobb Biehl. IBM founder Thomas J. Watson said, The ability to ask the right question is more than half the battle of nding the answer. But thats true only if you are willing to ask the question.

It was fun to watch, but it was pure luck. Sometimes people won great stuff. Other times they got nothing. In lifes journey we face many doors. Hidden behind them are all kinds of possibilities leading to opportunities, experiences, and peo- ple, but the doors must be opened before we can go through them. Questions are the keys to opening these doors. For example, recently I had the privilege to interview former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice at Stanford University for the Leadercast event.

Knowing that more than , people would be watching, I wanted to ask good questions of this amazing woman who has such extraordinary knowl- edge and life experiences so that we could learn from her. I spent days doing research, reading her books, and talking to people who would give me insight into her. When I nally met her, I found her to be delightful and insightful. With each question I was able to open more doors of understanding into her experiences.

By the end of our time I had found a wonderful friend. I learned a great deal, and I believe the rest of the audience did too. The ability to ask the right question is more than half the battle of nding the answer. Thomas J. When you face a problem and dont know what steps need to be taken to advance the team, ask the following questions: Why do we have this problem?

How do we solve this problem? What specic steps must we take to solve this problem? Management expert Peter Drucker said, My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions. He knew the secret. Successful leaders relentlessly ask questions and have an incur- able desire to pick the brains of the people they meet.

Questions Are the Most Effective Means of Connecting with People I often watch speakers stand before an audience and work to build a case for their ideas. They would be more successful if instead they tried building a relationship with the people in the room. The word commu- nication comes from the Latin word communis, meaning common.

Before we can communicate we must establish commonality. The greater the commonality, the greater the potential for connection and communi- cation. The goal of effective communication is to prompt people to think, Me too! Too many speakers seem to elicit the thought So what? The most effective way to connect with others is by asking ques- tions. All of us have experienced the interest of others when we were lost and asked for directions.

People will usually stop what theyre doing to help others. Questions connect people. Of course, you have to ask the right questions. We had such a great time. But let me tell you something: over the four days of golf with them, the professional golfers never once asked me any questions about golf. Not once did they ask me to help them line up a putt or to give advice about what club they should use. Those werent the right questions to ask me. I have nothing of value to offer them in that area of their lives.

I am an amateur. On the other hand, they did ask me a lot of questions about personal growth, leadership, and book writing. In fact, they even asked if I would sign books for them. What you ask matters. So does how you ask. If we want to connect with people, we can be like the census taker who had driven many miles down a remote country road to reach a mountain cabin.

As he pulled up, a woman sitting on the porch yelled at him, We dont want any. Were not buying anything. Im not selling anything, the census taker said. Im here to take the census. We dont have one, the woman said. You dont understand, the census taker said. Were trying to nd out how many people there are in the United States.

Well, she said, you sure wasted your time driving out here to ask me, because I dont have any idea. As playwright George Bernard Shaw observed, The greatest problem with communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.

Questions Cultivate Humility Early in my career I didnt ask many questions. I mistakenly believed that as a leader I should know the answers to the peoples The greatest problem with communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished. As a result, I adopted the ridiculous attitude of fake it til you make it. Unfortunately, that caused me to do a lot of faking but very little making. It took time for me to become mature enough to say, I dont know and I need your help.

Had I been wiser, I would have paid attention to the words of King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, who looked at the enormity of his leadership responsibilities and said, I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Thats a keen insight. Too often, fear keeps us from being vulnerable and feeling secure enough to ask questions. When I was a young leader, I didnt feel wise enough, strong enough, mature enough, competent enough, condent enough, or qualied enough.

When I began to be honest with myself, allow my weaknesses to humble me, and go to God for help, I began to change. I became more open and authentic. I was willing to admit my mistakes and weaknesses. I devel- oped appropriate humility, and I began to change and grow. My journey at that time was difcult and often lonely. I had to drop many bad habits. I had to change wrong priorities.

I had to embrace new ways of thinking. I had to ask myself hard questions. Before, I had been unwilling to be wrong, and as a result I had been unable to discover what was right. Isnt it strange how we must surrender being right in order to nd whats right, how humility enables us to be authentic, vulnerable, trustworthy, and intimate with others?

Read Online Download. Maxwell by John C. Add a review Your Rating: Your Comment:. Developing the Leader Within You 2.