Asking the Right Questions

Our Leadership Development Program session today was on listening and asking questions. It’s a session my previous coworker always led, but I facilitated for the first time this morning. We talked about what makes a great listener, how you can create safe spaces, and what go-to questions we should have in our back pocket.

We asked each other questions, got vulnerable, and gave valid critiques to the advice given with just one cultural context in mind.

My biggest takeaway from the discussion today was authenticity matters. You can check all the boxes for being an “active listener” (head nods, reflecting back what you heard, etc) but it’s easy to tell when people are actually engaging. Asking questions is actually a great way to be a great listener because you’re diving deeper into the conversation.

In general, the lesson is that we should be asking more questions and doing less knowing and telling.

I find myself wanting to jump to solutions all the time and I try to remind myself to slow down, listen, and ask questions. A lot of times we jump to solutions when we haven’t really identified the problem we are trying to solve.

After work, I was catching up on Brené Brown’s podcast and she said: “Most transformational leaders do not have answers, they have just stunning, I mean, breath-taking questions.”

She went on: “We can buy into the belief that knowing is the only value we bring. And so if I’m not in there knowing, what’s my value? The daring leadership response to that is we operate from the belief that leaders don’t have all the answers, but ask the right questions. So again, there is the supporting “I don’t understand,” but there’s also the supporting of pulling someone aside and saying, “When you asked the group if we thought we’d see improvement if we made these three changes, and to what degree, that was one of the best questions I’ve heard asked in a long time in a meeting like this.”

What questions should you start asking?

With Love,

Natalie