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Leaders Who Ask Questions
Mar. 15th, 2006 10:31 pmToday I ran across the article Good Questions Make a Great Leader. That title is going quite a bit overboard, but I did find two good uses for questions in the article.
First, when you're about to become a leader of people, ask questions of the people you will be leading both to get good ideas and to make it look like you are working with them rather than against them.
Second, instead of telling people what's wrong with an idea, ask them questions to help them see this themselves. With good social skills, that could be Socratic.
Otherwise it could definitely backfire! For example, "You're not planning on wearing that out of the house, are you?" could make someone defensive. "Aren't you afraid you'll attract perverts in that outfit? No? What are you, crazy?" These are not the right kinds of questions.
This idea of a leadership style dependent on questioning reminds me of the old give-them-a-choice method of leadership. Don't let your kids pick out their clothes--pick out two outfits that are both fine to you, and then let them choose which of these they want to wear. Or they can do one thing and suffer the negative consequences, or do something else and get positive consequences--it's their choice.
I definitely did this when I worked at a summer camp (my only leadership position). We were supposed to let the kids decide what they wanted to do, but they didn't know all the options. So, we told them all our favorite options and let them choose from among these. Occasionally someone would bring up an option we didn't like that was reasonable and that the other kids also liked, and then we had to do that. But mostly it was fun, fun, fun.
The evil salesperson version of this give-them-a-choice technique is to ask a question where all the answers imply that the person is buying something. For example, which color are you getting this in? Or which version shall I sign you up for? Or what time will you be around for me to deliver this item?
A used car salesman tried this sort of thing on me once. I said what I could afford; I think it was $3000. He asked what monthly payment I could afford. I then told him that I could afford a monthly payment of $0 (and a down payment of $3000). Eventually I escaped. It's generally not easy to respond appropriately to such evil questions, which is the whole point of them.
I do remember a use of questions at work that I liked. When I am at work, and my boss needs to give me extra duties, it's so much nicer when I get asked politely if I will accept the extra duties. Of course I am going to, but then I get to feel magnanimous. Plus, in the rare case where there's some good reason why I shouldn't accept the duties, it's fairly easy to bring that up. If I just get told to do something, or find an extra thing in my in-box, then I feel put upon and more like I am a slave. It's true that either way, I feel like I have to do whatever people tell me to do at my job, but it feels so much better with the questions.
Journal entry of the day: Friday Mania from Up On the Watershed - ". . . as you will note in the picture, . . . I can't roll a pretzel shape to save my life." Some pictures beautify, some illustrate, and some are worth a thousand words. This picture is worth a lot of words. It totally cracked me up, too.
First, when you're about to become a leader of people, ask questions of the people you will be leading both to get good ideas and to make it look like you are working with them rather than against them.
Second, instead of telling people what's wrong with an idea, ask them questions to help them see this themselves. With good social skills, that could be Socratic.
Otherwise it could definitely backfire! For example, "You're not planning on wearing that out of the house, are you?" could make someone defensive. "Aren't you afraid you'll attract perverts in that outfit? No? What are you, crazy?" These are not the right kinds of questions.
This idea of a leadership style dependent on questioning reminds me of the old give-them-a-choice method of leadership. Don't let your kids pick out their clothes--pick out two outfits that are both fine to you, and then let them choose which of these they want to wear. Or they can do one thing and suffer the negative consequences, or do something else and get positive consequences--it's their choice.
I definitely did this when I worked at a summer camp (my only leadership position). We were supposed to let the kids decide what they wanted to do, but they didn't know all the options. So, we told them all our favorite options and let them choose from among these. Occasionally someone would bring up an option we didn't like that was reasonable and that the other kids also liked, and then we had to do that. But mostly it was fun, fun, fun.
The evil salesperson version of this give-them-a-choice technique is to ask a question where all the answers imply that the person is buying something. For example, which color are you getting this in? Or which version shall I sign you up for? Or what time will you be around for me to deliver this item?
A used car salesman tried this sort of thing on me once. I said what I could afford; I think it was $3000. He asked what monthly payment I could afford. I then told him that I could afford a monthly payment of $0 (and a down payment of $3000). Eventually I escaped. It's generally not easy to respond appropriately to such evil questions, which is the whole point of them.
I do remember a use of questions at work that I liked. When I am at work, and my boss needs to give me extra duties, it's so much nicer when I get asked politely if I will accept the extra duties. Of course I am going to, but then I get to feel magnanimous. Plus, in the rare case where there's some good reason why I shouldn't accept the duties, it's fairly easy to bring that up. If I just get told to do something, or find an extra thing in my in-box, then I feel put upon and more like I am a slave. It's true that either way, I feel like I have to do whatever people tell me to do at my job, but it feels so much better with the questions.
Journal entry of the day: Friday Mania from Up On the Watershed - ". . . as you will note in the picture, . . . I can't roll a pretzel shape to save my life." Some pictures beautify, some illustrate, and some are worth a thousand words. This picture is worth a lot of words. It totally cracked me up, too.