Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
IMPORTANCE ASKING
reat leaders don’t just provide great answers to questions; they also ask great questions. You can learn so much by asking great questions, and this is an important habit to develop. As well as helping you to increase your knowledge and understanding, it also makes your teams feel more involved, because when you listen to them, it shows that you value their input, which increases their commitment and motivation. Here are five great questions that great leaders ask: issue that they were previously unaware of.
The better you understand the solution, the clearer you can explain it. And if you can explain it clearly, then you can get everyone on the same page — all of which increases your probability of success.
In today’s high-pressure world, you are bombarded with seemingly urgent things, but quite often these are just urgent, not important.
As leaders, you need to ensure that the majority of your time — and the time of your team — is spent on the important items. Otherwise, you will always feel under pressure. Learn to tune out the noise of the seemingly urgent.
According to research into failure, 75 percent of the teams who were involved in projects that failed knew the project would fail right from the start.
When people lack belief, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy; it is possible that some of these projects failed just because people felt they would fail.
If the team lacks confidence, it will give you an opportunity to be able to explain the approach, the solution and look to give the team the confidence they need.
It could also be that the solution is flawed or that you have missed something. By asking the team members, you give them an opportunity to point things out you might have missed or raise their concerns, which then gives you the chance to address them.
As leaders, you do not have all of the answers, and no one expects you to, but they do expect you to ask the right questions. I have worked with many leaders who felt that asking these types of questions showed weakness, a lack of their understanding or their ability.
But I believe this shows confidence. It shows that a leader is confident in the ability of his or her team and that he or she is prepared to appear vulnerable, and that takes great courage.