Management Tip of the Day for Busy Leaders: The Art of Asking Questions
The art of asking good questions is an important leadership tool that has become more and more difficult to find in use. Join Jed & Bob this week, as they discuss why and how good questions can be effectively used as leadership tool.
Monday’s Tip (The Art Of Asking Questions): Use empowering questions. Empowering questions move people to positive action rather than disempowering questions that try to assign blame or retribution.
Tuesday’s Tip (The Art Of Asking Questions): Realize that asking questions takes time. Although it might be quicker to simply tell people the way it’s going to be, using questions to guide them to your way of thinking produces a much higher degree of commitment.
Wednesday’s Tip (The Art Of Asking Questions): Use confirming and clarifying questions. Much can be learned by using probing questions to learn more about a situation, or to guide people to consider things they might otherwise not have.
Thursday’s Tip (The Art Of Asking Questions): Use Positive Understanding. When someone throws out an objection, use a question that focuses on the positive part of their statement. For example, if someone tells you they’d like to do something but that it won’t work, ask them a question about how and why they would like to try it.
Friday’s Tip (The Art Of Asking Questions): Use action questions. “How soon can we get started?” “What can we do about that?” are both questions that move people to action. Use questions like these to get things moving with people.
Three Things to remember about The Art Of Asking Questions:
1. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. You will have to make a conscious effort to move to asking questions rather than telling people the way it is.
2. Use Empowering Questions. There’s more to it than simply using Open Ended Questions.
3. Asking rather than telling, questions rather than answers, is an important leadership skill.
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