Questions Great Leaders Ask
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You want your questions to be kind of innocent and kind of curious like this. I'll give you a this suggestion to say like, yeah, I may be the new person here and I know i'm less experience in everybody. Please forgive me if i'm being nie, but can I ask and so you're setting the tones like that, your curious, you're not coming in with an organ attitude and then you want to ask some version of these three questions.

He is good. Looking back for another episode of the shell leadership podcasts, I want to say sincerely, I am thankful for you. It's an amazing thing to have in our leadership community, and I have a real passion.

I feel like it's a calling to help you get Better in your leadership. And so what I want to do is I want to talk about what you want to talk about. We're going to do is we're going to a multiple weak series where i'm answering your questions.

We ask for questions. And man, you guys ask a bunch of them. Normally, we do an episode the first thursday each month with an occasional bonus.

So hey, we're going on to want a week for as long as IT takes to work through many of your questions. So our team looks all the questions, and we saw some common themes. I'll tell you what will be talking about in the weeks to come.

A lot of you ask king about how do you lead up when you're not in charge. You talk about lateral leadership questions. How do you lead your peers? And if you were wanted to know how to develop emerging leaders or what do you do when you're starting a new role?

Lots of questions about team building and about how to create a great culture. And many of you are dealing with burn out in kind of self care issues and leadership. So we're going to hit those themes and more, less dive in today. Matthew from youtube asked the question track, what advice do you have for speaking up when you're A A part of a team and no one is making the calls?

What do you do if you're the meeting and everybody's talking and at the end of meeting, there's no action, no one's making decisions? Matthew, glad you asked that question, and i'm really glad that you're noticing and you're wanted to do something about the problem because it's important to remember that anytime you're in leadership in a meeting, you're with a group of people, remember, no decision is a decision. If you're not making a decision, you're actually deciding not to decide and is impossible to do nothing and make consistent progress.

I was tell our team that in decision is the enemy of progress. You have to decide. I'd rather make kind of an average decision, a decent decision and keep things moving and just stall with no decision at all.

And is a chAllenge if no one stepping up and no one's making the calls. And let's say maybe you're new to the team or you're you somewhere in the organization kind of in the middle, you're going to want to approach this problem with a helpful tone, not a critical tone. And this is really important.

And i'm going to talk real straight with you, Matthew. Anytime you point out a problem, and insecure leader is gna get defensive when you come and say, hey, I like this or this isn't right, we could do this Better any time you do that. And if your leader is the least bit insecure, they're going to get defensive.

Ve, in the reality is, most of us have at least a little bit or a lot of insecurity. And A C, you need be really careful how you approach raising the issue that there is a problem. So what you want to do is you want to approach this with a kind of a helpful or a curious spirit.

And what I was suggest as you do is you start by asking questions and again, watch the tone of your questions where you're not doing this coming and and hey, why want want anyone step up and decide you're not going to come in like that? Or like how do all you guys get promoted in a leadership anyway when you won't make IT say you don't you're not going to come in like that? You want your questions to be kind of innocent and kind of curious like this.

I'll give you a suggestion to say like, hey, yeah, I may be the new person here and I know i'm less experiencing everybody also, please forgive me if i'm being I eve, but can I ask and so you're setting the tones like that. Your curious, you're not coming in with an arrogant attitude and then you want to ask some version of these three questions and you want they won't be just like this. You'll put him in your own words.

But I want to say and i'm going the same again, they're going to talk about and you going to ask some version of, hey, what what do you think is our ultimate objective? Number one, what is our ultimate objective? Second thing you're going to ask is what is the best way to accomplish this objective? And then the third thing you're going to ask in your own words is who's going to do what and by when? So you can say, what are ultimately cable was the best way to accomplice ly objective.

And who's going to do what and by when? Let's talk about each of them. Matthew. First, you gna say in your own words like, hey, i'm kind of do here, and I am just kind of curious.

So that would really help me out to understand what what are we trying to accomplish? What's our objective? What decision are we trying to make? So you, you start there.

This is a non threatening way to bring closure into the decision or decisions that you need to make. And this is crazy simple, but you won't remind yourself over over again. And that is this.

We cannot do what we don't define. We cannot accomplish what is not clear. So what you're doing is if you got some people that aren't making any decisions, you are zero in on what decision do we need to make. We need to find IT so that we can do IT. And so you going to ask something like, you know what's our objective? You you're not going to use those words, but like this kind of curse, like what exact problem where we're trying to solve or you what's the question that we're trying to answer.

And so you're going to give them a chance to kind of to say this is what we're trying to do and that see, your first question kind of innocently is going to be what's our ultimate objective, what decision we trying to make? What are we trying to accomplish? And then you going to ask again, in your own words, some versions of this like, hey, what do you think is the best way to accomplish this objective, or what you think is the best way we can get this project done? And you asking to gain with kind of an innocent, what's the best way to solve this problem? And this is a polite and respectful way just to start moving the group toward a decision.

You're not come on and insane. This is what we need to do. You're not be an arrogant. You're the same. Hey, what you think we need to do about this, about this point, if you're still kind of actively engage and you're able to keep IT moving, you want to try to help the conversation, keep a focus on potential solutions, you want to keep the flow moving toward ways we can solve the problem instead of getting stuck on objections.

A lot of times what will happen is a if you're looking for a good solution, a good solution of often follow and unusual suggestion. For example, people say where there's no bad sugggestion or no bad questions as debating whether is tina. But the reality is in a brainstorming session, when you're trying to solve problems, I mean, just throw anything out there.

And we don't want to do is we don't want to start shooting down on any. We just want let the ideas flow. If someone says this may be a dumb idea, that may be a dumb idea or undoable. But IT starts the discussion and IT gets us moving toward what may be a good idea.

So you're going to say, hey, i'm new here or hey, i'm just kind of current like what problem trying to solve the objective and then you're gna in your own words like how do you think we could go about doing this? What what's the best way to accomplish this? Then once you kind of start to get movement, you might ask if it's appropriate sum version of, you know who's going to do what and by when, okay? If we know what problem were trying to solve and we know what's our next step, who's going to do what by when, this is really, really, really important.

At the end of most meetings, if your meeting is just to communicate information, you may not need to ask this question, but most good meetings don't exist just to communicate information. Most good meetings exist to push decisions you have, remember that. And so at the end of a good productive meeting, you'll generally ask some version, especially if you're the leader, you going to ask, like, so what if we decide who's going to do what and by when? Why are we asking these questions? The reason is because, Matthew, you're got people that will make a decision.

You get some passive leaders in the room. Passive leaders tend to pass responsibility IT IT happens. Maybe they're not confidence.

Maybe theyve got some minister going on at home and y're not on their game, but passive leaders tend to past responsibility. And so what your goal is, is you going to try to close the gap. You believe the best in all the leaders around you everybodys got good intentions.

But what we want to do is we want to close the gap and clearly define what is the next step. This is really important. Let's say you're leading a church and a tennis is going down or let's say you're lead a business and you can get a product out in time.

So you're get defining. Here is the here's a problem we're trying to solve, and then here's how we think we need to solve at this point. What you want to do is you don't have to resolve the whole problem.

You don't have to finish the project. You're just trying to create any kind of movement. What you want to do is define what's the next step if our churches fAllen apart.

You know, the next step might be to go interview people and find out what's going wrong or might be to go talk to let her pastor and get his opinion. If you're in business, IT might be to set an appointment or make a phone call or get a bid or meet with the board. What you want to do is you want to be specific on who does what and by win.

We're trying to drive not the whole project, but just what is the next step. And if you're always taken the next step, eventually you're going to be taking ground who does what and by win, then what you want to do is like, ask, know, what are we going to do about this to to create accountability whenever you say who does what? By when you're bringing some accountability to the promises that being made in this meeting? okay.

So mark GTA get that and. And Blakes going to get this and lean is going to get that. We're going have this by next tuesday, in the second ment, by the next meeting.

Where have all this done? And what do you do? You're creating accountability.

What is the purpose of accountability? Accountability closes the gap between intentions and actions we all want. We got good intentions. This is going to close the gap. So Matthew, as we covered a lot, and I just want to compliment you on noticing you've got really, really good instincts. If you're in a meeting and you're not driving a decision that's not generally an effective beating.

So again, you're going to come home blame, say, what's our ultimate objective with the best way to accomplish this objective and who's going to do what and by when? And is really amazing. And it's really special what a team of people can do together when you've got clear objectives, when you got a clear strategy and when you've got a accountability, you can make a big.

big difference. Hey, crag, here we'll get back to the episode in just a minute. But I wanted if, first of all, i'll share a resource that I you find helpful to your leadership.

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Now back to the episode. right? Let's deal another one hero to ask this. When you're meeting a leader that you want to learn from, how do you ask good questions?

Super glad you asked this hell, because a lot of times people will get with a leader and y'll talk the whole time or they won't ask good questions. Um what you wanted remember and the fact that you raise that question shows that you know this is if you're talking, you're not learning. Anytime you're medium with someone, if you're in y're doing all the talk, you're not doing any learning.

So you want to come in with good questions. How do you ask good questions? I give you some thoughts.

I would suggest hear, first of all, that you start with intentionality. What do you want to learn by understanding very specifically what you want to learn? You can kind of define the objective of your time with that leader.

Um you might want to learn how to make Better decisions. You maybe indecisive, maybe a procrastinate, be you get caught and you can move a decision for. You might want learn how do you make decisions.

You want to mayor, want to learn how they manage resources. One of the most important subjects and leadership that not a lot of people talk about is resource allocation. How do you decide where you put your time?

How do you decide where you put your money, your best talents, you might want to learn how that you might want to learn their leadership philosophy, not just what they do, but how they think, where their values with their strategy, what gifts or mindsets do they have to make them unique. You might want to learn how they juggle responsibility, lie s, or how they handle criticism, or how they delegate effectively, or how they create mml enim m sustain momie or help in under performing team member. So I gave you a lot there.

But before you're meeting with a leader you respect, you want to be able to finish this statement. This time will be successful if I learn what this time will be productive. If I learn what you want to go into the meeting with a real specific idea of what you want to learn, you going to be intentional. Second thing is, I suggest is focus on how and why questions focus on how and why you don't want to just know what they do. You wanted know how they do IT and why they do IT.

So you might ask like why did you choose this strategy, not just what strategy did you choose, but you want to understand what was the thought process, what were they analyzing, what was behind their decision? You might ask, why do you prefer longer meetings? Or why do you prefer shorter meetings? Or why do you not like meetings? Or how do you approach your meetings? The quality of your meetings will determine the trajectory of your organization.

If you have bad meetings and unproductive meetings, you, you can't have a productive organza. So why do you, how do you think about meetings? You might ask, how do you build trust with your team? Or how do you learn to delegate? See, you're coming in now.

Just what, but why and how and you want to ask questions that help you discover principles instead of just practices is so important. You can't copy what they do, but you can learn how they think you want to try to get IT into their minds in a similar lane. Number three, I would always ask this, ask about who or what influences them.

Super important. who? Who do you learn from? Who stretches you do? You have a mentor? You have a favor podcast.

Uh, what books have impact? Did you do? Are there any conferences that you recommend? And this is super helpful because if you can find the source of who or what shapes someone that you admire, that can open windows of learning opportunities for you to get Better based on the people that are helping them get Better.

And finally, I mean, almost every time I interacted with any leader I admire, I always ask, hey, what if you rather listen to recently this impact in the way you think? What if you read or listen to recently this impact in the way you think? I want to know every single time what's current, what's shaping them.

Every great leader is a growing leader. If you admire them, they're growing. They're not the same as the last time you met with them. I guarantee there's something new shaping them and you want to find out what IT is. Number four, finally, try to find the story behind their story, your interviews and great leader.

And you want to know, hey, what makes you tick? What's the story behind your success? What's the story behind your ministry? What's the story behind your your influence? And I want to slow IT down here for a minute because this is a little bit more advanced than what IT sounds like.

What you're doing is you're looking to discover what's in their heart, not just what's in their head. And this is really important because what makes a person great isn't just head knowledge, but there's there's usually something else. There's a drive, there's a heart they're overcoming.

There's a promise they made that they'll never are there always and you want to find that was in their their heart. And most people never get to this level of a conversation. And so what I like to do is I like to say something like, you know, if put the end of a conversation, we're clicking, we're closed like there's there's something special about you there.

There's a reason you're different. There's a reason you stand out. He set IT up like that because most people don't never say that to him.

Then you say, like, can you tell me the part of the story that most people never think to ask about? Or can you tell me the party, your story that most people don't know about you? Can you help me the part of the story that most people wouldn't understand? And what you're do as you're digging deeper? And if you can go deeper, you can hit a well of wisdom.

And I found that when you can, I call IT taking the levels down so you surface questions, Normal questions. We're going on deeper and deeper and deeper. We want to find the story behind.

There's success and there's always one and people rarely ever talk about IT. A couple of more thoughts on on this subject when you're digging and like that as often as you can. You want to find someone several steps ahead of you. Um you want to talk to someone whose business is five times the size of years, not just twenty percent bigger. You want to find someone whose ministry is twenty years and then has not just six months and IT, whatever.

And the reason you're doing this is because IT, it's helpful to me with someone one step ahead but when you do that you just learn what I called twice they're doing ah oh yeah I didn't think of that and here's how they save a little time and here's how there are a little more productive. But if you can find someone several steps ahead, if you wait ahead of you, they're going to blow your mind. They're going to tell yourself, like you thought, I never I never saw that.

I've never thought that way. They're going to take something that you're sure is this way and they're going to tell you the exact opposite. And when you meet with someone many steps ahead of you, they give what I call the gift of disorientation.

You like, wow, I didn't see that come and i'm distorted. I had a few meetings like that in my life where i've walked away confused, excited, disoriented. I'm off center is like, shaking me anto what I was sure was true and opened up my mind, ask questions of like, maybe i'm wrong.

Maybe I didn't see that and this is really, really important. I want you to pay attention to where you push back the most whenever they tell you something and you're like, no, that's wrong oh, that's stupid. Not not make IT whenever ver you do that, this might be revealing a blind spot in your thinking.

And I promise you this they didn't get to wear that you are about being dumb. And a lot of times they don't just have a Better perspective, is just entirely different ventures. They see more experiences more.

And so the point at which you push back the hardest is often the place you have the most to learn. Let me say that again, the point at which you push back the hardest is often the place you have the most to learn. I found in my leadership and ministry the times when i've said, like, oh, they just don't get all they're wrong, all that's dumb.

They don't know. My midlife most the time when if I pushed back like that is only because my mind hasn't been open to what's possible. I ve never seen what they seen.

Have an experiences, what we've experiences, and that's the point. We generally have the most to learn. So I want to say the herd, thank you.

And to the rest of you for your. Questions, emails anytime and i'm not done you like more to tell you so don't go away emails any time at leadership and lifetime church. And I will encourage you to think about your story behind your story.

Ah the reality is that wherever you are in leadership today, you may not be the leader today that you want to be, but you have in you already very real leadership potential. When I was twenty five, twenty eight, thirty, thirty five, forty two, forty seven, I wasn't the leader that I am a day but god had already put in me then what was necessary to develop, to help become the leader that I am. And I want you just to give yourself permission to think back to your childhood, think about promises that you made, like, I will never be like so and so, or one day, I promise I will.

whatever. These are very powerful shaping forces, even the painful times in your life. And I say, like, especially the painful times. And I would say, again, the purpose of this podcasts is to developed leaders not to push my faith on you. But I would just say respectfully that god is writing your story, and I would encourage you to trust him and see him if you, a person of faith, cry out to him. I don't ever underestimate the spiritual side of leadership was amazing to those who who share my faith.

We believe that whenever ver we're weak, I got makes a strong and that whenever we go through something difficult, got comforts us in the same way a week, one day can comfort and lead others in the same way and that he's working together, all things together for good in our lives, even the difficult things. So be encouraged. God is writing your story, and I believe it's gonna a good one.

Before I tell you about what's coming up, I want to a give away some books today that are related to our subject. My good friend, doctor john maxwell is the best of the best, the best, and he is a book called good leaders, asked great questions. Uh, if you'd like to win a one of five copies, hop over to youtube.

If you're not there yet already, go to youtube and type in the comment section I want to ask great questions. If you'd like to win, will pick one of five names, give out five copies and of the book and this type in the comment section, I want to ask great questions. So here's we're going to do I were going to drop one episode de per week, and i'm going to work really hard to bring your valuable content.

We going to short direct your time is valuable. I'm going to give you my best to help you get Better. What you can do for me, that's a real gift, is if you haven't subtribe describe now is the subscribe button.

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