Leadership Is About Asking The Right Questions
Leadership is About Asking the Right Questions
Much of our leadership acumen can come from others who study the art of leadership. These days, if you Google leadership blogs, you will find many worthwhile efforts written by leading authors, coaches and speakers. Sometimes it can be challenging to know which blogs to subscribe to.
I subscribe to several leadership blogs. Some are published weekly, others arrive in my in-box daily and a few more are written monthly. One of the best is Smart Brief on Leadership, which gathers some of the best articles about leadership from across the Internet and published them, divided by categories, every day from Monday through Friday.
One of my favorites is “Leadership Freak” by Dan Rockwell. I encourage you to check it out: https://leadershipfreak.blog/ Dan uses his decades of executive leadership and coaching experience, as well as his wonderful sense of humor, to deliver daily pearls of wisdom about leadership issues from many angles.
In a recent post, Dan shared questions that one of his leadership coaching clients poses on a six-month basis for himself and his team.
With Dan’s gracious permission, I would like to share these questions with all of you:
“Halftime – Six-Month Check-Up:
- List five wins during the first half of the year
- In what areas did you make the most progress?
- In what areas did you lose momentum?
- What could you do to generate new momentum where momentum has slowed?
- What practice has served you well in the first six months of the year?
- What new practice will serve you well in the second half of the year?
- What is one thing, if it happened in the second half of this year, that would make your year a major success? (Think of things within your control.)”
I realize that these are simple questions that will not necessarily have simple answers.
Yet questions like these can help leaders get in touch with past progress and set up for future progress.
Too often leaders are so focused on the “doing” that they neglect the self-discipline to sit back and reflect on past accomplishments and future priorities.They are too hyped about the next project, the next financial goal, the next measuring stick.
When we train ourselves to pause, we can think about and integrate our lessons – we can immerse ourselves in true learning. Only by pausing to focus on those lessons – remembering them, writing them down, talking about them – can we truly benefit from them.
These short questions are a terrific addition to our learning tool kit. Use them!