How To Explore The Tough Questions

How are you at asking the tough questions?

As a leader, much of your job is in asking the tough questions. This differentiates leaders in a big way. By ducking the big questions, conflicts remain unresolved. Hidden agendas remain hidden. Team coherence suffers when too much is kept secret. People start acting in ways that are counter-productive and misguided because the lack of clarity has taken away the guidance they seek.

Sometimes we need to ask the tough questions.

Who should a leader ask the tough questions?

- Team members

- Peers

- Leaders above

- Constituents all around you

- Customers

- Regulators

- Even the competition

What are the tough questions?

The tough questions are those you probably already know but may feel uncomfortable asking:

- What's going on?

- How are you in that big project?

- Where are you in achieving those goals?

- What will you do if your resources come up short?

- Where will next year's customers come from?

... and many, many more. The tough questions have no easy answers and usually involve more work. But the questions and the issues are there whether or not you know about it. Whether or not you know what they're thinking, they're still thinking what they're thinking.

Centered leaders don't back away from the tough questions.

Centered leaders explore tough questions with courage and compassion -

the courage to raise a difficult issue and face it head on
the compassion to listen thoroughly to the views of others and delay reaching conclusions on their content or their character.

Look at your conversational partner with respect. Listen carefully to what they have to say. Hold off on judging them so that you can learn all of the relevant facts and feelings by asking every question you need to ask. See where they're at, and ask what they would do next.

It could possibly be the biggest and best thing you do as a leader this week. When will you start?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Learn more in the workshop: Communicating for Results

Comments

One Kind of Choice

It is not always the answer, but surprisingly often it is: It's easier to hire a motivated worker than it is to motivate an unmotivated one. That's not the end of the story. It could be great hiring advice though. Whatever the technical skills are for people you are interviewing to hire, be sure to ask some questions about motivation that can't be answered with a yes or no. Questions like: When were you the most motivated in your life? What kinds of work motivate you? What's your approach to a work day when for one reason or another you don't feel very motivated? If you had been here for one week, what would we see that shows us how motivated you are? Start there, and follow-up with more questions. Give each candidate time to convince you whether or not they will bring motivation to your organization. You can teach people almost anything, but it's always easier if they are already motivated. -- doug smith

All Edge in Moderation

I once had a boss who, during my performance evaluation, told me that I was doing a good job as a leader but that I needed to develop more of an edge. I wasn't quite assertive enough. She was concerned that people might take advantage of me. I worked on my edge as a result. I sharpened it thru steady practice. I had an edge to end all edges. At the next evaluation, what do you think she suggested? "You need to dial that edge down a bit," she laughed. It's not either/or. Assertiveness is valuable and necessary. Aggression, not so much. You don't have to dull your edge -- just don't cut yourself with it. -- doug smith

Lead with Compassion

Does your team know that you care about them? How do they know? Is it from your flexibility? Is it from your discipline? Is it from the time that you take to talk with each and every one of them on a regular basis? Times are tough for many team members. They are wrestling with issues that we don't even know about, plus some issues that we DO know about. How leaders respond makes the difference between a functional team and a dysfunctional one. Go for the functional, fully moving forward team that delivers on performance. Build trust, build relationships, spend time getting to know your team and letting them get to know you. The payoff is immense. Lead with clarity, courage, compassion, and creativity. If you don't know where to start, start with compassion. Leading with compassion builds trust. And trust propels high performance teams to success. Go for that success. You can do it. You're the boss! -- doug smith

It's More Than Talk

Every conversation is an opportunity to make someone's life better. Take the chance. -- doug smith

Try Not Lying

High performance leaders communicate without lying. That's harder than it sounds. So hard, that hardly anyone ever does it. -- doug smith

Character Is In The Actions

Some days it's easier to preach than perform. Resist that temptation. Telling people what to do works for a little while, but eventually they are going to watch to see what YOU do. Character, no matter how it is presented verbally, is revealed in action. Kindness is shown by helping. Courage is demonstrated by standing down an evil force or intention. Creativity is demonstrated in the art created, not the art criticized. I've sometimes fallen into the temptation to preach. It comes easy. Opinions just roll off my tongue. But, I'm working on that. Preaching is easy. Performing takes work. Practice build character. Do the practice. -- doug smith

Something Other Than Games?

If you turn the system into a game people will game the system. Competition isn't the only way to achieve excellence. What if you could find a way that didn't also bring the side-effects? -- doug smith

What to Blame

It's better to blame the product than it is to blame the customer because you cannot fix the customer. -- doug smith

Show Integrity

The goals we seek bring a lot of pull to them. We get wrapped in them. It's useful and it's powerful when we care about our goals so much that they propel us forward and keep us working even when we're tired, beyond the boundaries of our usual limitations. But they should not take us beyond the boundaries of our usual values. They should not trick us into bending the rules just because the rules are in the way. Truly high performance leaders of character who are focused, and centered, and noble maintain integrity. No cheating is ever worth the outcome. Integrity is so rare that many people don't even recognize. If you do, be thankful. We need leaders like you. To truly understand integrity you've got to keep it. Even when it's hard. Even the lines are blurred. -- doug smith

Start With Kindness

When you start with kindness you don't have to stay there, but you probably will. It works better for others. It works better for you. If you're human, you'll probably relapse. It does take practice to stay the course. The course starts by starting. When you start with kindness, it becomes more naturally the way. High performance leadership develops from the core leadership strengths of clarity, creativity, courage, and compassion. Build one of those strengths today thru some act of kindness and the others will get stronger as well. -- doug smith

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