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

Start With Decisions

Do you share leadership? The most powerful teams share leadership responsibilities AND attitude. When you develop a team where people feel empowered to take charge, take responsibility, and take ownership you then no longer need to do all the difficult work. Delegation becomes easier. Collaboration feels more natural. Start with decisions. It's fast and easy as a leader to make all of the big decisions, but when you include your team in the conversations it takes to gain mutually shared understandings and collaborative decisions, you no longer have to "sell" your decisions --- people simply know what you as a team have decided and act accordingly. No passive aggressive resistance, no passengers on your team "bus" -- just fully engaged team members. Start with collaborative decisions. The rest will be much easier. -- Doug Smith

Promise and then Deliver

Be careful what you promise to gain a new customer. They are only new for a day. After that, expectations continue even if you forget your promise. Be careful what you promise. Do you have what you need to give your customers what they want? Because probably, what they want, is what you've promised. -- doug smith

Personally

Improving performance does require us to take our work seriously. But it does not require us to take ourselves too seriously. Taking things personally is a waste of self-esteem. -- doug smith

Get Going!

What goal are you working on? Maybe you don't spend every minute of every day working on your goals. I certainly don't. But when I do work on my goals they propel me forward. They get me going. Find your favorite goal. Work on it. Even if you start with the smallest task. Put one task after the other like little steps leading to a lofty elevation. Goals get us going. Because standing still goes nowhere. -- Doug Smith

Life Never Stops Teaching

Which learning curve are you climbing? The lessons keep coming. When we keep growing, our energy sparks with new creativity, new courage, new compassion, and new clarity. When we keep growing, life's adventure brings more smiles than troubles. High performance leaders make it a point to keep learning. That means taking on the tough assignments. That means listening to the needs of your team and building on their ideas. That means constantly debriefing, decoding, and deciding. There's a lesson in all of this somewhere. Centered leaders find the lesson and grow. Life never stops teaching. What have you learned today? -- Doug Smith

Don't Jump!

I do it. You've probably done it, too. It gets us into trouble misinterpreting and reaching false conclusions. Slow down. Ease up from that jump. Stop that jump to conclusions and you'll avoid many big falls. -- doug smith

Focused Truth

Focused leaders have zero time for inauthentic messages. They tell the truth unconditionally and insist on the truth consistently. Be a leader who can handle the truth. Be a leader who tells the truth. -- doug smith

Solving Problems Requires The Courage to Tell The Truth

Can a problem be so tough that we deceive ourselves about solving it? In any problem there is a temptation to soften the edges, smooth the rough spots, to paint a better picture than we see. Sometimes we take sides and spin the truth in favor of our side, even when that contributes to a conflict or problem. We can do better than that. Solving problems together requires the courage to tell the truth as you see it. Not our version of the truth. Not our ideal of the truth. The truth as it exists, weak spots and all. If we want to clearly analyze a problem, we must be willing to see, and tell the truth. -- Douglas Brent Smith

Focus on Process

Fix the situation and let people be who they are. As much as you might want to change them, that's not your business. They are doing what they think is right, even if it is horribly wrong. Turn around the situation and watch them rotate, too. -- doug smith

Developing Leadership

We are constantly developing leadership -- the work is never done. New challenges, new people, new goals. That includes how we lead and who we develop as current and future leaders. Developing leadership is a constant. What's your plan? -- doug smith

High Performance Leadership

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