The best leaders I know, in both personal life and professional, are masterful inquirers. At almost every encounter with members of the team, they find a way to ask questions that keep us focused both on the direction we’re heading and the way we are spending our precious resources (both tangible and intangible) in pursuit of that direction.
Here are some examples of the questions that Artful Inquirers put before us regularly:
How clear are we about the direction we are heading?
In what ways are we spending our time, effort, resources well in this pursuit?
What expenditures of our time/effort/resources seem not to be moving us toward our vision?
How clear are we, both as teams and as individuals, about the roles we are being asked to play?
How might we be clearer about the vision we have chosen, and why we have chosen it?
These types of questions, and variations on them, serve to cause deep reflection and tightening of alignments. Both are good things.
By the way, these are not posed as hypothetical questions. Thinking and dialogue are required responses.
*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to nc’s Recursive Learning.
