Leading with Questions, 3rd Edition

INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION

Do you feel that people aren't providing the information you need? Do you wonder whether the people in your unit really understand your vision for where things need to go? Do you speculate about what your boss is really thinking?

Have you ever thought about getting all this information, and more, by asking questions?

Questions can elicit information, of course, but they can do so much more. Astute leaders use questions to encourage full participation and teamwork, to spur innovation and outside‐the‐box thinking, to empower others, to build relationships with customers, to solve problems, to develop leadership skills, and to change organizations and communities, as we will show in this book. Recent research and the experience of a growing number of organizations are now concluding that the most successful leaders lead with questions, and use questions more frequently. Successful and effective leaders create the conditions and environment to ask and be asked questions. When the Center for Creative Leadership studied nearly 200 successful executives, researchers discovered that the key to the executives' success was asking questions and creating opportunities for others to ask questions.¹

Consider these successful leaders:

• Chad Holliday, chairman of the board and CEO of DuPont: “I find that when someone engages me in a question, it wakes me up. I'm in different place. Throughout the day, I try to do the same thing. I ask questions: I rarely make ...