Leadership Mojo: Leading by Questioning

The future of leader is leading by questioning!  –Peter Drucker.

At the age of information explosion and business complexity, leaders may not always have the right answers; but they shall always ask the right questions. Is future ready yet at this New Year Day? It's up to us. The future is in our hands. We have to reinvent what is leadership with new approaches to collective intelligence. The followers are the ones who give the power to leaders. What kind of leader do we want to be? What leaders do we want to follow? Giving the chance to everyone to become wiser and to be a better leader is a collective responsibility.

An effective leader shall not only ask a deep “WHY” --to diagnose the root cause of problems, but also ask the positive “Why NOT?" -The refusal to be bound by constraints and limitations and pursuit of possibilities rather than impossibilities seems to be a hallmark of great leadership achievements.

A true leader has vision and insight to ask “What If & How about.” A truly great leader would ask “What if we do things in a new way” or 'How can I make things better for the whole'? The one with insight sees what everyone would want to see, if only you had his/her eyes. A good leader asks the questions anyone would want to ask, if only you had his/her perspective. A great leader provides the vision to achieve the results that all would want to go if you could define the challenges.

Effective leaders navigate their leadership through continuous asking: “Who, Who not, Where, Where not, What, What not, When, When not, Why, Why not, How, and How not” 

A leader asks all: 

• What matters to me?
• What matters to you?
• What matters to us? 
• What then, must we do? 
• Why?  Why Not? What If ?..........

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A leader asks self:

• Why do I do what I am doing?
• What am I trying to achieve? 
• Where can I find my resources? 
• Who can I rely upon to help me? 
• What are the natural barriers to achieving my goals? 
• What are the human barriers to achieving my goals? 
• How can I convince others that alternatives paths will bear more or less fruit? 
• What do I need to be doing to encourage and reinforce the change I desire in my people? 
• If I could be doing something differently as a leader, what would I be doing? 
• How can we effectively deploy the influencers of change to drive the transformation throughout the organization? 

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A leader asks the team:

• What would you do if you were in my situation? 
• What do you think about that? 
• What should be the measures of success for this plan/project/idea? 
• What motivates you the most? 
• What new ideas do you have? 
• What resources do you need from me? 
• What are we missing? 
• Who can help you? 
• How will you accomplish that? 
• When do you most feel a part of the team?
• With all of our collective experience, education and, - most of all creativity - what is it we can do that nobody else can?

Lead by questioning! And learn how to serve each other better to contribute to a better society with integrity, humility, respect, ethics, fairness, empathy, and sustainability. Is the huge challenge waiting for all of leaders and today’s hyper-connected digital workforce at New Year?.

Posted in: Future of Leadership,Leading by Questioning