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 statements until I have sized up the person's energy and focus, and whether they are open-minded; only then can I move. If I don't ask questions, I could be underrating the situation and problem, and miss the key issues."
• Michael Dell, founder of Dell Inc.: "Asking lots of questions opens new doors to new ideas, which ultimately contributes to your competitive edge . . That's why you must encourage the free flow of information at all levels."
• Pentti Sydänmaanlakka, director of human resources at Nokia Networks: "Leading with questions has been always part of my leadership because I believe that leadership is not telling, but inspiring and showing others new places where they haven't been earlier."
• Eric Schmidt, cofounder of Google: "We run this company on questions, not on answers."
• Robert Hoffman, executive director for organization development at Novartis: "Questions have changed me immensely. I have greater self-confidence and a more relaxed attitude. I don't feel that I always have to have the answers in conversations or in situations where I need to speak on the spur of the moment. I feel this has increased my communications skills, especially listening and persuading."

These leaders have discovered the amazing power of questions. Questions wake up people. They prompt new ideas. They show people new places, new ways of doing things. They help us admit that we don't know all the answers. Questions build great people, great organizations, and great communities.

Unfortunately, many leaders are unaware of the amazing power of questions, and how they can generate short-term results and long-term learning and success. If you have never considered making questions a tool in your leadership kit, this book is for you.

Of course, many leaders do ask questions but, unfortunately, disempowering questions such as these:

• Why are you behind schedule?
• Who isn't keeping up?
• What's the problem with this project?
• Whose idea was that?

Too often, we ask questions that disempower rather than empower our subordinates. These questions cast blame; they are not genuine requests for information.

Other sorts of questions are often really just thinly veiled attempts at manipulation: Don't you agree with me on that? Aren't you a team player? If you tend to ask these sorts of questions, this book is for you.

So the point isn't that we just don't ask enough questions. Often, we don't ask the right questions. Or we don't ask questions in a way that will lead to honest and informative answers. Many of us don't know how to listen effectively to answers to questions-and haven't established a climate in which asking questions is encouraged.

And that's where this book comes in. The purpose of Leading with Questions is to help you become a stronger leader by learning how to ask the right questions effectively, how to listen effectively, and how to create a climate and culture in which asking questions becomes as natural as breathing.

Research on and with Leaders Who Lead with Questions

Both of us have spent our careers training managers all over the world, more recently developing leaders who ask questions. Mike was a global leadership consultant for twenty years and then served as a professor for the Executive Leadership program at George Washington University for over thirty years. Bob has served in a variety of positions at Cru, and is currently managing the organization's senior leadership program. His biweekly blog, Leading with Questions, recently celebrated its tenth anniversary.

Over these many years, we have noted more and more frequently that leaders of the more successful companies tend to question others and themselves more often. We have made a concentrated effort to discover why questions are so important to leaders, why they result in such success, and what questions are the most powerful and used most frequently.

Among the questions that we asked of the 45 leaders highlighted in this book:

• When did you start using questions and why?
• What are some of the ways in which you use questions?
• What questions have been most effective?
• What has been the impact of leading through questions on (a) your organization and (b) you as a leader?
• How has the use of questions changed you as a leader?

Their responses to these questions and their stories are interwoven throughout the third edition. As you read this book, you will discover the wisdom of the question-asking leaders. Among those who shared their experiences as questioning leaders are senior executives from DuPont, Marriott, Popeye's Chicken, Alcoa, Box of Crayons, Novartis, and Cargill; public leaders from global and national agencies, coming from every corner of the world, including Brazil, Finland, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Mauritius, South Korea, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, Singapore, and the United States. We also sought out the latest and best research on questions from many of the leading authorities and gurus in the world. Brief biographies of these 45 leaders are contained in Resource A.

What's New in the Third Edition?

There are many exciting differences and additions to the third edition of Leading with Questions. First, we have a wonderful new co-author, Bob Tiede, who is a leading advocate, practitioner, and author in the field of questions. His blog, Leading with Questions, began just before the second edition was written. Over the past ten years, there have been over 1,000 posts guest-written by over 500 leaders and authors in the areas of questioning and leadership.

We both continue to identify and admire great questioning leaders. Fifteen additional leaders were interviewed for this edition, and have been added to the 30 who were highlighted in the second edition. The wisdom of these new leaders on how to increase the power and impact of questions is integrated throughout this edition.

The impact of the pandemic worldwide between 2020-2022 has made work life more virtual. This edition explores the latest and best research and practices for asking questions in this new environment-research on how to ask questions, what questions to ask, the skills of great questioners, and the use of questions in diverse settings and situations. Over the past ten years, there has also been new research and ideas on the best ways for developing questioning leaders, especially the advancements in action learning, which is described in Resource B.

Key Aspects of Leading with Questions

This book is composed of three parts. In Part I, we explain why questions can be so powerful for individuals and organizations. Chapter 1 examines why leaders often prefer to provide answers rather than ask questions and how limiting-and disastrous-that can be. We show why questioning is actually the ultimate leadership tool. Chapter 2 details the benefits for leaders and organizations of creating a question-friendly organizational culture. A questioning culture strengthens individual and organizational learning; improves decision making, problem solving, and teamwork; promotes adaptability and acceptance of change; and helps empower people by strengthening self-awareness and self-confidence.

Part II offers practical guidance on asking questions effectively. Chapter 3 explains the stumbling blocks many of us face in asking questions and tells the stories of several leaders who have overcome them and benefited enormously. Chapter 4 shows how effective questions are empowering while ineffective questions disempower; offers a thorough analysis of different types of questions; and describes the roots of great questions. Chapter 5 explores the art of asking questions effectively, examining how one's...