As a leader you might think your job is to have all the answers.
In reality, that’s not your job at all. Your job is to assemble talented people around your biggest challenges and inspire them to solve your biggest problems and take advantage of your greatest organizational opportunities.
Your organization won’t make significant impact for your cause if you think you need to always be the smartest person in the room. If you take the know-it-all posture, you’ll eventually be surrounded by disengaged people who only show up because you’re paying them, but not because they share your desire to create mission impact.
A better posture to take is to ask your people insightful questions that require them to wrestle with reality, develop strategic thought around a challenging situation, and has out the pros & cons of every situation until they arrive at a solution that they believe in.
Asking open-ended, thought-provoking questions will help your team develop and grow their own thinking and ability to navigate challenging situations in the future.
Some of the questions I rely on with my own team are:
- If we choose Option A, what resources would we need to be successful?
- What risks do you see with each of these options, and where do you see our greatest chance for success?
- How would you recommend we create alignment across the organization around this new initiative?
- What have we not thought of on this issue?
- What questions will your teams have about this, and what do we need to be prepared to address?
- How will this decision impact our partners and supporters?
- If you were me, which of these options would you pick, and why?
Remember, your job as the leader is to help guide your team, challenge their assumptions, help them sharpen their thinking, provide the guardrails for projects and initiatives, and encourage your team to keep moving forward in faith when they are worn out and facing difficulty and complexity.