The right question at the right time can change everything. If you want to become a better leader, ask better questions. In this episode, Craig shares practical strategies he uses to ask the right questions. Watch video and download the leader guide: https://www.life.church/leadershippodcast/unlocking-the-power-of-great-questions/
Chapter 1: What is one of the most powerful leadership tools?
I want to talk to you about one of the most powerful leadership tools that is strategic, impactful, deeply relational. Getting it right can transform your leadership. Getting it wrong is guaranteed to limit your leadership. Today, we're talking about one of the most underrated leadership skills.
Chapter 2: How can asking the right questions transform leadership?
We're going to talk about how to ask better questions because the right question at the right time can change everything. Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast, where our mission is to help you become a leader that people love to follow. If you're new to our leadership community, I want to welcome you.
We drop a new episode on the first Thursday of every month. And so if you have not subscribed, let me encourage you to hit subscribe wherever you consume this content. And please, please, please, Make sure you're getting the leader guide. The leader guide is packed with valuable information, summaries, questions, information to help you grow in your leadership, to help you go over with your team.
Go to life.church slash leadership podcast, life.church slash leadership podcast. We'll send you the free leader guide with the release of every single episode. And hey, I love hearing from you. Those of you on YouTube or Spotify, wherever you can comment, comment anytime. If you have questions, ask them. And I would love to know where you're listening from or where you're watching from.
Just type that in the comment sections. And then anytime you post on social media, it means the world to me. Tag me and my team may repost you. We want to work hard to invite others to be in our community. Let's dive into new content. Today, this is part one of a two-part leadership teaching, and we're talking about how to ask better questions. What do we know about most leaders?
Most leaders are obsessed with having the right answers, right? But we have to acknowledge that you'll never get the right answers without asking the right questions. What's interesting is that I'm really honored to have done leadership Q&As at different places around the world. And every time we do a Q&A, people ask some version of about the same 12 or 15 questions.
I mean, over and over and over and over again, they're gonna ask, tell me about your schedule. How do you delegate? How do you stay mentally healthy? How do you develop a great culture? How do you increase the vision? How do you appropriately allocate resources? How do you stay motivated, scale up? How do you handle criticism? How do you deal with conflict?
How do you not grow crazy leading for years and years? And we get a version of those over and over and over again. In all my years of doing Q&As, I don't remember anyone ever asking, How do you ask better leadership questions? How do you ask questions to get really the deep and the best answers? And people should ask that because it's so, so, so important.
And if you wonder, like, why should we focus on leadership questions, I'll tell you why. Because your leadership potential will never exceed the quality of the questions that you ask. If you want stronger relationships, better outcomes, and to make a bigger impact, ask better questions. The quality of the questions that you ask determine the quality of the information that you get.
In many ways, the potential impact of your leadership is based on the quality of the questions that you ask. So what we're going to do is we're going to get very, very practical. We're going to talk about the why, the how, and the what. In other words, like why. Why do you want to ask more questions? Like why do you want to shut your face and listen more than you talk?
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Chapter 3: Why is it important to ask better questions?
If you want to make a bigger difference and to grow in your leadership, what type of information do you want to know from your team to help you grow in your impact? So let's talk with the why. And this is relatively obvious, but why do you wanna ask questions? And we're gonna talk about three reasons. One is very, very obvious. Two, not as obvious to some leaders. Three reasons.
You wanna ask questions, number one, to gain knowledge and understanding. That's pretty obvious. We wanna know more. Number two, you wanna ask questions to develop deeper and stronger relationships. Number three, you wanna ask questions to help others grow and gain insight. Let's talk about them. The first one is relatively obvious. You're gonna ask questions because you need to know information.
You want to figure out what's going on. Now, you've probably heard it said, You don't know what you don't know. People say that all the time. I'm gonna add a little bit to it and tell you this. You don't know way more than you know you don't know.
I'm not even sure I said that right, but there's so much more about leadership and about people and about what's going on in your organization that you don't even know that you don't even know. And this idea is closely related to the Dunning-Kruger effect. If you've never studied the Dunning-Kruger effect, please do. We've created a short summary in the leader guide.
And so if you get the leader guide, we'll put some information in there. But essentially, it's a cognitive bias. And you see it on two extremes. People with low competence tend to overestimate their ability. In other words, you've got someone that's not really good at something. You say, how good are you? And they say, like, I'm a nine at this. They think they're really good.
Yeah, you're a nine, but the scale goes from one to 100 because they really don't know what they don't know. And then on the other side, there's people that are highly competent, and they underestimate their expertise. They're so good at things that it's just intuitive to them, and they really have no idea how special their gifts are.
I want to focus on the first end, and that is this, that you don't know what you don't know. And as a leader, I promise you that you're going to have to work really, really hard and then harder, and then even harder to discover what you don't know. And in most cases, whenever you're really confident, the more confident that you are that you're right, the more you're vulnerable to being wrong.
And this was really like in the first season of my leadership. I just remember in my 20s and early 30s thinking I knew a lot, and I was pretty sure I was right. And I had no idea what I didn't know. And I had to work really, really hard to learn where I was blind, what was going on that I didn't understand.
And really, there were like levels of leadership understanding that I'd yet to even... I hadn't even entered the room yet. And so... If you're like most of us, and if you're like me, when you don't know something, you're often hesitant to ask. Because I'll tell you me, I don't want to look dumb. I'm kind of insecure, so I don't want to appear weak.
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Chapter 4: What are the three reasons to ask questions in leadership?
What you're doing is you're asking questions to bring everybody on the same side of the table, and then together you're going like, okay, we're solving problems together, we're seizing opportunities together, and so you're asking questions that bring this unifying force of agreed vision and strategy, and this can be a game changer organizationally.
A word of caution, and I promise you this is a risk. The higher you rise in leadership, in other words, you get promoted or you do it longer or you're the goat, you're the one everybody listens to, whatever, the higher you rise in leadership, the harder you have to work to ask sincere, others-focused questions.
You have to work at it because people are going to defer to you and you're going to start thinking you know more and you don't. And first of all, if you're more important than everybody thinks you are, you start to think you know more than you do. And it's stupid, but you don't know. You're always a student.
Secondly, if you're not careful, your questions, you'll be asking questions, and the people you're asking to, they'll actually feel like you're attacking them. Or you're giving orders. These are two risks. You're asking questions to your team members, and they feel like, oh, I'm on the defense. Why is she asking me these questions? Or you come in asking questions, and it feels like orders.
I'll give you a kind of example. What you want to do is, if you're going to be asking a lot of questions, you want to work to create a climate of trust and safety. What I'll do if I've got a lot of questions for somebody, I'll typically say something like this, like, hey, I'm going to ask you some questions, and the reason is because you're really smart.
I'm going to ask you questions because I truly value your insight, and I love the way you think. A lot of people just see problems, but you don't just see problems, you see solutions. And so if it's OK with you, would you spend a few minutes and help teach me what you see that I'm not seeing?
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Chapter 5: How do questions help develop deeper relationships?
Chapter 6: What is the Dunning-Kruger effect and how does it relate to leadership?
You're asking to help them see something new and to help them learn and grow. If you've ever been to a good counselor, counselors specialize in this technique. A good counselor knows that if he or she tells you a truth, it doesn't change much. What a good counselor wants to do is they want to guide you to discover the truth yourself. And my counselor would do this, and it would drive me crazy.
I'd be like, just cut to the chase. Just tell me. Like, no, I need you to discover it. And so you don't want to tell them how to change their thinking. You don't want to tell them how to change their approach. What you want to do is you want to ask questions and help them see, oh, OK, this is a better way to think or this is a better way to approach that.
Now, when you're using questions to coach someone, you're guiding them with questions. Remember, the best leaders don't just ask questions to get answers. They ask questions to get people thinking. You're not just using it to say, hey, I want information from you, but you're also asking to get people thinking and to discover information for themselves.
Now, as a side note, I want to talk to you parents. This is a great tool in parenting. And one of the things I learned raising six kids that are now grown is it's not always wise to ask your kids like, hey, what are you struggling with? What problems are you facing? When a parent asks a kid that, the kid often gets defensive.
What I found is a better question is to say, hey, tell me how your friends are doing. What are your friends going through? And I've noticed this. It's like our kids don't mind talking about their friends. They just don't want to talk about themselves. And so they'll often talk about their friends' struggles.
And when they do, mom or dad, they say, oh, you know, my buddy's dealing with porn, or he's dealing drugs, or he's depressed, or he's suicidal, whatever. Don't freak out. Don't lecture your kid. Don't say you're not allowed to hang out with that person anymore. Listen with no judgment and also with compassion. And you say back to your kid, like, you know, that's gotta be difficult.
That's gotta be painful. You wanna keep your kid talking. You wanna keep the lines of communication open. And then once they tell you something, a really good question to ask is, well, what would you suggest that your friend does? what would you suggest they do?
And what you're doing is you're helping train your child to both be honest and to think critically about a situation they may face one day and they may be facing now. So you're just asking open-ended questions, you're getting the conversation going, and then you're teaching your child to think. That was a parenting side note. Back to your team. This is really valuable to do with your team members.
Whenever you're asking questions, one of the things you want to recognize you're doing is you're shifting the focus. You as a leader, so many things are about you. Like you walk in the room, you're the most important person in the room, you're gonna do the talking. When you ask a question, you shift the focus from you to them, and this matters so much.
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Chapter 7: How can asking questions model humility and teachability?
And so he was just asking a question. You know what happened? The team repainted the whole auditorium with a different color just because he asked a question. And so you have to be really, really careful and just understand how other people feel on the other side of your questions. And on another level, you're gonna have to work hard just to create a climate where people feel
safe to tell you the truth. For example, this is a true story. I asked a team member one time, do you think we should do this? And he said, no, definitely not. And he was so confident that it surprised me because I thought, I'm not sure it's really clear. you know, maybe we shouldn't do it, but it's just not clear to me.
And since he was so confident, I thought, obviously, he knows something I don't know. So I'm like, well, great, man. Tell me why we shouldn't do it. And the next thing you know, he flipped his whole thing. He said, oh, actually, I think we should do it. Which one is it? You just told me no with confidence. Now you're telling me yes. And the problem is, and it's not his fault,
but he wanted to please me. And your team, they're gonna wanna please you, and they're gonna want you to like them. And so you have to work really, really hard to say, hey, tell me the truth. Like, what do you really, really think? And you've gotta create a climate where they feel safe, where they feel confident, where they can speak freely. So,
To get good and helpful information, you want to ask good and helpful questions. And remember, I'm going to say it again, the quality of the questions you ask will determine the quality of the information that you get. Warning, and please hear me on this. You gotta be super careful when you're asking questions that you do not fish for what you want to hear. I do this, you're likely to do this.
It's so easy to ask leading questions. And so what you wanna do is you don't ask questions to confirm your biases. You ask questions to determine what's true and helpful. Don't ask leading questions. And we do this all the time. You come in like going, hey, why do you think this event wasn't very good? You set the tone and you're helping tell them you don't like the event.
Or you'll say something like, you don't think she's doing a very good job, do you? what's your employee going to say? They're going to agree with you. Or you'll say like, our pitch was amazing, wasn't it? This is a dumb question. And so I want to say it again. When you're asking questions, you're not searching for information to confirm your biases. You're asking open-ended questions.
You're absorbing information. You have to walk in and assume you know nothing. And anytime I walk in with a pretty strong opinion, I kind of have this posture like, prove it wrong. Like, if you can prove it wrong, I want you to prove it wrong. I think I may know, but I could definitely be wrong, so I'm really, really open to it. So, let's get practical. How do you ask open-ended questions?
And this is super important. Watch... how you ask questions, and see what word you're using to lead your question. I'm going to tell you right now, start with what or how instead of did or do. Anytime you're asking a question, look at where you start. Start with what or how instead of did or do. So you're not going to go up to someone and say, do you like this plan? What are their choices?
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Chapter 8: What are the risks of asking questions as a leader?
This is a Christ-centered book that deals with spiritual doubts. And we want to give away some of those books. We couldn't figure out what to have you type in the comment section. Like, I want Craig's book. Give me your book. And so we asked Grayson, the audio engineer. Shout out, Grayson. Loud shout. Loud, loud, loud. He is the intern.
audio engineer, and he said, have him type in, I like free books. So, if you'd like to win one of five free books, type in the comments section at YouTube or Spotify, wherever you can, I like free books, and we will see if you win a free book. So, what's your assignment now? Your assignment is this. Be curious. Be engaged, be open, be prayerful.
When you ask questions, you start to get information. I like to sit on it, and I like to start to connect the dots. I heard this, and I heard this. And then I like to pray, I like to listen to God. And I tell you right now, trust your gut, because you're learning, you're absorbing, you're internalizing, and you're processing. And you know how if you ever use AI, AI is learning you?
Well, here's what's really cool is you're not AI. You don't have artificial intelligence, but you have God-given wisdom, and that's a great thing. And so what do you do? You're asking questions, you're absorbing, you're processing, and you're listening beyond the noise. And you're thinking beyond the obvious and you're praying beyond the possible. And when you ask better questions, guess what?
You get better insights. And then you move beyond the surface level conversations and you uncover what truly matters to people and what they're seeing. And you stop settling for quick answers and you're pursuing deeper wisdom. And you're not asking questions to use the people that serve with you, but you're asking questions to know them and to love them and to value them. And you don't just react.
to what's seen or what you hear, but you discern what's unseen or unspoken because, and again, you know I'm a pastor, so I gotta say it, we serve a God who can do exceedingly and abundantly more than all you can ask, think, or imagine according to his power that is at work within you. So there's more in you, and I wanna encourage you.
As a leader, if you're starting out, if you're a seasoned leader, wherever you are, ask great questions. Ask the right questions. Why? Because the right questions at the right time will change everything. Thanks for investing half an hour with me today. And I believe you're getting better. I'm getting better. We're all getting better. And that's good news.
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