According to Mike Myatt, "The best leaders don’t engage in monologues; they stimulate conversations. They understand conversations are not competitions to be won, but opportunities to enrich, inspire, challenge, illuminate and learn. So, what makes for great dialogue? Great questions."
His belief is that, "the most powerful question of all is the one that works within the context of the situation at hand. The question must be appropriate to the person(s) being addressed, the timing must be spot-on, but most importantly it must unlock the door to reveal the needed input/feedback/information."
In this article he lists 50 of the best questions he's come across.
The ability to question effectively is often highly underrated but in many ways it is the single most important competency that we possess as leaders, parents and innovators. The art of asking the right questions at the right time can have a profound effect on people - just ask a good coach or an inventor.
Leaders often begin their careers feeling that they need to have all of the answers. In truth, the sooner they realise that they don't (and shouldn't feel they have to) and instead begin to ask questions and admit they don't know, the more effective they become as people leaders.
This article provides a list of useful questions to ask and reading through the list is stimulating - trying to understand why these questions are powerful is particularly interesting. But most of all leaders need to learn how to ask the right questions so that choosing the right questions is a skill that comes naturally.
Matthew
Emerging World