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  • Answering a Question that’s Just too Personal

  • This one’s pretty short and sweet. Just because you’re a leader and someone has asked you a question doesn’t mean you always have to answer it. It is perfectly okay to establish some boundaries, usually around your personal life, that you’re not willing to cross. As long Don’t answer a question just because it’s asked. [...]

  • Answering when no One Wants to Hear the Answer

  • You know the truth; they know the truth. It’s just that no one wants to hear it. Flash back to your college days and hear the groan that followed the professor’s "quiz tomorrow" announcement. Remember your reaction when your child’s teacher called and said that your firstborn wasn’t working up to their potential. These both [...]

  • Answering when you can’t Answer

  • State secrets, confidential information, competitive analysis–you know the whole thing, and someone asks you a question about it. The butterflies start immediately. The person who asked is trustworthy, and you’ve been their leader for a long time. They know you know. You know that they know that you know. You can’t answer. You’ve been cautioned, [...]

  • Answering when there isn’t an Answer

  • Some questions just can’t be answered. Not because you can’t reveal information or because all the facts aren’t in, but because there just isn’t an answer. Life is full of questions that can’t be answered. How big is the universe? How high is up? Why do bad things happen to good people? These questions exist, [...]

  • Answering when the Answer is No

  • No means no, but leaders and parents often fall into the same trap and use it to mean maybe. This is a place when your past track record will serve or haunt you. If you consistently say no when you mean no and say maybe when you mean maybe, then, over time, answering with a [...]

  • Answering when the Answer is I don’t Know

  • We established early on that becoming a leader does not ensure that you become the fount of all wisdom. That being true, you’re bound to face a question where you simply don’t know the answer. Don’t panic. First, think through the question again to determine if you’ve been asked a fact question or an opinion [...]

  • What will the Organization do to Support me? What are my Benefits? What will this Mean for my Career?

  • Up to this point, we’ve explored questions leaders need to ask and answer. We haven’t looked at any questions leaders should not answer. Now is the time, and these three questions are perfect examples of questions leaders shouldn’t answer by themselves. Visualize a briefing after a plane crash. The chief investigator from the National Transportation [...]

  • Will Our Values Last?

  • My guess is that you won’t be able to answer this question, but you ought to be very glad someone asked it. Leaders help establish, shape, and nurture organizational values. A leader who goes home at night knowing their team lived their values that day has done the job of a leader well. But values [...]

  • Who Will be my Leader?

  • This is a flattering question depending on the nonverbal behaviors that go with its delivery. As a successful leader, you’re allowed to bask in the warm feeling that this question conjures up for a few seconds before you proceed to answer it. Time’s up. In Creating You & Co., William Bridges suggests that " Job [...]

  • What’s Going to Change? What’s Going to Happen to my Job?

  • Some questions that come up during mergers and acquisitions are pretty easy to answer if you’re willing to face people who won’t be happy with the answer. The answer to these questions falls into that category. This won’t be a one-time conversation; what you’re about to read is a very abbreviated version of a real [...]

  • What’s the Long-Term Impact of this Crisis?

  • By the time this question is asked, the immediate crisis has probably faded. This question becomes the basis for dialogue about the future. As a leader, you want to avoid the position of just being a dispenser of wisdom most of the time. During a crisis it is appropriate for you to be an answerer; [...]

  • Am I Going to Have a Job Next Month?

  • Questions during a crisis are less about facts and more about emotions. This question comes straight from the gut, not the head. Most leaders I’ve watched acted as if it were just the opposite. When they ignore the emotions and speak only to the facts, they lose their team or their audience. That’s why Yes [...]

  • What’s Going to Happen to me?

  • This is a question that is asked but not vocalized, so you may have to bring it up yourself. In any crisis people look closest to home first. That’s nothing to be ashamed of–it comes from the survival instinct in all of us. But sometimes, when we realized we’ve stopped thinking about the big picture [...]

  • What’s Going to Happen Next?

  • If you ignore the advice from the last question, you probably won’t have to face this question. Not what I’d recommend, however. When people ask What is coming next?, it is good news. This question means they can see a little beyond the immediate, and it is usually an indication that you’ve been doing a [...]

  • What’s Happening?

  • The response to this question is less about completeness than it is about frequency. In the midst of a crisis, leaders can have an unimaginable list of people competing for their time and attention. It appears that the people on their teams often go to the bottom of the list. I think this is a [...]

  • What Gives Your Life Meaning?

  • This is the BIG question, and only you can answer it. But answer it you must. Leaders owe it to themselves as well as the people they lead to go deeper into their own motivations, their hopes, and their dreams. Business schools don’t require a course in "Understanding Your Personal Mission" for graduation, nor do [...]

  • What do You do Just for Fun?

  • I was doing a team-building session for a group of system-types in a large organization. We had claimed our space in the corporate conference center and made it ours for the two days of our session. By the afternoon of the first day, it was a mess. Flipcharts covered the walls, candy wrappers littered the [...]

  • What do You Love About Your Job?

  • Did the word "love" in this question make you raise an eyebrow, cough nervously, or think about moving on to the next page? These questions are going to get increasingly personal as the pages turn, and you’re going to have to make a decision about whether or not you’re going to stay with them. Being [...]

  • How do You Re-ignite Your Enthusiasm for Your Job?

  • Everyone gets down in the dumps. The trick is not to stay there. Especially when you’re the leader. So, how do you re-ignite your enthusiasm? I call my grandson Quinn. At the time I’m writing this he’s twenty-one months old, and his favorite word is WOW! (The caps and the exclamation mark are deliberate–you can [...]

  • How do You Stay Positive?

  • I’d like you to try a little experiment. Remember the first day of your first real job. What happened that caused you to hide the expression on your face so no one else could see the silly grin that spread from ear to ear? Remember what triggered the response and what the response felt like. [...]

  • What are You Learning?

  • In a recent interview on the Today show, the musician Jon Bon Jovi told Matt Lauer how much he enjoyed working as an actor with Matthew McConaughey on the movie U-571. As an inexperienced actor, Bon Jovi looked to McConaughey as a leader and wasn’t disappointed. Bon Jovi said that it wasn’t what McConaughey said [...]

  • How do You Measure Success?

  • Recently, four of us gathered around a table to play cards. Of the four, one knew all the rules, two knew some of the rules, and the fourth thought she’d played the game once in her life. We played a practice hand to give everyone the opportunity to get a feel for the rules, and [...]

  • What Makes You Angry in the Workplace?

  • My friend Kathryn Jeffers wrote a book called Don’t Kill the Messenger: How to Avoid the Dangers of Workplace Conflict. In the Introduction, she paraphrases Aristotle’s words on anger. He believed that anyone can become angry, but to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, for the right purpose, and in the [...]

  • How do You Take Time to Think?

  • This question can be tricky if your answer is I don’t or I’ve heard of people who try something like this. How do you find time to think? Not to solve problems or put out fires, but just to think about things both big and small. I know, I know: you’re so busy every day [...]

  • How do You Make Decisions?

  • After a fifteen-year on-again, off-again quest, I found a copy of a book I remember from my early childhood, I Decided. Rereading it after more years than I care to share with you, the story was just as I remembered. A little girl goes shopping with her mother and is allowed to pick one toy. [...]

  • How Can I Advance in Our Organization?

  • Have you ever listened to the radio station WIIFM? I’m surprised if you haven’t. It has the power to broadcast all over the world, and my experience, both personal and professional, leads me to believe that everyone tunes in to this station–sooner rather than later. WIIFM stands for What’s In It For Me. Get it? [...]

  • How do You Know what I do in my Job?

  • I’m often hired to do skill-building workshops for frontline employees. The particular skill doesn’t seem to matter; the same question is asked by participants, "Are you doing this program for our managers/leaders?" Usually the answer is no, but I’ve come to believe that their question isn’t grounded in a concern about the skill set of [...]

  • How do You Learn About Our Customers?

  • Several years ago, one of the airlines aired a TV commercial that told the story of a leader who gathered his team around a table to announce that one of their oldest clients had just called and fired them. As he handed out plane tickets, he told the team that they were going to visit [...]

  • What Gets You Excited About the Future?

  • Have you ever known anyone who’s had a brush with death? People’s reactions vary, but most often they seem to walk away from the experience vowing to make every minute count. They realize there are no guarantees when it comes to the future, and that’s okay as long as they are taking advantage of the [...]

  • What is the Future of Our Industry?

  • I’ve always understood the expression "Can’t see the forest for the trees." It wasn’t till I moved to northern Wisconsin that I realized not everyone does understand it. It’s easy, in this land of wonderful woods, to miss the beautiful expanse as you focus on one scruffy pine–wondering why someone hasn’t pruned it. The same [...]

  • What do You See Happening in Our Organization Over the Next Twelve Months?

  • It’s the vision thing. In my favorite leadership book, The Leadership Challenge by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, the authors remind leaders that it is their job to imagine things for their organizations that are beyond the ordinary. That’s why people ask this kind of question. It is their attempt to understand, clarify, [...]

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