Quotes for you

Always address a person in her resources first. — Insoo Kim Berg

The 10 secrets of successful leadership

This entry is part 1 of 10 in the series The 10 secrets of successful leadership

Secret Number 1: They ask the right questions!

Successful leaders don’t know all the answers. They don’t try to do everything by themselves.
They are surrounded by very good employees who have become that good because the leaders have given them the possibility to grow and learn. But how do they exactly do it?

They are great in letting their employees be the experts and giving them what they need to do a great job. And they are successful because they know what questions to ask their employees to enhance progress and to help them to achieve their high goals.

Useful questions of successful leaders are the ones that

  • focus on the knowledge and the expertise of the employees
  • help their employees to define their own goals that motivate them
  • highlight resources and things that already work well to build on them
  • aim at solutions and not at problems (“Problem talk creates problem and solution talk creates solutions” – Steve de Shazer)
  • give the employees confidence that they can reach the goals
  • Useful questions that enhance progress might be:

  • What is your goal? What will be different once you reached it?
  • What is already working well? What resources can you build on?
  • How confident are you on a scale from 1 to 10 that you can reach your goals?
  • What gives you the confidence that you are not at 1 anymore but already at X? What else?
  • More questions here
  • What about you? Are you the only “genius” who knows everything and is surrounded by bad employees? Or are you already asking the right questions to let your employees make progress and be successful? Find out and ask your employees!

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    2 comments to The 10 secrets of successful leadership

    • venu

      Hello Dominik

      why do you think this book is different from many other books written on similar subjects ?? What are the other special fatures..
      Pls let me have your response.. to check out this book

      Nice to connect to you..
      thank you kindly

      Venu

    • Hello Venu

      Thank you for your question. It depends on which book you refer to:

      “The Powerful Performance Program”
      This ebook is great because it asks the right questions to improve your performance. I call it an eWorkbook because you have to work to find your right answers. The feedbacks so far are great!
      Check it out here

      “57 SF Activities for facilitators and consultants”
      The great thing about this book is that around 40 authors contributed to it and that they chose the most effective and best workshop interventions. In addition the activities are playful and a lot of fun to use. I tried several of them and they are great. You can find it here

      Best regards
      Dominik