Premise
A long time back, my first manager asked me a series of interesting questions. I had all but forgotten about them. I recently stumbled onto my old notes and realised that I had listed down those questions.
I am adding a few questions of my own, based on my experience, both as someone who reports to a manager and my experience as a leader.
I think all of us leaders could learn and would do well if we ask these questions to those we lead.
Questions to ask and Ponder
1. How stressed are you? What is causing the stress? Why? Is there anything I can do to help?
2. What are you experimenting with in your role? Why? What have you learnt so far? Why or why not (depending on the answer)? What can I do to enable you to run a few experiments?
3. Whom are you working with the most? How is the working relationship with them? Are you feeling productive? Why or why not? Is there anything you want me to do about this?
4. What would you like to work on? Why? Do you have the skills to do the work? If yes, let’s discuss how to get you to do this work? If not, let’s find a way for you to develop the skills needed for you to do this.
5. What would you like to stop working on? Why? Who else could do this work? If we already have someone, let’s discuss with them if they are ready to pick it up from you? If not, let’s find someone and train them. If that is not possible, what can we do to make it less painful, boring or tedious.
6. What about the culture do you like the most? Why? What about the culture do you like the least? Why? Is there anything we could do that would make all of us more productive working together?
7. What is it about my leadership that you want me to change? Why? What about my leadership do you want me to not change or double down? Why?
Conclusion
Answers to these questions, when answered by all our team members will reveal interesting insights about how we can improve the overall productivity of the team and our impact as a leader of the team. They also have the potential to show us our blindspots, which we can then work to improve upon.
Over time, this practice will help us continue to improve as leaders and help our teams to get highly productive as a unit leading to high performance overall.
