7 Powerful Questions Every Manager Should Ask
Ask and succeed: use these powerful questions to get the best out of your team
Have you ever wondered how top managers get the best out of their teams?
It all comes down to asking smart questions. Asking insightful questions can lead to creative solutions, problem-solving, and improved productivity.
In this article, we’ll look at seven powerful questions every manager should know. Are you ready to become an expert questioner?
Let’s get started!
Clarification and Understanding: What are the key elements involved?
Example: “What are the key elements involved in our new user authentication system?”
Exploring the Problem or Situation: What’s the real challenge here for you?
Example: “What’s the real challenge here for you to implement the new database schema?”
Emotions and Values: What do you fear would happen if you/we/the team did X?
Example: “What do you fear would happen if we switched to a microservices architecture?”
Goal-Setting and Success: How will you know when you’ve succeeded?
Example: “How will you know when you’ve succeeded in optimising the app’s performance?”
Perspective and Reframing: Is there another way to look at this?
Example: “Is there another way to look at this bug that keeps recurring in our test environment?”
Resource and Support: What do you want?
Example: “What do you want to help you better balance your workload between coding and mentoring junior developers?”
Exploring Possibilities and Options: How else could you/we/the team handle this?
Example: “How else could we handle the frequent merge conflicts in our main branch?”
I hope these seven questions help you become a better manager. But guess what? I’ve got even more great stuff for you!
Want to learn more powerful questions and get other handy tools? Check out my ‘Software Engineering Leadership Mastery Pack’ on Gumroad. It’s full of real-life tips and tricks I’ve learned as a manager.
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