The Subtle But Critical Art-form of How You Speak As A Leader
As leaders, we can only be successful if the people that report to us are successful. It is our job to create an environment that improves the chances of that happening. And while the obvious jobs of removing obstacles, navigating politics, filling missing roles and skill gaps comes to mind first, there is perhaps something even more important. And that is to invest in the people and help them grow.
How does a manager “build people”? That’s a horrible phrase, maybe even a vestige of our old command and control past. So let me rephrase it as “enable growth”. What does a manager do to enable growth in the people on their teams?
Change Some Daily Habits
My theory is that it’s as simple as the daily habits in the way we speak to our team members. Word choices. Knee-jerk reactions. Whether we ask questions or tell people our opinions; how well we listen and then ask thoughtful questions. Ultimately, whether we care.
One of my favorite lessons to repeat (as I’ve done on this blog before) is to share the advice of Edgar Schein who studied these topics his whole professional career and wrote multiple books on related topics. He says, in order for leaders to be great at what they do, they need to be able to build trust and create an environment of psychological safety with their teams. He suggests how to do this with one very simple and salient piece of advice:
“Humble Inquiry is the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not already know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person.”
― Edgar H. Schein, Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling
The impact of asking questions, he says, is that one creates a small amount of vulnerability; admiting that you do not know something, and for someone in a position of actual or perceived power, that can be impactful on its own. And he goes on to say that that act of vulnerability, combined with expressing a genuine interest in knowing what the other person thinks, is an important way that we build trust.
I’ve often equated this to our ability to make friends as we get older in our adulthood. As a child, it’s much easier for many reasons. But as an adult, it feels harder. How we spend our time is much more critical with all of life’s responsibilities. But we can build new friendships with those people we genuinely feel comfortable with, have connected with, and spent time with, doing things of interest we have in common. And, I bet, the friends you’ve made as an adult are ones you’ve both made an investment in, filled with lots of genuine question asking and shared experiences.
How You Ask Questions Matters
As a leader, the gentle art of asking questions can be a super power to help build trust and establish psychological safety. But is that all there is to it? Life at work is complicated and in larger companies, there are often long histories and cultural norms that we are still breaking down so, as a leader, we need to actively work at this key skill of building relationships, trust, and psychological safety. It is not something that one “finishes” and then remains in stasis. Just as our friends outside work will often dwindle if we fail to stay connected regularly.
The list of other things a leader needs to do to be effective in an agile world is something I’ve written about before (see: New Ways of Thinking For Managers in an Agile World and here: Senior Managers Play a Critical Role Shaping an Agile Transformation). But to continue this thread of the subtle art of communication and building trust, there are a few other things to consider.
When one of your team members comes to you with a challenge or asking for advice, what do you do? What are your instincts? Do you jump right into telling them what to do and providing your opinions? Do you say things like “Well, I would normally…” It can be very tempting, especially when in a position of responsibility, to help solve problems quickly when you have the answers. But is it the best thing you can do as a leader? You must make difficult choices based on circumstances, clearly. But maybe consider changing some of your knee-jerk reactions.
Do you pause long enough to throughly understand the person’s problem? Be wary of jumping to conclusions because you’ve seen similar situations before. You may not be right. Ask clarifying questions. Then, after fully understanding the request, carefully consider what actual problem needs to be solved. Sometimes our people are struggling with things they don’t quite communicate and the subtlety is hidden in the circumstances. Quickly do a “five whys” exercise in your head. Is this the real problem or are there other challenges you see based on your broader perspective (and hopefully your knowledge of things like Systems Thinking)?
Sometimes before we’re ready to help solve the problem, it’s helpful to even ask some more questions, both to understand and to show you care. Some of my best managers made a habit of asking me questions like “Tell me more about what you were thinking when this happened and what ideas have you already considered?” This shift in perspective, from your thinking (“I would normally…”) to their thinking (“What do you think…”) is a powerful one. And you may just find by asking that question that the person considers options they hadn’t before, much in the same way as the Rubber Duck Syndrome works, and they may even instantly solve the problem on their own.
And if you haven’t read about that before, I highly encourage it because as general problem solving goes, it’s some awesome psychology about how the brain works! It works for more than just debugging code too.
Ultimately, if you can ask good questions as a leader that inspire your team members to solve problems on their own, you have done them a tremendous favor. Because as the first line of the Agile Manifesto says, we learn through doing and in helping others do it, and that has always been a powerful technique. It’s nothing new, but such a great reminder for leaders new and old to consider as they navigate how to be of service to their teams in the best way possible.
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Hi, I’m Brian Link, an Enterprise Agile Coach who loves his job helping people. I call myself and my company the “Practical Agilist” because I pride myself on helping others distill down the practices and frameworks of the agile universe into easy to understand and simple common sense. I offer fractional agile coaching services to help teams improve affordably. See more at FractionalAgileCoach.com
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