Great leadership is rarely taught, but it can be mastered. I break down complex topics and offer insights, resources, and challenges to help you strengthen your skills, build confidence, refine your mindset, and lead high-performing teams.
Answers are Cheap, Questions are Valuable.
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Reader welcome back. Let's get started! My goal this year is to give you fewer solutions and more ideas that make you stop, question, and think. Because something has changed: AI has arrived. When answers become cheap, questions become valuable. Type in a question and bam. Answer! I worry that the convenience and speed of answers will allow complacency and dull our thinking. The scarce resource is no longer information. It is the ability to ask a really good question. AI can synthesize extraordinary amounts of information. But leadership happens in the subtleties: the hesitation before an answer, an unexpected word choice, a shift in tone, noticing the idea someone hasn't articulated well. That's where you come in. If you run with the first thing someone says, you may have compromised the result before you've even begun. Ask another question. Pause. Slow down. When someone says, “We've reached a pivotal moment,” don't assume you know what they mean. “What does pivotal mean to you?” Their answer may reveal an entirely different conversation. Don't assume shared words implies a shared meaning. So how do we create alignment with a shared meaning and understanding? Part of leadership is helping people articulate what they are actually thinking. Pulling at a word. Challenging an assumption. Staying curious long enough to get beneath the first answer. Linger in the moments before the solution. Play with the concepts. Resist the urgency to resolve. See the discussion as a puzzle with a piece still waiting to be found. Become the person who asks the question that clarifies the conversation and creates stronger solutions. |
Weekly Wisdom
Great leadership is rarely taught, but it can be mastered. I break down complex topics and offer insights, resources, and challenges to help you strengthen your skills, build confidence, refine your mindset, and lead high-performing teams.
Reader, just because you can, should you? Many coaching conversations begin with a focused challenge. As if there is a magic wand that needs a quick spin and then everything will be right again. Unfortunately, this is not how it works. More often than not, I will redirect and ask for introspection. The challenge you bring to the conversation is usually a symptom. It is the accumulation of stories you have told yourself, conversations you have avoided, expectations you have accepted, and...
Reader, what part of you do people see? Great leadership requires awareness of your unconscious thoughts and behaviors, and the willingness to examine how others experience them. Alignment is the goal. Are your intentions and actions aligned with how others experience you? If not, what gets in the way? Fear: Unconscious or consciously, we are always navigating safety. Protecting our fears and eliminating threats. Childhood: Many of the defense mechanisms that we developed were extremely...
Thousands of conversations with leaders have taught me this: Great leadership is not a destination. It is not found in the latest framework, model, slogan, or strategy. Great leadership begins with a state of being. Most leaders do not need more information. They need a deeper understanding of themselves: the beliefs, stories, fears, and patterns that quietly shape how they lead. Because what you believe to be the question is rarely the real question. The real questions are often harder: What...