Inquiry Leadership Requires Leaders Who Don't Need
When I need, I am looking to get what I “need” from a situation. As a leader, maybe I need reassurance, safety, commitment, information, etc.
But do you really want your employees focused on meeting your needs?
In Inquiry Management, there are two types of needs that we want to focus on:
What does the organization need?
What does the employee need to be most effective?
On the organizational level, we want to orient everyone in the organization toward a shared “want for us.” “Want for us” is a term that I use in Corporate Renewals, regarding the shared values, goals, relationships, systems, and esprit d’corps (spirit) of the organization. Corporate need is about what is needed to create the “want for us,” and NOT what I need from you as your leader or manager.
When we orient around the needs for achieving a shared goal or objective (want for us), everyone sees that they are winning through meeting the corporate (shared) needs.
The second level of needs that you, as a leader, need to focus on is to ascertain what the employee needs to accomplish the “want for us”? Does the employee need information, resources, mentoring, support, understanding, or . . .? The only way to answer this question is by engaging your team through inquiry and not through making assumptions.
Inquiry Leadership means engaging your employees by inquiring into them, asking questions so that you really understand what is going on. As a leader, your job is to understand them and guide them to the answers, and to become more valuable to the company by becoming more capable and more knowledgeable.
As leaders, we must support the growth, confidence, and development of our teams, and to help everyone meet the needs of the vision. Thereby, everyone wins, including you. Inquiry Leadership is the way to do this.