????????

???????

Last week, I was given a project that focused on questions and how to effectively implement them into leadership style and behavior. As I studied, it occurred to me how being able to ask good questions is beneficial to everyone as they build relationships with others within marriages, parenting, families, groups, teams, etc.. Since communication is quite often a major challenge in relationships, I would love to share with you a few nuggets from my discovery.

1. Questions will wake people up and cause the asker to learn better listening skills.

2. The goal of questions should always be to acquire relevant, honest, and informative answers.

3. Asking questions actually make people feel empowered and builds a culture of learning within the relationship(s).

4. The failure to ask questions may signal the presence of pride, fear, assumptions, and judging.

5. Questions can help build accountability in relationships and it should be mutual in nature.

6. Questions show the desire to understand and gain additional perspectives which reduces bias that can harm relationships. Understanding and being understood is imperative to relationship building.

7. Good questions do not persuade or coerce agreement. This is manipulation.

8. The questioner possesses one of two mindsets: learner or judger. Learner mindset is proactive, flexible, looks for win-win collaboration. On the other hand, the judger mindset is reactive, past focused, often blames, causes defensiveness, and results in win-lose scenarios.

Hope that my eight reflections will bless your life. Blessings.