Want to Be a Better Leader? It Starts with Asking Better Questions

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by Michael A. Tennant

 

Questions aren’t just one-off icebreakers for team building. Instead, they’re an operating system for clarity and connection.

Eight years of building a values-driven question game taught an unexpected leadership lesson: Asking better questions can transform how you lead. Intentional prompts can build five critical skills that many leaders chase: self-awareness, deep listening, values alignment, perspective taking, and reframing limiting beliefs.

Building a values-driven question game began while I was battling burnout and social anxiety. As an introvert, even facilitating group play was hard. Working through the questions privately, and then with small teams, rewired how feedback landed, how conflict de-escalated, and how decisions moved faster. The good news is you can apply the same practices without any special tools.

1. Strengthen self-awareness and awareness of others.

Questions surface the stories and motivations that drive decisions. Prompts like “What were the holidays like for you growing up?” or “When do you feel most free?” reveal patterns you may be carrying into today’s work. They also help you notice how emotions show up in groups.

Try this:

  • Pick three prompts that spark genuine curiosity.
  • Journal your answers. Then, jot down what they reveal about motivations and triggers.
  • Bring one question to a weekly team huddle and reflect on what you learn about teammates’ styles and needs.

2. Practice deep listening, not just waiting to talk.

The only hard rule of our game, Actually Curious, is “listen to understand, not to react.” That’s simple to say and hard to do, especially in conflict or negotiation. Practicing with structured prompts gives you reps turning off the fight switch and finding win-win outcomes.

Try this:

With a trusted colleague, choose two value-centered question prompts. The speaker will answer while the listener only takes notes. The listener reflects on one thing they didn’t agree with at first but now understand based on the response.

3. Align on values so decisions get easier.

When it comes to value-driven questions, “tell me what you believe” is too broad. People default to safe answers. Targeted prompts uncover shared principles faster. Questions like “What are you willing to fight for?” or “What is guaranteed to bring you happiness?” surface nonnegotiable that guide trade-offs.

Try this:

When someone answers, jot two to three values you hear. For example, fairness, autonomy, and reliability. Confirm with them, “I heard autonomy and reliability. Does that resonate?” Invite them to do the same when you answer. Capture a visible team values list to reference in mitigating debates.

4. Build your perspective-taking muscle. 

Perspective taking is a relationship superpower, and it improves with practice. Even light prompts such as “Name five musicians for your ultimate supergroup,” or “Pick one: introvert or extrovert” train your brain to imagine another person’s view before hearing them or even reacting.

Try this:

This practice is called the mind-reader game. Choose a few fun prompts and one thoughtful prompt. Everyone privately writes their answers. The group guesses each person’s responses before the reveal. Notice when you’ve read each other well and where you miss. That’s coaching material.

5. Reframe limiting beliefs into actionable “yes, ands.”

Great leaders hold two truths at once: decisiveness and possibility. Prompts like “What does ‘perfect’ mean to you?” or “When did you last cry and why?” surface subconscious beliefs that narrow options. Once visible, you can reframe those beliefs into fuel for innovation.

Try this:

  • Run a solo or team journaling session with three to five challenging prompts.

List the beliefs that show up. For example, “Perfect means never making mistakes.”

  • Reframe each into an abundance statement. This should be something affirmative and within one’s control. For example, “Perfect is consistent progress and shared learning.”
  • Convert one reframe into a concrete habit for the week. For example, “Ship v1 on Thursday. Review learnings Friday. A perfect evolution of the project.”

Make questions part of your operating rhythm. 

Questions aren’t just one-off icebreakers for team building. Instead, they’re an operating system for clarity and connection. Layer one practice into your calendar: weekly prompt, monthly values check, or a quarterly perspective-taking game, a scarcity to abundance reframing exercise. Measure the shift in trust, speed in decision-making, and quality of ideas. With steady reps, you build empathetic leaders at every gamified engagement.

This post originally appeared at inc.com.

How to integrate integrity into your company culture

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by Ron Johnson

 

According to a recent study conducted by the global consulting firm, EY, 97% of respondents reported that it is important for companies to act with integrity. Many companies tout integrity as a core principle of their organizations in an attempt to reassure customers, employees, and the wider public that their organization “plays by the rules.” By some estimates, integrity is ranked as one of the most cited corporate core values, with over 80% of companies listing integrity as a core value.

But simply including integrity on your list of core values and mounting that list on a plaque on a wall (as many companies do) won’t positively influence your culture unless your core values are fully embraced and lived by employees each and every day. After all, Enron was once the darling of corporate America and a supposedly stellar business success story—until news broke that Enron had engaged in what would turn out to be one of the biggest accounting scandals in U.S. history.

Here’s why listing “integrity” as a core value and getting employees to live with integrity in the workplace can pose a challenge—even for companies with the best of intentions.

A few years ago, the CEO and chairperson of a large financial institution were caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar, engaged in what could be described, at best, as questionable behavior. When the media asked the chairperson if what she and the CEO had done was aligned with the company’s core value of integrity, the chairperson replied, “Integrity means different things to different people.”

The media and the public were outraged by the response. But, y’know what? The chairperson was right! Integrity does mean different things to different people when it comes to business practices.

Here are three steps to take if you want to build a company where everyone understands exactly what integrity means to the organization and exactly how to demonstrate integrity in the workplace.

1. Define what integrity means for your company

An organization’s perspective on the topic of integrity most often comes from the leadership of that organization, and their various versions of integrity are often reflected in corporate policies.

For instance, ice cream chain Ben and Jerry’s version of integrity is reflected in their policy to only use fair trade–certified ingredients, ensuring that farmers along their supply chain are paid a fair price for their products. Chipmakers like Intel demonstrate their version of integrity by avoiding using “conflict minerals” that are mined under conditions that could be considered to be abuses of human rights. The Body Shop demonstrates its version of integrity by committing to never testing its products on animals.

Some companies whose very business models, products, services, or waste may be viewed by others as causing harm to the communities in which they operate try to demonstrate integrity by engaging in acts of restitution. For instance, timber company Hampton Lumber plants three trees for every tree it harvests.

Outdoor clothing company Patagonia, known not only for the quality of its products, but also for its efforts to minimize damage to the environment, donates 1% of revenue to environmental groups. (Despite these actions, some critics insist that the acts of restitution pale in comparison to the destruction caused by the companies and even accuse these companies of “greenwashing”—a deceptive practice designed to paint organizations as being more environmentally conscious than they are.)

But, demonstrating “boardroom integrity” through corporate policies isn’t enough to qualify a company as being one that acts with integrity. Companies also need to demonstrate integrity at the grassroots level. It makes little sense to list “integrity” as a company core value unless that commitment to integrity permeates every corner of the organization on an individual, team or departmental level.

2. Clarify what integrity means for your employees

So, since integrity may mean different things to different people, how can a company’s employees truly commit to integrity as a core value?  There’s no easy answer to that question, but one way to stay within the boundaries of ethical behavior is to use “the social media test” where you instruct your employees to ask themselves, “would I be comfortable if this behavior, action, or decision were to be reported on social media (or in the newspaper) for everyone to see?” If the answer is “no” to this litmus test, then deep down in their hearts, they probably recognize that whatever they are considering probably isn’t aligned with the principle of integrity.

Another way to clarify to your employees how to act with integrity in the workplace is to articulate clear behavioral expectations expressed not in abstract concepts but in clear, crisp, and concise language, using what I refer to as the “even if” principle to make it crystal clear that your organization values integrity over the potential short-term benefits of acting unethically. For instance, members of your organization’s sales department might be told: “Integrity means never misrepresenting a product to close a deal, even if it means losing a sale.”

Consultants that provide services on an hourly rate to clients might be instructed to never overestimate or bill clients for time not spent on the account—even if that means not hitting monthly billing targets. Quality control managers at a company that manufacture parts may be told in no uncertain terms to never ship faulty products—even if a customer might never notice the defects.

3. Take Accountability Seriously

Next, it’s important to hold employees (especially leadership) accountable for these standards.

One way to hold people accountable is through the use of independent oversight—such as an empowered board of directors, ethics committees, or external auditors. To be effective, these bodies must have the authority to investigate ethical concerns, insist on transparency, reward employees for acting with integrity, and apply consequences to those who violate their company’s standards for acting with integrity. Most importantly, these bodies must not be influenced by internal politics and should not be able to be fired on the whims of the leadership team who they are holding accountable. Ideally, these oversight bodies should be proactive, with audits that identify potential conflicts early enough to prevent ethical mischief.

Another way to hold leaders accountable is to create a culture where employees at all levels feel safe reporting ethical concerns without fear of reprisal. Anonymous reporting and whistleblowing channels can help identify problems that leadership might otherwise miss—or worse, knowingly condone.

The desire to operate a company that acts with integrity is a noble one—but, as we have seen, one that is fraught with challenges—particularly because acting with integrity means different things to different people. No wonder research shows that just 23% of U.S. employees strongly agree that they can apply their organization’s values to their work every day!

If you want your organization to be one in which employees can apply integrity to their work every day, follow the three steps above. Define what living with integrity means for your organization, drill down to the employee level and remove any ambiguity about how employees can live with integrity, and hold everyone in your organization (especially the leadership team) accountable for living with integrity. Once you’ve done this, you will be in a much better position to lead with integrity, maintain your reputation in the marketplace, and navigate complex ethical challenges.

This post originally appeared at fastcompany.com

How great leaders step into new roles

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BY Art Markman

 

 

Across all sectors of the economy, there is a lot of churn in leadership right now going all the way to the top. The C-suite and its equivalent in many organizations has become a merry-go-round. When a new leader is hired into a key role, they must quickly get adapted to how things work in order to make positive changes while breaking as few things as possible.

Great leaders have strategies to enable them to engage their new team quickly and institute change effectively. Here are four strategies that are critical.

1. Meet your team

In a leadership role, you are likely to have many teams in your portfolio. In order to do anything successfully, you need to know who you have working for you, how their teams function, and which groups can be relied on to carry out their work.

No matter how much intel you get from others before starting the role, there is no substitute for sitting down with the teams and getting to know them. This can take a while, so it may seem like a waste of time. But, talking strategically and tactically with the leaders who work for you can give you a sense of their capacity to understand, collaborate, and implement your vision moving forward.

High-level leaders can never understand every detail of what every team is doing, of course. But, it is important for leaders to know the portfolios of the people who report to them, the strengths and weaknesses of those portfolios, and the pros and cons to the structure of the organization as it is.

2. Listen first

Too often, leaders come in wanting to prove that they deserve to be in their role. So, they start by issuing orders. The assumption is that good leadership involves information flowing from the leader down to the team.

Great leadership is collaborative. A leader must understand the situation in the organization, where the problems are, and what goals are just about ready to be achieved. That can only be done by asking good questions and listening to the answers.

Listening also helps to develop trust. People are more apt to want to follow your strategic recommendations when they are tailored to the strengths and weaknesses of their team. When the teams reporting to you feel understood, they are much more likely to engage and to adopt your goals as their own. Ultimately, great leaders get teams to work with them and not just for them.

3. Find a quick win

Much of high-level leadership involves significant strategic plans that can take quarters or even years to implement fully. In order to get teams to follow you on that longer journey, it is valuable to demonstrate that you can achieve a goal.

Through the conversations you have and the listening you have done to understand your teams, find a short-term goal that would lead to a meaningful step toward one of the major strategic pillars you would like to pursue. Then, engage with the teams that can help to achieve that goal and work with them to help make it happen. Provide the resources and guidance to move the project forward.

The key for these quick wins to succeed is to use your growing knowledge of the organization to merge your strategic vision with the tactical strengths of your teams. That way, the success of the venture feels like something that could not have been done prior to your engagement with the team. That success helps to provide additional trust that longer-term projects will also succeed.

4. Transitions are better than purges

Of course, no organization is perfect, and it is often necessary to move people and positions around. There may be great people playing the wrong roles. And sometimes, there are people on the team who are not contributing enough to warrant keeping around.

There is often an urge to cut people immediately to make a clean break and move forward. And when a team is bloated and has a lot of redundancy, that is often necessary.

But, the management and leadership members of the team are also are likely to have a lot of institutional knowledge that will help you to better understand how to achieve your aims. That is where slowing things down can be helpful.

After all, the new people you put in place may be aligned with your vision for the future, but they may not know which processes in the organization were put in place to keep other demons at bay. Creating an overlapping period of transition can help new people to get up to speed on how to be effective in their new roles while also providing a humane exit ramp to those who will be moving on.

 

Source: Fast Company

Why great leaders encourage people to do a career pivot

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by Tad Phelps

 

Early in my career, a boss encouraged me to leave a stable operations role for a position in sales. They noticed my natural persuasiveness in communication and approach to problems, skills they believed could translate into success in a completely different discipline.

It felt like a gamble. I was trading a steady income for compensation directly tied to performance and sales volume. And, I would be venturing into a role where I had no prior experience. But I ultimately took the leap, and that shift changed the entire trajectory of my career.

That experience taught me to embrace discomfort and trust in my capacity to grow. It also revealed something fundamental about sales: success doesn’t come from a single mold. Coming from an operations background, I spoke the language of operators, and that authenticity gave me instant credibility with the very people I was selling to.

That experience didn’t just redefine my career path; it reshaped how I lead. Today, I actively look for opportunities to help others pivot into roles they never would have considered on their own. With the right encouragement and adequate support, people can thrive in roles in which they have no prior experience.

People want growth, but rarely make the first move 

It’s tempting to keep strong performers exactly where they are. When someone excels in a specific function, moving them can feel like a loss, especially when resources are tight and hiring is competitive. But this mindset is shortsighted. Holding people in a specific track because they are performing well may feel efficient in the short term, but it can stagnate both the individual and the organization.

One of the most effective ways to help people reach their full potential is to create pathways to grow outside their current functions. This isn’t simply a leadership philosophy; it’s reflective of employee feedback. Overall, 42% of workers are interested in upskilling or looking for upskilling opportunities, according to a McKinsey report. Continue reading →

Change is a leadership test—here’s how to pass it

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by Julie Turpin

 

Five actions you can take to adopt change and lead your team through it.

 

The American Psychological Association’s 2025 Work in America report found that 89% of U.S. workers experienced organizational change in the past year, and more than half said it had a negative impact on their mental health.

That’s a staggering figure, but not a surprising one. Change is no longer an episodic disruption in today’s workplace. It’s the environment we operate in day in and day out. Mergers, restructures, AI adoption, hybrid work shifts, and evolving economic pressures have made change a constant variable.

These are the real tests of leadership—not during calm, but in times of motion. It’s no longer enough for leaders to respond to change. They must know how to lead from within it.

While no two change events are identical, the leaders who consistently pass the test tend to lean on the same core capacities. These aren’t personality traits or fixed skills. They’re practiced, intentional ways of showing up, especially when the path forward isn’t yet visible.

1.  Communicate with transparency and consistency

When the future feels uncertain, people look for signals of stability. As leaders, we often feel pressure to wait until we have perfect information before we speak. But in times of change, silence breeds speculation, and speculation fuels anxiety. Stability doesn’t come from having all the answers, but a steady voice—even when that voice says, “We don’t know yet, but here’s what we’re doing to find out.”

In times of change, the most trusted leaders aren’t the ones with the most polished messaging. People trust those who consistently show up, share updates regularly, and speak plainly about what is changing and why.

Leadership action: Speak with clarity, share what you know (and what you don’t), and repeat your message more than once. In times of change, repetition becomes reassurance.

It’s natural to want to shield people from the messiness of change, but the further people feel from what’s happening, the more threatened they become. One of the most powerful things a leader can do is stay close to the change and bring others with them.

That doesn’t mean having all the answers. You want to make the process visible. Let your teams into the “why.” Involve them in the “how.” Invite them to see the moving pieces rather than simply react to the final result. This process fosters understanding, engagement, and ultimately, shared ownership.

Leadership action: Don’t wait to bring people in. Identify one or more decision-making processes or initiatives you can open to the team. This could be a planning session, sharing early-stage thinking, or asking for feedback on a developing plan.

3. Stay grounded

In periods of rapid change, emotions can run high—not just for your team but also for you as a leader. Uncertainty can trigger fear, doubt, and overfunctioning. That’s why leaders need to anchor themselves before they can stabilize others.

Grounding is finding a way to return to center in the middle of the chaos. For some, that’s a routine. For others, it’s a mentor or a guiding principle that restores focus. Being grounded also means noticing when you’re reacting instead of reflecting. Self-awareness is the first signal. If you’re feeling activated or scattered, take a moment to reset and re-engage with intention.

Leadership action: Write down one stabilizing practice you can turn to: a routine, reflection point, or person you trust. Use it regularly, especially before high-stakes conversations or decisions.

4. Lead with empathy

Change doesn’t land the same way for everyone. A merger might spark an opportunity for one teammate and fear for another. A tech rollout could excite some and overwhelm others. The truth is, you won’t know how change is impacting someone unless you ask and listen. Empathy becomes a leadership superpower. Leading with empathy builds psychological safety, surfaces unseen risks early, and reinforces trust.

Leadership action: Schedule intentional check-ins. Ask open-ended questions like, “What’s been challenging about this transition?” or “What would help you feel more supported right now?” Then listen.

5. Model a learning mindset

No change initiative goes exactly to plan. Priorities shift. Assumptions get tested. People stumble. It’s the nature of transformation. What distinguishes strong leaders in these moments isn’t flawless execution, but a willingness to learn in real time. A learning mindset keeps you adaptive, grounded, and humble. It also gives your team permission to be the same: to experiment, speak up, and evolve together.

Leadership action: Be open about your own learning. When things don’t go as expected, share what shifted, what you’ve learned, and how you’re adjusting. Invite your team to do the same.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Change is the truest test of leadership. The leaders who pass the test are those who recognize that in times of uncertainty, people don’t need perfection. They need presence—a leader who listens, steadies, and helps them take the next step forward. Julie Turpin is the chief people officer for Brown & Brown, Inc.

Source: Fast Company