79 Questions Every Manager Needs to Ask

1. Are there any perspectives you haven’t heard yet?
2. Are you sure this employee understands what is expected of him?
3. Did you ask someone WHY he or she wants you to believe something?
4. Did you ask the right questions so you can act?
5. Do you consistently act in a supportive manner?
6. Do you give people a reason to help you in the future?
7. Do you have any personal biases that influence how you ask questions?
8. Do you have reactions or feelings you don’t want the other person to detect?
9. Does this email that you’re about to send demonstrate a deep respect for the other person’s precious time?
10. Does this question have the potential to initiate a breakthrough discussion?
11. Does this statement give you any insight about yourself?
12. How are people responding differently to you?
13. How are you closing the credibility gap?
14. How are you creating a non-threatening environment?
15. How are you creating a question-friendly atmosphere?
16. How are you creating an environment in which employees naturally connect?
17. How are you creating an environment that enables, supports and rewards authentic dialogue?
18. How are you creating an environment where healthy employee participation naturally emerges?
19. How are you visually reminding people of your commitment?
20. How can you focus your questions on the right information at the right time?
21. How can you give this idea away so that the team will own it, develop it further and let it surface?
22. How can you phrase this question to everyone’s advantage?
23. How can you refine your questions, given what you now know?
24. How could this be misinterpreted by various stakeholders?
25. How could you have been of more help?
26. How do you create an atmosphere in the workplace that encourages the generation and application of your best ideas?
27. How do you define the atmosphere needed to ask your questions successfully?
28. How do you demonstrate supportive leadership?
29. How do you diffuse defensiveness?
30. How do you dismantle employee barriers?
31. How do you earn people’s trust?
32. How do you get people to improvise?
33. How do you learn what someone treasures?
34. How do you make employees feel essential?
35. How do you make yourself more desirable to the best employees available?
36. How do you show people that their feelings are legitimate?
37. How do you thank people for their answers?
38. How frequently do you comment on people’s improvements?
39. How friendly are your first words?
40. How idea-friendly is your meeting?
41. How idea-friendly is your office?
42. How is information shared or guarded?
43. How is it possible that this person could think or behave in this way, and under what circumstances would it make perfect sense to do so?
44. How much difficultly will people have in answering this question?
45. How often are you asking questions you don’t know the answers to?
46. How often are you reinforcing your authenticity?
47. How often you overlook people who might offer meaningful ideas?
48. How well do you recognize threats to your ownership?
49. How well do your employees know YOU?
50. How will this impact the questions you ask?
51. How willing are you to disagree?
52. How willing are you to question basic premises?
53. How would you improve your question asking?
54. How, specifically, do you promote discovery?
55. If everybody did exactly what you said, what would the world look like?
56. Is the level of communication adequate?
57. Is there a better way you can phrase that?
58. Was forgiveness expressed or just implied?
59. What are the best possible questions you could ask this person?
60. What are the Potential Silent Dialogues?
61. What are the signs that you haven’t earned someone’s trust yet?
62. What are the three questions is every employee member is asking themselves when you walk in the room?
63. What are the underlying patterns under these conflicting responses?
64. What are you doing to maintain transparency?
65. What can you be more open minded about?
66. What can you do to expand your thinking?
67. What conversations are you avoiding right now?
68. What could you do to listen non-judgmentally?
69. What did this person NOT tell you that you needed to hear?
70. What do you see when you see people?
71. What is the one thing you could say that would totally piss off everybody?
72. What questions are your employees afraid to ask you?
73. What questions must you have answered by the time the meeting is over?
74. What three things are you most defensive about?
75. What three things are your employees most defensive about?
76. When does the feeling of formality keep your employees from communicating freely?
77. When was the last time you apologized for being wrong?
78. When you meet with employees, is your first thought about what they think of you or how you can make them more comfortable?
79. Who taught you to ask questions?