Leadership is Not About Knowing the Right Answer

Leadership is not about knowing the right answer.

In many ways, I was brought up to be a person who finds the right answer and gives it to other people. At school, at home, at church, life was a puzzle to be solved and I was shaped to seek the answers that would solve it. Knowing the right answer was valued; not knowing the answer was not.

Knowing the right answer made you a leader; not knowing the answer did not.

Much of my life so far can be described as a journey of discovering the value of questions. People who already have the right answer do not need to ask questions. They do not need to discover anything, they already know.

I began asking questions to find the clues I needed to find the answers to life, asking people who I thought had them. I can only imagine how my teachers, my parents, the adults at my church must have felt as I asked them for the answers to life.

I went to law school, and learned how to cross-examine people pretty well. I thought I had a handle on the right answers, and I asked questions to get people to give me the answers I wanted.

I came to a turning point in my life, and realized that I did not have the right answers. I worked hard, and became more open. Slowly but surely, I came to appreciate the value of asking real questions. I began to see the questions could be more important than seeking the answers.

I have come to see that it is the people who ask questions and push boundaries who are our true leaders. It is the people who know and share their true selves with the world that show us how to move forward.

What questions will you ask today?

[Image by DucDigital]