Do people give you the information you need to perform well? Does everyone in your organization understand your vision for the future? Do you know what your boss is really thinking? Do you know that CCL research suggests that the ultimate key to successful leadership is an executive's ability to ask questions and create opportunities for others to ask questions?

In this thoroughly updated new edition of his business classic Leading with Questions, internationally acclaimed management consultant Michael Marquardt shows how you can learn to ask the powerful questions that will generate short-term results and long-term learning and success. Throughout the book, he demonstrates how effective leaders use questions to encourage participation and teamwork, foster outside-the-box thinking, empower others, build relationships with customers, solve problems, and much more. Based on interviews with successful leaders who "lead with questions," from such organizations as DuPont, Alcoa, Novartis, and Cargill Marquardt reveals how to determine which questions will lead to solutions in today's complicated business world. Step-by-step, he walks you through the process of learning the art of questioning and shows how to use the techniques of active listening and follow-up, presenting guidelines for using questions in myriad situations with individuals, teams, and organizations.

This new edition of Leading with Questions includes:

• Fresh new interviews with international leaders, focusing on how to lead with questions in a global context
• New examples and guidance on how to deploy questions in the fast-moving social media world
• The latest neuroscience research and how it applies to the way we ask questions

This is a must-read update to the classic guide for understanding when, how, why, and where to lead with questions.

Michael J. Marquardt is professor of Human Resource Development and International Affairs, as well as program director of the Executive Leadership Program at George Washington University. He also serves as president of the World Institute for Action Learning. Dr. Marquardt has trained more than 100,000 managers in nearly 150 countries at organizations including Marriott, Microsoft, Sony Music, Goodrich, Motorola, Nortel, Alcoa, Boeing, and Caterpillar, as well as the governments of Indonesia, Laos, Ethiopia, Zambia, Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia, Jamaica, Honduras, and Swaziland. He is the author of twenty-four books and over one hundred professional articles in the fields of leadership, learning, globalization, and organizational change.

Dr. Marquardt lives in the Washington, D.C. area and enjoys skiing, music, and traveling with his wife, four children, and nine grandchildren.

Introduction

Part One The Power of Questions

1 An Underused Management Tool

2  Benefits of a Questioning Culture

Part Two Asking Questions Effectively

3 Why We Have Trouble with Questions

4 Asking the Right Questions

5 The Art of Asking Questions

6 Creating a Questioning Culture

Part Three  A Guide for Leaders on When and How to Ask Powerful Questions

7 Using Questions in Managing People

8 Using Questions to Build Teams

9 Using Questions to Solve Problems

10 Using Questions to Shape Strategy and Enable Change

Conclusion: Becoming a Questioning Leader

Resource A: Biographies of Leaders Interviewed

Resource B: Action Learning

Resource C: Resources for Training and Information on Questioning Leadership

Notes

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Index