The power of asking questions is often overlooked in the leadership space. What distinguishes great leaders and visionaries is their ability to ask great questions, which bring them to a world of possibility. All great ideas start with the question ‘what if…?’ — and all visionaries had the audacity to break the limits of their imagination and venture into the unknown.

In this episode, I explore why ‘what if?’ is so essential to effective leadership.

Check out this episode if you want to learn more about:

• Why asking quality questions is essential to effective leadership
• How to tap into the endless opportunities around you
• What it takes to become a disruptor

🎧 Listen to the podcast here:

‘What If…?’: Powerful Questions That Bring About Great Answers

Think of a leader that you respect, and ask yourself: what type of questions would they ask? What are the qualities and depth of the questions that they pose to a general audience, or to themselves, that make them effective leaders in business, society and life?

If you want a quality answer, ask quality questions.

One part of leadership that gets overlooked is the importance of asking great questions, because questions suggest curiosity, and consider the world outside. How do you know what’s going to be relevant to your business, life, career and family without asking questions?

There’s one question that I’m going to throw out to you: what if?

You may say to yourself, ‘what if what?’ That’s the key. It can be anything — what if we could…

• Build a rocket ship that could take us to the moon?
• Create a device that simulates air flight like birds, so we could alter the way we travel from place to place?
• Design a motor that could replace the horse and buggy, allowing us to explore new areas, new territories?

‘What if?’ That’s a foundational piece for many inventors, leaders, catalysts and disruptors in society. It’s a question that challenges the status quo.

Consider that question for yourself. On a personal level, what if you applied for that job? What if you hired this one person for the position? What if you rebrand your company, or create a whole new product line?

The great part about the what-if question is that there is no right answer. It’s an opportunity. It’s an invitation to take action and be creative, and creativity is key when looking for new solutions. Albert Einstein said, ‘We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.’ It’s through asking ‘what if?’ that we can see what it possible.

What are the opportunities in your life that you may not have considered? You may have dismissed them, because it didn’t seem like the right time, or maybe it hadn’t even occurred to you before. ‘What if?’ fuels the imagination, and motivates us to take action.

It’s hard to have an idea in your head without doing something with it.

We may have 100 ideas. They can feel like they’re off the wall, but we still have 100 ideas. You have an opportunity to at least consider some alternatives. Would you rather stay in the status quo? Look back at the leaders that you follow. How many of them stick to the status quo — and how many of them are asking the questions, pushing the barriers to create an impact?

Asking Questions: One part of leadership that sometimes gets overlooked is the importance of asking great questions.

Asking ‘what if?’ can open new possibilities on a personal level, too: ‘what if I ate more vegetables each day? What if I got a few more hours of sleep? What if my family and I took a vacation each year?’

We have a lifetime to explore, learn, and to extract, reconstruct and create. From a leadership perspective, you can be the person that asks the question that inspires others to start thinking about what is possible for them, giving them permission to dream.

It’s a big paradox in a way, because here I am talking about creativity, possibilities and asking ‘what if?’. At the same time, we might worry that asking questions hurts our credibility.

People will know that we don’t have the answers. They may not see our value.

When portable music devices were first coming out, Sony owned the market with the Walkman. Steve Jobs thought, ‘What if we had a device where people could download music, so they don’t have to cart around all these extra CDs and cassettes?’ Out of that came the iPod, which kept evolving over time, to now become the iPhone.

Steve Jobs asked the question and got to the next level. It’s about being curious, and putting the question out into the world. Effective and influential leaders are the ones who have the courage to put the questions out to the public.

Asking Questions: Effective and influential leaders are the ones who are brave enough to put questions out to the public and challenge the way people think.

Find out what happens when you are the disruptor that gives people a wakeup call to say, ‘I never thought…’. When you consider where you are in your career, business, family and community, how powerful could that question be?

It may lead to more people being in tune with your vision, or more people taking action. My challenge to you is this: get out there, be curious and ask yourself, ‘what if?’.

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