I was just sitting down to write this post when one of my kids (who I had just put to bed) started calling out. This is one of their favorite games--immediately upon exiting their rooms, the kids concoct various reasons why they need a return visit from a parent.
This, as you might imagine, gets rather tiresome to the parents who are ready for a breather.
So as Zoe called out to me, I initially ignored her. When it became clear that she wasn't going to stop on her own, I started to storm up the stairs, dialing up my best "I'm tired of this nonsense" lecture, complete with stern tone.
When I got to her, she was standing up in her room crying. The top to the sippy cup had popped off. She was all wet. I was the one who hadn't put the top on right. Daddy's fault. And to make it worse, I had diagnosed the problem and declared the solution before I had asked any questions and done any listening.
I've been thinking that something like this has occurred somewhere along the way in my work.
I came in with tons of questions about how to do my job. How do you give a good talk? How do you run good meetings? What do you say when a student comes to you with an eating disorder? What do you do if they mention suicidal thoughts? What do you say when a student says to you, "I think I'm gay" for the first time out-loud to anyone?
Somewhere along the way, I began to get some answers to my questions.
Naturally this is a good thing, but as I began to get answers, I began to stop asking questions. Not entirely, but there was a definite, if subtle, shift. I was making statements now. I was the one people were asking those questions to. And I was glad to share what I'd learned.
But the problem is that answers only get us so far. The best leaders in any industry are the ones asking the best questions, not offering the best answers.
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are leaders in computing not because they know all the right answers (they have plenty of people smarter than them who work for them) but because they (and their staff) ask the right questions.
And then they listen for the answers. Hard listening. Listening that doesn't assume that they already had the answers before they asked the questions. Real listening that doesn't make a joke out of the fact that a question was asked in the first place. Asking good questions and genuinely listening is hard work.
It's what I want to get back to as I take on a new job. I want to ask more questions. I want to re-learn how to listen. I'm convinced that most people have no one in their lives who takes the time to actually listen to them. I want to grow into the kind of husband, father, friend, co-worker, and yeah, even "supervisor" who listens. It's the kind of leader I want to grow up to be.
But first I gotta' get back to the basics of sippy-cup assembly. My poor kids won't get any sleep otherwise.
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