Leadership Lessons On Listening, Questioning, And Moving Others To Act

The following is a guest piece by Sally Helgesen.

Communicating effectively, becoming a more accomplished persuader, and helping others achieve their performance goals have long been foundational managerial roles. But as organizations become more diverse and complex, and as everyone is called upon to work more independently, refining these skills has become an imperative.

Perhaps that’s why listening, questioning, and moving others to act emerged as strong themes in the best business books offering managerial self-help this year, with the latest volumes from veteran authors Edgar H. Schein and Daniel H. Pink being the standouts. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s hugely successful Lean In complements both by providing a clear example of a leader who demonstrates in action the managerial practices that both men advocate.

Ask, Don’t Tell

Concise, cogent, and informed by a wealth of direct experience, “Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling”, by Edgar H. Schein, is a testament to the importance of asking questions in a way that enables others to feel comfortable giving honest answers. Simple and profoundly wise, Humble Inquiry, the best business book of the year in this category, has the makings of a classic.

In Schein’s view, there are two essential problems. The first is our preference for telling rather than asking. Schein finds this especially characteristic of managers in the United States, who are immersed in a tradition of pragmatic problem solving that places a premium on efficiency and speed.

The second problem is the high value many leaders place on task accomplishment as opposed to relationship building, which can make them impatient with the slow work of earning real trust. In Schein’s experience, many leaders either are not aware of these cultural biases or don’t care enough to be bothered with redressing them.

Schein believes that such attitudes have become newly problematic in a diverse global environment in which a growing proportion of individuals do not necessarily share those values, and in which teams are an increasingly common organizational unit. Despite the prevalence of language exalting teamwork, Schein notes that promotional and rewards systems in many companies remain almost entirely individualistic. This creates an emphasis on star performers that can undermine engagement and trust.

The disjunction becomes particularly acute when leaders simply assume that positional power ensures that their subordinates will correctly interpret and act upon their instructions. Those who take this approach are often content to toss off a pro forma request for assent—“Does anyone have any problems with this approach?”—and leave it at that.

Blinded by presumptions about the value of their status and unaware of the cultural and status constraints under which subordinates may labor, leaders intent on speed and efficiency often miss essential information. In high-risk fields, these miscommunications can have catastrophic consequences, against which checklists and professional training offer insufficient protection.

Get Moving

In contrast to Schein’s autodidactic reliance on a lifetime of experiential learning, Daniel H. Pink continues his own tradition of digging up fresh, pertinent, and provocative research to support virtually every point he makes. In “To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth about Moving Others”, he builds a strong, clear case that selling, which he defines broadly as “the ability to move others,” has become an essential managerial practice rather than something that only salespeople do. (See “Daniel Pink’s New Pitch”, by Theodore Kinni, strategy+business magazine, Autumn 2013.)

In Pink’s view, selling has become integrated into all kinds of work. Yet even as more of us need to integrate sales skills into our managerial repertoire, the nature of what constitutes skilled selling is changing. For instance, information parity is replacing information asymmetry. Such asymmetry historically gave salespeople and managers an edge.

But now, Pink notes, both can benefit by taking the high road—being honest, direct, and empathetic, and seeking to build relationships for the long term. In a transparent world, where we all have the means to research our choices, Pink says, “Moving people depends on more sophisticated skills and requires as much intellect and creativity as designing a house [or] reading a CT scan.”

The core of To Sell Is Human is a lively section titled “How to Be” that spells out Pink’s new ABCs of selling. Instead of “Always be closing,” the traditional sales mantra, Pink posits a new watchword for moving others: “Attunement, buoyancy, and clarity”—an ABC that’s as useful to managers as to salespeople.

Get Out of Your Own Way

Women’s leadership has been pronounced dead as a topic of interest many times over the last 25 years. Yet with precision, timing, and an extraordinary dedication of resources, Sandberg has revived it. “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead” combines exhortation, analysis, and memoir in addressing the question of why so many women who start their careers with high potential and high hopes fall behind as the years progress, resulting in a continuing paucity of women in senior positions.

Until recently, this was widely attributed to the lack of a “pipeline,” a problem that, it was assumed, would resolve itself once enough women were hired into management. This has not happened.

Although “Sheryl Sandberg blames women” has become a popular media meme, Lean In seems to me to be a valiant attempt to turn what the author has learned into a clear-eyed guide for helping other women succeed at work. In addition, the self-awareness that informs her managerial style, at least as she describes it, exemplifies the practices that Schein and Pink both advocate and explore. She expresses humility and is not reluctant to assume a lower-status position if she has something to learn.

She’s a skilled questioner who actively shows that she is listening so others will be comfortable opening up. She credits her success to recognizing that truth lies in the eye of the beholder and that statements of fact are therefore likely to put others on the defensive. She acknowledges that listening and being open were hard skills for her to learn and says she has to work at being “delicately honest.”

If we’re all salespeople now, Sandberg clearly possesses the passion for inquiry along with the attunement, buoyancy, and clarity required to move others to pursue a cause that has long been regarded as a tough sell.

Sally Helgesen is a contributing editor of strategy+business. She is a speaker, leadership development consultant, and co-author of “The Female Vision: Women’s Real Power at Work”.

This is an abridged piece from strategy+business’s Best Business Books 2013 featuring selections on a number of topics including strategy, marketing, innovation, and organizational culture. To learn more about the Top Picks in business reading from strategy+business, check out their article Best Business Books 2012.