Questions to Ask When Developing Leaders

Mark Cole:
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Mark Cole:
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Mark Cole:
My name is Mark Cole and today we’re going to have John Maxwell go through and share with you seven questions he ask and that he asked leaders to ask to make sure that they’re developing other leaders. Well, you know, one of the greatest things that we as leaders can do is to develop more leaders. It’s not to get things done for the company that’s personal and responsible. It’s not just to get others to do great things. It’s to develop leaders who will develop others. That’s legacy. So after John’s lesson, my co host Chris Goede and I are gonna give practical ways that we can apply this lesson of questions to ask when developing leaders. How we can apply that to both your life and your leadership.

Mark Cole:
If you would like to download the free bonus resource that goes with this episode or you would love to watch Chris and I on YouTube, please visit maxwellpodcast.com/developleaders also stay till the end because I’m going to give you an exclusive that is only applicable to our viewers and listeners. Here’s John, grab a pen, piece of paper, and take on the role of developing other leaders. Here’s John Maxwell.

John Maxwell:
And so, as I began to thinking about the fact that I want to help you lead well, and then I want you to help lead other people well, I begin to write down a list of questions that I ask when I’m getting ready to develop leaders. And so I want to give it to you, okay? And I almost guarantee you that they’re going to work for you. You don’t have to do every question. You don’t have to answer them all, but answer some of them. And you’re going to find out what your leadership potential probably really is. And they’re not in any order, priority. So the first question isn’t more important than the last one. It’s just these are some questions you want to ask yourself to develop yourself.

John Maxwell:
And then when you ask them to, you know, to develop yourself as a leader, then you want to ask them of your people. So the first one is about motivation, okay? Because we know that to lead well, you have to motivate people well. And the question you want to ask for motivation is you want to look at your people and ask them very simple, simply, what keeps you in the game? In other words, at zfra, what keeps you being part of this company? What keeps you as part of this organization? And you want to find out what it is. And they may tell you, they may say, well, I love the relationships that I have, okay? That’s what keeps you in the game. Somebody said, well, I’m making better money than I ever made, okay? That’s keeping you game. The reason you need to know what the motivation of people is is because leaders lead people differently. They don’t lead them all the same. In other words, you tell me what your motivation is, and then I’ll know how to lead you.

John Maxwell:
I will lead you based upon what motivates you, what excites you. I will lead you according to what you want, not at all according to what my motivation is or who I am or what I want. So question number one is a motivation question. It’s a good one. What keeps you in the game? Number two is a gifted question. It’s about abilities now and giftedness. And the question is, what is your number one strength? This really helps develop leaders. You do not develop your leadership and improve your leadership by working on your weaknesses.

John Maxwell:
You develop your leadership by working on your strengths. And so, for example, what is my number one strength? Well, I’m very strong in leadership. I’m very strong in relationships, I’m very strong in communication. I don’t have a lot of gifts, but I have a few that I’m pretty good at. And so what you do is you ask yourself, what is it that I do well? Because whatever you do well, that’s where you’re gonna get your return. So that’s where you really maximize your time, your effort, and your energy so that you’re gonna get the kind of return that you really want in life. And so as you look at your leaders, what are their strengths? Because once you find out what their strength, now you can begin to position them for those strengths. This begins to be quite beautiful, honestly.

John Maxwell:
So that’s how it works. What are your abilities? What are your giftedness? So let’s find out what your number one strength is. Another question is about teamwork. I love this question because it really works well for me. I think it’ll work well for you. When you sit down with a player on your team, ask the question, how can we work better together? Now, you may say, well, I think we’re doing pretty good now. Well, you may be. I don’t know.

John Maxwell:
But here’s what I know. It’s a great question. Because when you ask somebody on your team, how can we work better together? They’re gonna tell you about yourself. And they may just say to you, you know what? I think that if you would, you know, if you would show me what you want and be a little bit more clear, I think I could perform better for you. Well, good. I didn’t know that. I love the question, what can we do to work better together? It’s not like, what do you need to do so you’re a better team player. It’s what do we need to do? There’s something that is team building.

John Maxwell:
There’s something that is very connecting with that question. So if you go to your players on your team and ask them that question, they’re going to give you some answers. And when you give those answers honestly, you’re going to work better together. That’s just a fact. Okay, this is an emotional question. This is about emotional strength, okay? Because people only succeed if they stay emotionally strong. And so you ask your people, what wears you out when you get tired? What is it that makes you tired? And if you can identify what wears that person out to the place where you say, okay, you can’t avoid that. That’s part of the business, that’s part of life.

John Maxwell:
But when you get to that and you have enough of that, you need to take a Break, you need to pull away. In other words, awareness is a tremendous asset in improving your game. And awareness is a tremendous asset of not getting burnt out. And so I know what wears me out. And in fact, I do a lot of speaking, I do a lot of writing. But if I do too much writing and not enough speaking, I wear out writing. I think, wow, I’m tired of writing. If I do too much speaking, not enough writing, I say, well, I need to write some more.

John Maxwell:
What I need is, I need a balance.

Chris Goede:
Now.

John Maxwell:
These are my strengths. But I know what wears me out. And in the area of communication, after I’ve communicated for several days, I need a break from people. I just need a. I need to be alone. So it’s a great question on emotional strength that you need to ask your team what wears you out. Next question is about teachability. Ask the players on your team, what have you learned recently? Let’s talk about what you’re learning right now.

John Maxwell:
Let’s talk about what you’re learning about life. Let’s talk about what you’re learning about business. Now, this is a very, very insightful question, because when you ask a person, what are you learning right now, you’re gonna find out real quickly if they’re learning anything. When you ask that question, your people are saying, well, I’m sure I’m learning something, and, you know, I gotta think about it. Can I tell you something? They’re not increasing their growth and learning like they could. You know, when you ask a person what they’re learning right now, they’ll look at you, and if they’re really learning, they’ll say, well, you know, this is. I just picked this up in the last week, and it’s really helping me. And it gives you insight.

John Maxwell:
Again, if they’re growing or if they’re not growing. It’s a great question. Here’s another. This is a resource question that you need to ask your people. And that is just very simple. What’s the. The best resource I can give you that would help you succeed? I love this question. In fact, every year with my inner circle, about the end of November, I send them an email, and bottom line is this.

John Maxwell:
What area would you like to grow in next year? You tell me the area you want me to help you in mentoring you. What tool do you need? What resource do you need to help you to literally go to the. You know, if you’re trying to cut a tree down, you don’t want to give them a baseball bat. You want to give them an ax. So Many times people are working hard, but they have the wrong resource, they have the wrong tool. So you want to find that out for them. Another question that maybe this will be the last one. It’s a great question.

John Maxwell:
It’s a networking question. Who do you know that I should know? Let’s talk about it. Is there somebody that you know that maybe we could get them into the company? Is there somebody that you know that you know? If I had a lunch with them, I would learn from them. Or let me tell you, somebody I know that could help you. Here’s what I know about this question. I’ve asked this question hundred times, hundreds of times, and when I ask, who do you know that I should know? It has led me to some of the most important people in the world. And I’ve been surprised. I mean, it was literally a.

John Maxwell:
A high school principal that I asked, who do you know that I should know? And he said, you ought to know. John Wooden, the great leader, teacher, basketball coach. And I began a relationship with him. Ask that from a high school principal. Who do you know that I should know? So when you look at your team, these are some questions you can ask. You ask these questions so you can find the answers so you can develop those leaders, and I know you will.

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Mark Cole:
Hey, welcome back. The quote from Harvey Firestone just sums it up. He says, it’s only as we develop others that we permanently succeed. And Chris, I like that from Mr. Firestone. And let me tell you why. We’ve committed our life to this developing others, right? I mean, that’s what we eat, sleep, drink, wake up in the morning, stay up late at night doing. And this whole concept of questions to ask when developing leaders. I’ve been developed by John. You’ve been developed by John.

Mark Cole:
I feel like John took me from a Clump of something, right? And crafted this leader out of it. You feel the same way about John in this environment. And you not only feel that same way, you literally travel the world teaching what we call the five levels of leadership. Now, I’m going to let you talk about five levels of leadership in just a moment. But this level four is what we’re talking about today, how we develop leaders. And these are seven questions that John challenges us to develop others. So now, Chris is not going to go off the fly here because literally Chris, just a couple of weeks ago was with over 250 leaders in a billion dollar company, teaching them the five levels of leadership. It’s kind of what you do.

Mark Cole:
So talk to us just real quickly on the five levels of leadership. Tell us how that applies to this fourth level. And then I want you to do one more thing. I’m giving you assignments right here. Tell everybody else, because you work with companies of 50 people, again, thousands and thousands of people like you were just with on the five levels of leadership. And you’ll come serve them with this. So 100%. Tell us a little about five levels.

Mark Cole:
Tell us how it applies to this fourth level right here. And then tell us how to get in touch with you and your team.

Chris Goede:
Well, I appreciate that. I’m going to make this quick because we want to get to some really good content that are questions that lead to developing people. Mark and I had a conversation years ago and I’ll never forget it. I said, man, I’m so passionate about the methodology and the model of five levels of impacting the culture and changing and enhancing leaders inside organizations. If there’s not a role for me tied to that, then maybe I need to go find another way to go do developing people because I’m so passionate about it. And John created this model that I don’t know, mark, it’s probably 27, eight years old. And now I see it as a common language that people begin to believe and their behaviors are there inside organizations. It’s simply this.

Chris Goede:
Level one is you lead people because you’re a title, period. Right? It’s great. We all start there. It’s given to you by the organization. Hey, thanks, leader. Hey, thanks, individual contributor. But you can’t stay there with people. Level two, we talk about how do you connect with them, how do you build relationships so that they give you permission to lead them.

Chris Goede:
Level three is, man, we got to get things done if we want to have a company. So we got to produce together. What does that look like? And then this is what we’re going to talk about today, many of you that are listening are big followers of John and you understand the law of the lid. What I see, Mark, in organizations around the world and in teams, the lid inside organizational development is sitting right above level three. They understand I got a job, I got to connect with people and then I got to produce for my payroll. They don’t understand the growth of their company and their team and the organization is the fact that they won’t go to that next level, which is what we’re going to talk about today is developing other people. How are you reproducing leaders inside your organization? I don’t have time. I don’t have the resources.

Chris Goede:
No, I’m telling you, we have seen it time and time again. At level four is when you get to the point where you reproduce other leaders, you will grow level four influence. Then finally level five is John talks about the pinnacle level. Those are leaders that have been in your life. Some of the greatest leaders you ever had. Where if they text you right now and said, hey, I need something, which by the way, you did it earlier, you’re going to get up and leave no matter what you’re doing. We often say at level one and five is given to you one’s by the organization, fives by the people you’ve led. The work is done at levels 2, 3 and 4.

Chris Goede:
We’re going to talk about how to do some of that work today at level four before I do, real quick.

Mark Cole:
Come on, tell me how to get through.

Chris Goede:
If you have a leadership team, you’re interested, I have an incredible team. We’ll come, we’ll speak to your leadership team. We’ll do a keynote, whatever. Go to Maxwell leadership.com forward/5 levels. Either the number or the word. Just in case you mess it up. There’ll be a form there and we would love to respond.

Mark Cole:
So if they want you to come talk to their team, if you want to, they just want to get on the phone and talk.

Chris Goede:
Five levels, same thing.

Mark Cole:
Leaders. I just want to catch this because this is so important. We’re wrapping up a year and we want a better year next year. I don’t care if you had an epic year this year, you want a better year next year, we can come in and help you with your leadership culture. We can come here and help you with your leadership development, structure and plan. And that is@maxwellleadership.com fiver levels, number or spell it out.

Chris Goede:
That’s right. That’s right.

Mark Cole:
Love it. I know you’re going to get some people to call, so don’t take too long on Christmas break.

Chris Goede:
I need you here. This is what we’re passionate about, is developing other people. So let’s talk about this content real quick. I love the fact that John is saying, hey, here’s some really simple questions. Here’s seven questions for you that are going to get you started to truly understanding the other person and how to develop them. Right. And he starts right out of the chute. What keeps you in the game? There are a lot of people that are on your team right now that are around you and your influence that you have no idea what keeps them in the game.

Chris Goede:
And by the way, they might not either, because, you know, the longer you’ve been doing what you’re doing, the more unaware you become of who you are and how you show up.

Mark Cole:
Well said.

Chris Goede:
Okay, so it’s your job as a leader. And I want you to think back and give just some thoughts, some example of saying, man, you’ve worked with a lot of leaders, you’ve developed a lot of people. I’ve even challenged you before in the past where you said, I don’t think I’m a level four leader. And I said, I’d like to argue with you. You love to debate. So we had a good conversation. I think that’s the only one I ever won. But when you’re asking people around you, whether they are donors on our nonprofit side, whether they’re business people you and John serve, whether it’s your team that you lead here, man, what keeps you in the game? That’s why we had the conversation at lunch about, man.

Chris Goede:
For me, Mark, what keeps me in the game is five levels of leadership, developing other people, it being an organizational culture, methodology that will change your life, and I want to be a part of that. When I shared that with you, then automatically you knew. Right. How to better develop me. Give some thoughts and just some examples around what drives you in different areas of the business and your leadership to make sure you understand what it is that keeps those individuals in the game.

Mark Cole:
Yeah. For me personally, what keeps me in the game, I’ll be really quick, but then I want to talk about how you extract that out of developing people. Okay. What keeps me in the game is very, very much a gift that I received at 33, and that is clarity on what I wanted my life to be about. I knew at 33, just as Crystal clear as I’m talking to you now, what I wanted my life to be about. Not everybody has that, but everybody should stay with it until they get that get clear. It’s like you came to me that day and said, mark, I’d love to be on your team, but let me be really clear. I want to be on your team doing what I already know because I’ve already tried two or three other gigs, and I know what I like, what I don’t like.

Mark Cole:
There was a maturity to that conversation that let us get somewhere quick, and we’re still here and thriving. Get clarity, because you having clarity will help you better than anything in the world. Now, enough about me. Let me talk about the same exact thing for others.

Chris Goede:
For others? Yeah.

Mark Cole:
They need clarity.

Chris Goede:
They do.

Mark Cole:
We use tools like ppfs, Personal professional financial goals. We’re constantly having going questions. You do this some of the best. I talk to people that report to you, people in your side of the organization. Kris is always talking to me about what’s on my dream bucket list, what’s on my wish list, what’s in my dream pail, what do I want to accomplish? You need to be having those kind of conversations as much as you have production conversations. Too many people. Back to what you said about level three. Too many people intuitively, instinctively go to level three.

Mark Cole:
What are you doing for the organization without asking the question, what’s the organization doing for you?

Chris Goede:
That’s right.

Mark Cole:
You have got to have conversations. What can this organization do to help you accomplish what’s in inside of you? And when I first ask people that, all the time, they have this deer in the headlights look. I don’t know what’s inside of me. Yeah, you do. You just don’t feel safe enough to say it.

Chris Goede:
That’s right.

Mark Cole:
So now we spend a lot of times creating safety for people to be able to say it. And without feeling like me saying this is going to be punitive, that I’m not doing something right.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Mark Cole:
So you got to create that safe space for conversations like that. Then you got to get that clarity. Once you have clarity, you’ve done everything. Because now it’s just putting a plan together. Now it’s putting accountability to the plan. Now it’s putting growth to the plan to where? Because half the people this certainly happened to me that I work with, they had no idea where their life would be once they started being intentional with the clarity they got. It’s almost like climbing Everest or climbing a mountain. You get to the mountain only to see a mountain range you never knew was there, and you want to go climb the next hill and the next hill.

John Maxwell:
Yeah.

Chris Goede:
Let me say this I know it’s true here inside our organization, but for leaders out there, as you approach this, like Mark’s talking about, make sure you have a pure motive behind why you’re doing it. Because in where we’re at, we want to make sure everyone is led well because they deserve to be led well.

Mark Cole:
Yep.

Chris Goede:
And you can’t lead them well if you don’t do what Mark’s talking about. Right. You’ve got to do that. You got to help pull it out of them. They probably already know, to Mark’s point, they probably haven’t worked in too many environments where they felt safe sharing that. And so I want to encourage you to be able to do that, man. What keeps you in the game? That’s a great, easy question. To start that conversation in order for you to begin to learn them a little bit better.

Chris Goede:
Another question he talks about. I want to give a personal example between you and I that just came to mind. It’s weird to sit here talking. I hope you don’t mind, because I’m going to do it anyways. But how can we work better together? There was a time, because we worked together a long time where we’re similar, but yet we lead differently. And you were like, man, I’m not understanding why you’re not doing this. And I know you’re frustrated me because I do this, whatever. And I said, okay, you’re right.

Chris Goede:
Hey, I need 30 minutes of your time. Thursday morning. Come in early before anybody else. I want to talk to you about how we can work better together. And I don’t know if you remember this. We were in a different building up on the whiteboard. And I took your personality profile, I took mine, I took how we were bent, and I said, this is what’s happening. And I feel like we’re doing this, we’re doing this, but if we just change these three things.

Chris Goede:
And then I said, mark, in order for us to work better, because I’m reporting directly to you as a team, this is what I need for you. I’m a little bit more of a processor than you are, so if you want me to contribute, give me a heads up before a meeting and I’ll come ready to contribute. Right? Da, da, da, da. I went through all this. That immediately. That question of me, man, got you. Just tell me that’s my last name, by the way. We.

Chris Goede:
We use right here. Yeah, yeah, go to. I just. I need us to work better, better together as a team. And so you and I kind of worked through that. And all of a Sudden we said, oh, man, look. Yeah, that. This is where we’re missing it right here.

Chris Goede:
And that meeting coming out of that empowered me and it empowered you for us to lead each other at a completely different level. And I’ll remember it to the day that I moved.

Mark Cole:
So. It’s so funny. It’s so funny. I absolutely remember the first front office. You were sitting there, you had to move some stuff off the board because you had a ton of stuff more and said, let me. Let me show you this right here. I remember it distinctly. Let me pull out of what you just did, because that is a brilliant example of developing the leadership around you.

Mark Cole:
Developing leaders.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Mark Cole:
Forgive me for doing this for just a moment, but let’s note the reporting structure. I’m the boss, right? I’ve got the responsibility to develop Chris. Notice how he said it happened. He called me in his office and he said, this is what it’s going to take to get the best out of me. Whoa. How many leaders will take a risk to talk to a leader in a reporting structure above them like that? Not many. You did. How many leaders.

Mark Cole:
Forgive me for just a moment while I break my arm patting my back. How many leaders are confident enough to be told by somebody that reports to them what they need to do better to help that person that reports to them lead better? Not many.

Chris Goede:
Right.

Mark Cole:
The dynamic of creating an environment to where you can have those upfront, intentional conversations is everything. Because you didn’t feel unsafe with that. You felt very affirmed and confident in that. And I came out with so much clarity that if it would have been left up to me, the leader, to come up with that, I wouldn’t be able to do it. Your processing mind is what came up with that.

Chris Goede:
But it started with you saying, we got to figure out how to work better together. You started with the question, but then you had. You were. You postured in a way to say, no, man. Okay, great. Yeah, let’s do it. What you got? Let’s learn from it, right? So you started with that question. And, man, one of the greatest things.

Chris Goede:
John, you know, wrote a book, Leader’s Greatest Return. I love this. It cracks me up. I go in, I’m in the business world a lot, and they’re like, oh, so you’re gonna. You’re gonna show me, like, an art. Where’s the financials? And the EBITDA is going to increase because we’re gonna develop. I can’t wait to read this book. And I’m like, yeah, you dig into that book, right? Because it’s not about that.

Chris Goede:
It’s about developing the people.

Mark Cole:
Yeah.

Chris Goede:
And for you, one of the greatest returns on your investment in me at level four and where we’re at now today. And my leadership. Your leadership has to do with that question you asked. How are we going to work better together?

Mark Cole:
Yeah.

Chris Goede:
So this is a great question for leaders to be able to do that. By the way. Let’s just take a little squirrel trail for a minute. Both Mark and I are married to incredible women, strong leaders. By the way. Some of these questions work at home too.

Mark Cole:
Yeah.

Chris Goede:
And I would just challenge you to be asking those questions because you’re not developing but you’re working together as a family and as a family unit, there’s so much practicality. So John’s principles that I, to make sure you guys understand your children, everything that goes along with that.

Mark Cole:
Well, I’m watching you. You’re raising leaders. I mean, you just did this incredible memory making experience with your daughter just in the last month. And I’m intentional asking these questions of Macy. You’re intentional asking the question. I’ve started asking them with my three grandsons, which I get more out of my two year old granddaughter than I do these three grandsons. That’s older than her.

Chris Goede:
Probably she’s the favorite.

Mark Cole:
Let’s not go there. But yes, using these questions to just develop leaders wherever you are.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, it’s, it’ll be your greatest, I promise your greatest return when you do that. Now I want to move us into the third. One third. I want to pull out a question that John talked about. This is something I’ve heard you talk a lot about lately and John talked about it here. He said, what have you learned recently? I’ve heard you tie this to three words that I want you to unpack that I think are really important as you think about developing people around you. You talk a lot right now about accountability, responsibility. John added here teachability.

Chris Goede:
I think all of those come into that. Right. Because when you’re accountable and you take responsibility, you better be ready to learn something because it’s going to show up. Right. Talk about that in regards to how important that is to you in your role. When you’re thinking about future leaders inside your organization and developing them, why are those three attributes so important that we need to be asking and or expecting of those around us?

Mark Cole:
So let me do one step more than that, Chris, and then take me somewhere else if you want to pull something out. I really put those into teachability, then responsibility, then accountability. I put it in that order. And let me tell you why. I’m a constant learner. I want to be. I’m learning right now in this podcast. You bringing that illustration you just brought up was so.

Mark Cole:
It was such a good lesson that has been dormant in my mind for some time. And boy, I just. I’m brushing that thing off in my mind right now. I’m going to use that.

Chris Goede:
By the way, you were sitting there and I’ll never forget, you were just staring at the board and you’re never one for lack of words in a meeting.

Mark Cole:
Yes, we all know.

Chris Goede:
And I was like, we good here? Like what you’re like. And then you stood up and gave me a standing ovation.

Mark Cole:
I did.

Chris Goede:
And I was like, I don’t know what just happened right here, but I’m glad I still have a job page.

Mark Cole:
Out of an Alabama. I gave you standing ovation. It was so impacting. And just to get that off, here’s my point. I am constantly learning. I believe the learning then drives what the responsibility is. Clarity drives responsibility. Be clear on what you’re responsible to, what you’re responsible for, what you’re responsible to produce.

Mark Cole:
Be responsible to it and then hold yourself accountable to make sure that you produce. And so everything’s a lesson for me. That’s why failure doesn’t mess with me as much. We’ve talked about that in past podcast. Trust me, we’ll talk about it in future. At the same time, the lesson learned, I will stay there to the point that a lesson is extrapolated out of. It’s that teachability. And then I believe you are responsible to a lesson learned.

Mark Cole:
It’s like you’ve been given a precious gift, given somebody’s baby. You’ve been given a treasure that if implemented, will make a huge difference. And then ultimately I. Maybe some of you listening to the podcast, watching the podcast, can do this. I cannot get things done without accountability. I just have to have people around me that knows what the lesson was, that knows my responsibility to the lesson, that will take me to a place of accountability.

Chris Goede:
I love that, what we’re doing here. If you aren’t picking up on this, this is allowing you as a leader not only to figure out best how to develop people, it’s getting you a lens into how do they think, how are they making decisions. You and I have conversation all the time. And I’ll be like, hey, why’d you ask me that question? You’re like, I just want to know how you’re thinking about it. That’s exactly because Then you know that you can think about how I thought about it and then help me, you know, get there. And so I think that’s awesome. Now, this might be a Chris Robinson, incredible team member of ours. First time ever.

Chris Goede:
John gave you seven points. You’re going to leave here today. Or seven questions, you’re going to leave here with 10. Because I asked Mark a question before we started and I said, mark, I think about this lesson and you have been the privilege of riding shotgun right next to the greatest leader that you and I are aware of. And so I said, man, what are the questions that you’ve learned from John or that John has used with you? And so we sat here and you just, man, right off the cuff, gave us a couple. And so we said, we’re going to give 10, we’re going to give 10. We’re going to give our listeners and our viewers three more. So I’m going to let you run with that, give us that process and those three questions and then wrap us up.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Mark Cole:
And we’ll see if Jake works his magic and these make it into the show notes, see if last minute he can do that. But it was such a brilliant question. I’ve never been asked it that way. I’ve been asked, what’s the three greatest things I’ve learned from John? What do I love about working with John? And so I’ve given these three questions before, but never in the context context of how John used these questions to develop me. Because this is how John leads me. I answer that question all the time.

Chris Goede:
You say it’s a leadership thing, but he’s very intentional about it.

Mark Cole:
But he’s very intentional about it. And it has developed me. Because I now can not only give you three questions John asked me as a leader, that impacts me. I can tell you how it developed me as a leader and that’s what I’m going to spend our last few minutes. Question number one. John always asks when he comes into a meeting, what do I need to know? What do I need to know? Now, isn’t it true most leaders walk into the room and feel like they need to be the smartest person in the room?

Chris Goede:
Right.

Mark Cole:
John demonstrates to me asking that question on the front end of any meeting. He comes in and says, what do I need to know? He demonstrates humility. He shows me that great leaders come in not trying to show they know everything, but they want to learn something. It’s a humility lesson that I learned from John when he says, what do I need to know? The second Thing that he showed me with that is a leader’s perspective is one dimensional. A team’s perspective is multidimensional. And for a leader to be multidimensional, a leader has to ask the question, what do I need to know? Because without asking that question, I may know everything in the room, but I still promise you it’s only one dimensional. When I ask that question of the room, I may not pick up any new knowledge, but I’ll catch up all kind of new perspectives. It’s brilliant, Chris.

Mark Cole:
It’s brilliant in the context of this, of what I’ve learned from John. So I come into every meeting now trying to find new information, even if I already know what the net of that meeting is going to be. I always try to come into every meeting now asking the question, either verbally or subconsciously, what do I need to know? Question number two is, what did you hear? Now, what I learned in developing others is sometimes people heard better than I said.

Chris Goede:
That’s so good. That’s so true.

Mark Cole:
Sometimes I get greater clarity of what I meant by hearing somebody give it back to me, that by the next time the next person hears it, I said the way that I was told I said it when I really didn’t say it. That way I got smarter and sounded better because somebody else gave me what they earned.

Chris Goede:
Or it could be the other way as well, which they didn’t hear it correctly. They didn’t hear it correctly. Which then allows you to come in from a development standpoint, exactly shape the way that they’re thinking.

Mark Cole:
Exactly. Which is the second thing that I picked up this from a developing standpoint when I asked that I substantiate the direction I want the meeting to go, where I want people to go after the meeting. Without asking that question. I have assumptions. You know what assumptions do? And making assumptions that everybody heard me rather than asking what they heard makes me a better leader because I quit using so much. I take assumptions out of it. They tell me what they heard. The final question that John asked me that has developed me beyond any level to have enough time to share you is, what am I missing? When John comes in and says, what do I need to know? What did you hear? He then gives this directive.

Mark Cole:
He’s never short of giving direction ever. I’m never short of giving an opinion and thoughts and talking. John’s never short of giving direction. He loves to give direction. But after he gives direction, you would think most leaders, I gave direction, now hop to it and get it on. He always goes, what am I missing. Now here’s what happens and what I learned by him asking me that question. Every leader is missing something in every meeting.

Mark Cole:
Their ability to find the lesson after the lesson has already been learned and applied is layered learning. Because he goes, what am I missing? Is not just a question that says, are you getting it right? Do you have it? Get going. No, it’s a leader with a learning posture that says, now that you hear my direction, what will make it even better? It is brilliance, Chris. And then the second deal. John’s got to listen to this podcast because I’ve never had this conversation before. The second thing that I learned from that question, what am I missing? It makes me now take authority of his direction. I now take ownership of his direction. Cause I’m giving it back to him.

Mark Cole:
And I go, john, you’re not missing anything. You know what I just did? John, I agree with you 100%. I’m in lockstep with you. We’re after it. Or what am I missing? John, you may not be thinking about that. And he goes, oh, yeah, okay. I just took over authority and ownership of John’s direction. We may do our own little podcast on that, just because I love it.

Mark Cole:
So thanks. Hey, guys, let me. Let me do two things. Chris mentioned the leader’s Greatest return book today. I want to give you 15% off of that. So if you’ll go to the show Notes, click the link, use the promo code podcast, we’ll give you a chance to buy the book at a discount that will help you develop leaders better as a part of your growth plan for next year. I want to remind you, go to maxwellleadership.com fivelevels because I want you to be a part of bringing five levels into your company in 2025. Hey, I wanted to go to Sheila.

Mark Cole:
Sheila gave us a statement here that I just want to give you and share and say thank you, Sheila. It’s from the podcast Mindset Matters. Sheila said. I just wanted to take a moment to express how much your latest podcast episode on Mindset Matters has impacted my life as a leader. The insights, the practical steps you shared have truly transformed the way I approach leadership. Your emphasis on intentional thinking and clarity has made a significant difference in my effectiveness and purpose. Sheila, I’m so proud of you. Sheila says thank you for the invaluable guidance.

Mark Cole:
Sheila, thank you for taking our podcast, letting it add value to you so it would multiply value to others, because everyone deserves to be led. Well.

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