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    Is it important to you to attract, retain and develop the talent in your organization? Are you spending this time and energy efficiently? This checklist will help you find out where the gaps may be for your organization in terms of talent management.

    How does the checklist work?

    Answer yes or no to all 24 questions divided over 2 different sections. Once you’ve checked all the boxes you can check your score by counting all “yeses” per category.
    If you have a few too many “noes” you might want to pay some extra attention to our recommendations.

    See checklist now

      In today’s hyper-competitive, complex, and fast-changing environment, leaders can’t be superheroes or all-rounders. Rather, they need to be people energizers, unlocking and multiplying the strengths, energy, and ideas of others through supportive, empowering, and inspiring leadership.
      Based on decades of experience with leaders and research into helping leaders build more energized and peak-performing organizations, I have outlined below 6 steps leaders can take to become better people energizers and multipliers:

      1. Unlock the strengths, motivations, and skills of your people

      Great leaders know how to identify and unlock the natural strengths, motivations, and skills of their people. They encourage employees to discover and optimize their strengths by doing more of the work they are most passionate about. This doesn’t mean ignoring weaker areas that are less energizing. As well as highlighting and building on people’s strengths, leaders need to provide feedback to employees about behaviours that are limiting performance and help them identify strengths-based development strategies, hacks and workarounds to tackle weaker areas, so performance doesn’t suffer. However, leaders who are workplace energizers don’t expect people to be well-rounded. Rather, they challenge them to excel in areas of strength and encourage them to work with colleagues in areas where they are weaker, giving rise to strong teamwork and support networks.

      2. Align people’s energy with the purpose of the organization

      Organizations with a clear, compelling, and well-communicated purpose that is inspiring and exciting will find it easier to attract, hire and retain people. The organization’s purpose should describe the company’s reason for being and the value the business promises to deliver to customers and other stakeholders. A purpose is not a financial or numerical goal, it clarifies how the company strives to positively impact those it serves.
      Below are some examples of compelling and ambitious purpose statements:

      Google“Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”
      Intel“To revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets.”
      SpaceX “To create world-changing technology that enriches the lives of every person on earth”
      Coca-Cola“Refresh the world. Make a difference.”

      By clarifying and regularly reinforcing their purpose and communicating how people’s roles contribute to this, leaders are more likely to ignite the energy and motivation of people who believe in what the organization is aspiring to achieve.

      3. Become a genius maker

      Leadership adviser and researcher, Liz Wiseman, pointed out in her bestselling book Multipliers: How the best leaders make everyone smarter, that the best leaders are “genius makers” who invest in coaching, delegating, supporting, and inspiring people so they can bring the best of themselves to their role. They take time to recognize both progress and achievements, personalizing this to motivate people and reinforce cycles of success. They are generous in giving credit to others for successes but quick to absorb any backlash or blame when mistakes or setbacks occur.

      4. Remove energy blockers and demotivators

      A crucial role of any leader is to identify and remove bottlenecks and blockers to effective performance and motivation. Some of these barriers are internal and arise from psychological barriers like poor self-confidence or imposter syndrome (i.e., where people doubt their competence and past successes and live in fear of being exposed as a fraud). Author and performance coach, Tim Gallway, explains the origins of these limiting assumptions and beliefs using the metaphor of an “inner game” playing out in people’s minds. He maintains that for people to perform effectively, they need to learn to silence their inner critic and channel it productively into non-judgemental awareness and learning. By offering support, coaching and encouragement, leaders can help people reduce these stubborn sources of interference and empower them to achieve more than they ever thought was possible.
      The second group of blockers are work environment factors and include things like lack of flexibility, excessive working hours, unclear roles and responsibilities, autocratic top management, inadequate budget, and resources to do the job to a high standard, and low wages. Leaders need to work with top management, HR, and their peers to expose and find solutions to these blockers and put plans in place to minimize them insofar as possible.

      5. Amplify connections and shared learning

      Effective leaders embrace the power of social networks within and outside the organization to amplify collaboration, learning and positive energy. They encourage and facilitate in-person and virtual networking, sharing of learning, and collaboration throughout the organization, not just within their team or business area. They also promote regular and candid dialogue and feedback mechanisms with customers, suppliers, and other key stakeholders. This paves the way for creative problem-solving, innovation and solutions-based thinking, leading to better business results and sustainable growth.

      6. Regulate energy

      Too many leaders today are pushing their people to breaking point. This is exacerbated by the “always-on” work culture which is increasingly commonplace throughout the economy. Stress-related physical and psychological illnesses, including languishing, burnout and other work-related mental health problems are on the rise.
      Effective leaders understand the need to regulate energy and provide people with opportunities to rest, recover and reflect. They encourage people to establish clear boundaries between their work and home life, disconnect and take their full holiday entitlement to relax and recover. They organize work to ensure people are not working at full pace continuously and prioritize opportunities to reflect, plan and review work using social forums such as virtual or in-person team builds, volunteering projects, engaging social events, and “lunch and learns”.
      Just like a winning Olympic sports team, high-performing workplaces are dependent on the optimization of people’s energy, potential, and ideas. For leaders to be performance multipliers, they need to be workplace energizers. This involves identifying and developing people’s strengths, skills and potential, ensuring alignment with the company’s purpose, maximizing energy through effective removal of energy sappers and continuously regulating energy to maintain well-being and focus. In an increasingly competitive and fast-changing environment, energizing leadership is crucial to the sustained growth and success of any organization.

        The value of inquiry, or powerful questioning, is well established and becoming even more relevant in today’s hyper-competitive, fast-changing, and unpredictable business environment.

        The advantages are numerous and include:

        However, studies show that leaders still use far more advocacy (i.e., putting forward arguments and imposing their own views), rather than engaging in questioning. This is frequently reinforced by the culture of the organization which encourages top-down ‘tell’ approaches to getting things done rather than listening, exploration and questioning. Leaders commonly fall into the “trap or illusion of expertise”. This happens when they feel they possess superior expertise and should have all the answers by virtue of their position and/or experience.

        In his book “Humble Inquiry”, leading business author and psychologist, Edgar Schein, defines inquiry as “the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not already know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person.” This definition underscores the importance of being curious and asking open-ended questions to help improve the quality of problem-solving, overcome challenges and unlock a growth mindset.

        In my coaching and leadership development work over several decades, I have observed many leaders make huge strides in the way they lead and influence others through focusing more time and effort on questioning rather than advocacy in regular 1-1 check-ins with employees, team and project meetings, coaching conversations, negotiations, customer interactions and other common interpersonal situations.

        Asking powerful questions is natural to all of us, it’s something young children discover early on to facilitate learning and growth. However, adults (including leaders) often neglect this skill when they move beyond childhood. The good news is that it can be re-learned if practiced consciously and regularly.

        To master the art of powerful questioning, you first need to build up your arsenal of powerful questions. In doing so, the following principles are important to keep in mind:

        To help improve your questioning skill and behaviours, we have listed below examples of powerful questions you can ask in different situations.

        Planning a new strategy

        1. What is our purpose? What is our vision or “picture of success?”
        2. Who are our most important customers?
        3. What do customers value most about our products and service? What additional value would they like that we’re not providing currently?
        4. What are the 5 strategic goals that will deliver the most value to stakeholders (customers, board, employees, etc.) during the next 3-5 years?
        5. How will we measure our success?

        Problem-solving

        1. Who owns this problem?
        2. What are the options? What are the benefits and drawbacks of each?
        3. What criteria will you use to evaluate the options?
        4. What additional input and data would help you make a better decision?
        5. Do you need to decide this right now? What will you gain by waiting?

        Onboarding a new hire

        1. What do you see as your greatest challenges and opportunities in the new role?
        2. Do you have any questions or concerns at this stage?
        3. What would you like to learn from me?
        4. How can I best support you during the first few months?
        5. How often would you like check-ins to discuss how it’s going?

        Performance conversations

        1. What are you biggest achievements you are most proud of?
        2. What are the most motivating aspects of your job? And the least motivating?
        3. What new skills or capabilities will help you improve your performance?
        4. What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing? What options do you have to tackle this?
        5. How can I best support you?

        Overcoming conflict

        1. What outcome are you ideally looking for to resolve this?
        2. What aspects of my position/view do you agree with?
        3. Can you imagine a solution that might satisfy both of us (at least partially)? How can we move towards this?
        4. What are the risks (for us, the organization, and other stakeholders) if we don’t reach agreement?
        5. What positive steps can we take in the next 30 days to try to resolve this together?

        Leading change

        1. What questions do you have about why we are changing?
        2. What ideas do you have to help us with the planned change?
        3. How will the change impact the way you do your job? Is there anything we should be aware of that we haven’t yet considered?
        4. How are you feeling about the change?
        5. What concerns do you have? What help can I offer to help you with these concerns?

        Career conversations

        1. What career options and pathways excite you the most?
        2. What are your standout strengths? How can you develop more skill and effectiveness in these areas?
        3. In the next 2-3 years, what would you most like to achieve in your career? What is the first step you can take towards this goal?
        4. What skill or capability area would you most like to develop to achieve your career goal/s?
        5. What support will you need to achieve your goal/s?

        Developing your leadership effectiveness

        1. How can you measure your impact as a leader?
        2. What would your key stakeholders (manager, peers, and direct reports) say about your leadership strengths and improvement areas?
        3. What are your standout leadership strengths that co-workers value most? How can you take these to the next level to grow your leadership effectiveness?
        4. When have you come up short? How can you develop these areas?
        5. How will you adapt and develop yourself as a leader to be future-fit?

        The art of powerful questioning is at the heart of effective leadership. It enables leaders to unlock the ideas, perspectives, and talents of those they are seeking to lead. It also helps leaders build strong relationships of trust, candour, and openness. So, if you want to be a great rather than a mediocre leader, start asking more powerful questions today.

        Challenge yourself to improve your questioning skills and behaviours in a week with our 7-Day Powerful Questioning Challenge. You can access it here.