You might think that you need to have all the answers in leadership. But the reality is that the one who talks the most learns the least. In this episode, Craig teaches the top skill that sets apart great leaders. Watch video and download the leader guide: https://www.life.church/leadershippodcast/the-one-leadership-skill-that-changes-everything
Chapter 1: What is the one leadership skill that changes everything?
As a leader, people expect you to have the answers. You start the meetings, you lead the discussion, you give the assignments, and you end up doing most of the talking, which is a problem because the one who talks the most learns the least. We're talking about asking better questions. And if you want to ask better questions, first, you have to be a better listener.
Chapter 2: Why is asking better questions important?
So today, we're going to dive deeper into how to listen beyond the obvious and uncover the insights most leaders miss. Hey, welcome to another episode of the Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast, where I am indescribably passionate about helping you become a leader that people love to follow. If you're new to our community, I'll kind of tell you our content flow.
We drop a new episode on the first Thursday of every month, and I want you to get it and not miss it. So hit subscribe wherever you consume the content, and I promise you, you want the Leader Guide. If you're not getting the Leader Guide, go to life.church slash leadership podcast, and we'll send it to you.
And you're definitely gonna want it today because we're actually offering an exclusive episode that's only available to those of you that go to life.church slash five questions. I'll tell you more about that in a minute, but go to life.church slash five questions, and we'll share the link with you in the Leader Guide podcast.
for some exclusive content that's in addition to what we're talking about on this subject. So for those of you that post on social media, thank you for inviting others to be a part of our community. My commitment is to work hard to help you grow, and it means a lot to me when you invite others. If you're watching or listening where you can,
Comment, tell me where you're leading, not just like where you're from, but what are you leading? Are you a principal? Are you leading at a bank? Are you leading at a church? Tell me where you're leading and what you're leading. That would mean a lot to me just to kind of get to know you. And let's get into new content. Are you ready? What do we know? We're talking about questions.
Better questions lead to better thinking. Better thinking leads to better leadership. And better leadership leads to better impact. So let's talk about how do we get better answers from the questions that we're asking. To get better answers, ask better questions. Now, this is relatively obvious. And this is the easiest part, just to ask the question.
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Chapter 3: What is full contact immersive listening?
But I want to tell you about the harder part, and this is super important. Your goal isn't just asking great questions. But your goal, are you ready for this? Because I made up a phrase. Your goal is to practice what I call full contact immersive listening. full-contact immersive listening. What is that? I'll define it this way.
It's next-level engagement where you don't just hear, you absorb, and you connect mentally, emotionally, and physically. You're not just listening to what's being said, but you are fully immersed in the conversation, listening at the deepest level, connecting physically,
uh with your speaker to hear what's being said not being said and you're literally like feeling the vibe of the conversation i like the phrase full contact because like i like sports um and you're not observing but you're in the game you're fully present you're actively involved listening in the moment and what are you listening for this is important i'm gonna talk say a bunch you're listening for tone
You're listening for pauses. You're observing body language. You're listening for unspoken emotions. You're noticing what's being said. You're noticing what's being implied. You're even noticing what's being avoided. And you don't hear just facts, but you sense the heart behind the words that they're saying. And you're asking direct questions. You're asking clear questions.
Chapter 4: How do better questions lead to better leadership?
You're asking lots of follow-up questions. And then you're reflecting back. You'll say things like, well, what I hear you saying is this, or it seems like you're saying this, and then you're gonna use body language, you're gonna lean in, you're gonna mirror what they're doing, not to be manipulative, but to genuinely connect with people on the deepest level, and you're gonna listen with empathy.
and you're gonna acknowledge and validate their feelings. Like that must have been difficult or that must have been very meaningful to you. And then you're listening patiently and you're not rushing the conversation. You're not trying to fix something that's wrong. You're not trying to correct them.
You're not trying to give them advice, but you're digesting fully everything in the moment, absorbing the depth and the heart of what's being communicated. And you're not just listening for information, but you're listening for understanding. I know I just said a lot, but that is full contact immersive listening.
And if you learn to do that, it's going to completely change the impact of your leadership because the best wisdom doesn't just come from the questions you ask, but how will you listen and how deeply you process what you hear. The challenge is this, that the longer you lead, the less natural this becomes, right?
And you'll know this intuitively, that you're the leader, and so people wanna know what you think. And because you're the leader, you feel pressure, right? They wanna know what you know, so you're less likely to ask.
And you feel pressure to be good at leading, so you start the meeting, and you lead the meeting, and you conclude the meeting, and most of the time, you end up doing a lot of the talking. And that's a problem, because the one who talks the most learns the least. And so you have to like intentionally work against what I call the natural rush of leadership.
We tend to work faster, process faster, move faster. And in conversations, I have to work to slow it down and to listen with intentionality. And you'll probably have to do the same because you lead with an intensity and because your time is valuable and because you're leading with urgency and because your mind is racing, you're often processing faster than other people. And so
It's not uncommon for really good leaders to actually interrupt the person that's speaking. It's not a good quality, but it tends to be common. You have to watch out for that. I do this all the time and I do it less today because I watch for it. And when I catch myself, I always apologize and I'll always say, I'm so sorry I interrupted you, please continue.
Because I respect the person and I genuinely want to hear from them and I don't want to do that. Whenever you catch yourself doing it, stop. Tell them to go on, be quiet and listen. And then when you do, this is important, don't listen to respond. Listen to understand. Someone's going to be talking and you're like going, what am I going to say next? Don't listen to respond.
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Chapter 5: What are the levels of learning from questions?
Chapter 6: How can leaders improve their listening skills?
And she listed several things that when I heard her say, I'm like, it made a lot of sense to me. And so I'm like, why didn't you tell us? And what do you think she said? Well, she said, you know, I tried to tell you, but you know, you all already had your minds made up. So what she was doing is she was too respectful to say it, but essentially what she was saying is you weren't listening.
Okay, that's a horrible problem, and it's actually a common problem in a lot of organizations. I made a very, very important discovery, but you're not likely to discover that level of truth when you're just asking one or two questions. And so let's just kind of analyze this story and talk about what we learned and the different levels of lesson. Level one lesson, we learned this.
We weren't really prepared and we didn't have a great presentation. We learned that with one question. Level two learning was the presentation wasn't a problem, the plan was a problem. That's a big learning. Level three learning was that those of us at the top were not listening to the people on the front lines. That's a level three learning that's so important to the future of the organization.
And I wanna say this, and I hope you'll listen to it, I hope you'll memorize it, I hope that this will become a part of your leadership. You won't get level three learnings with level one questions. Let me say it again. You won't get level three learnings with level one questions. Most of us, we ask a question, we hear an answer, we move on. Ask the second question, ask the third question.
Keep digging deeper. I've learned to do this in social conversations and like interpersonally with people. And in the early years of our church, I personally recruited a lot of the staff members. We had seven people on the staff and I'd recruit the eighth and I'd recruit the 11th or whatever.
And I didn't go out and recruit seminary students because a lot of times in seminary, you're just taught to think. I actually recruited what I call spiritually grounded business leaders that were getting it done and had a real heart for God and the church. And so where did I find them?
Well, every weekend, I'd be out in the lobby talking to church members that are business leaders and that love the church because they understand the culture. And if you can raise people up from within, that's a great thing. So here's how I would dig for potential staff members. And I would do it real intentionally.
Yes, I'm trying to love the person, but I'm actually, in every conversation, I've got a couple of priorities. Minister the person, find out more, help them get involved. Could they be a staff member? And so instead of asking the obvious question, which most people do, like, so tell me what you do for a living. I would always ask something like this.
I'd say like, hey, what are you working on right now that has you fired up? I like that better. That gives them permission to talk about their job or their parenting, but you're getting at the heart. And so they tell you something they're excited about. And then question two, I'd say like, man, tell me the story behind why that matters to you. And the words are important, story and matters to you.
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Chapter 7: What is the impact of not listening effectively?
And then when I see a few of those things, like I kind of get excited, like going, there's something special here. And a lot of times no one's seen it yet because it hasn't been developed. And so at that point, if I see these qualities, I'll ask some version of this question, like, hey, Have you ever thought about giving your life to an even higher calling? And I pause, and I just watch God work.
And getting to that place, and I've done it many, many times, is it takes time. It takes intentionality. It takes a pure heart. It takes a love for people. It takes curiosity. And I promise you, you're never going to find the best of what God put in people on the surface. And that's why you have to dig deeper.
Deeper and you have to ask questions level one level two level three you're driving deeper because questions are the keys that unlock untapped potential There's so much more and the people around you that sometimes they don't even know that's in them and you want to try to bring that out and I'll give you a little bit behind the scenes the way I think about doing podcast interviews when I have a guest on and
I started doing this, what, eight years ago, and I'd interview people, and I didn't know how to do it. So I'd start with like 15 questions I'd write out, it'd be very, very scripted, and I'd ask question one, and then I'd ask question two, then I'd ask question three, that was so dumb. The guests were polite.
Chapter 8: How to ask deeper questions to uncover insights?
But the conversations weren't as engaging because the reality is I was asking them questions they've been asked before and they were saying things they said before. And I just got to thinking like, I know there's more in these people. Like they're totally brilliant. How can I pull out of them something that is different, something is new, something that's unique?
And it dawned on me to have them say what they've never said. I need to ask them questions they've never been asked. You just say that again, to have them say something new, something different, something they'd never said before, I need to ask them questions that they've never been asked.
And so one of my kind of, it's actually a real goal is at the end of an interview, anytime one of my guests says like, oh my gosh, do you ask me a question I've never been asked before? I consider that a real win. And that happens more often than not. And because it's actually a goal. And here's the thing, I can't plan those questions. I can't just sit there.
I'm going to ask them some random dumb, some questions they've never been asked. What I have to do is I have to listen with full contact aversion. And so when I go into an interview now, I have about five questions down. And that's their fallback questions. Like if I hit a wall and sometimes you do, it's like, okay, and then I've got something to go to.
But I want to be totally engaged in the conversation. And again, I'm going to tell you a little bit of strategy. I usually ask, The first question is like, tell me when you first saw yourself as a leader. What I'm doing is I'm getting them to tell a story because even the best are nervous. And so that kind of helps them feel more comfortable. And they like to tell a story and stories are engaging.
And then anytime I get to something that's interesting, like a lot of times they'll talk for two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, and there'll be like a sentence that's pure gold. And I'll hear it, and they don't even know how brilliant it is because it's just intuitive to them. I write that thing down. And then I'll say, when they're thrilled, I'll repeat it back. Hey, you said this thing.
I want to, and I'll draw attention to it. I may actually even summarize it. And I help. the listener to know how brilliant it is what they said. And then I'll just say like, hey, tell me more about that. And that's how I can bring people, bring the best out of them. And you can do this with a team member. You're talking to somebody and you're listening at a deeper level.
And you have to remember when you're asking them questions, like literally a team member, they might feel defensive. And so I said it before, but I wanna talk more about it. You wanna create a climate of like safety and trust and intimacy. And so sometimes you're gonna have a developmental conversation with someone.
They're not doing a great job, there's room for improvement, and you're gonna have a difficult developmental conversation. And so what I'll do in that is I'm gonna come in, I'm gonna ask them questions. I'm not gonna try to tell them, here's what you're doing wrong, but I'm trying to ask them questions to help them discover their own growth areas. And so here's what's gonna happen.
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