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Leading With Questions: How Leaders Discover Powerful Answers by Knowing How and What To Ask, 3rd Edition Michael J. Marquardt
Leading With Questions: How Leaders Discover Powerful Answers by Knowing How and What To Ask, 3rd Edition Michael J. Marquardt
Questions are the most powerful yet underutilized leadership tool. Michael Marquardt
and Bob Tiede are kings of questions. In this new edition of Leading with Questions,
they equip us with unique and powerful questions that elevate our leadership and our
relationships.
—Dr. Lee J. Colan,
Coauthor, Healthy Leadership
I love Leading with Questions. Life is uncertain and all of us experience problems.
Devour this book and internalize the questions so that you can live a more fulfilled life.
—Tom Ziglar, CEO,
Zig Ziglar Corporation
This third edition of Leading with Questions masterfully incorporates the new
complexities in the world, including virtual and hybrid work. This book provides
ideas and resources to take your leadership to the next level.
—Dr. Agata Dulnik,
Forbes Coaching Council
Marquardt and Tiede have outdone themselves! I didn’t think Leading With
Questions could be improved upon . . . but I was wrong! The third edition provides
even more examples, more questions, and more resources to propel my mastery of
questions as a leadership tool. Kudos!
—M. Kent Stroman, Founder,
Conversational Fundraising
Leading with Questions describes a very powerful and practical tool that has taken
Constellation Power Generation to the top rank of energy companies worldwide.
—Frank Andracchi,
Senior Vice President, Constellation Energy Group
Leading with Questions is a must-read book to develop a must-have skill. Leaders are
finally learning the way to a value-creating answer is by asking the right question, in
the right way, and at the right time. This new edition provides the practical framework
to develop this critical skill.
—Terrence Donahue,
Corporate Director, Leadership and Learning, Emerson Electric
The two authors exquisitely and clearly define the paradigm shift away from the
traditional perspective on leadership. In a time when we expect successful leadership
to give answers and solutions, Leading with Questions strikes you as a counterintuitive
concept, leading to a stimulating and inspiring book on how the power of questions
builds great leaders.
—Dan Tavsancea,
Director, Global Fund Capacity
When working with people to become better problem solvers, and more effective,
curious, and inclusive leaders, I often recommend Leading with Questions. In this
edition, the authors combine their skills and experience to make this book an even
more insightful resource for leaders everywhere.
—Shannon Banks,
Managing Director and Founder, Be Leadership
Every good corporate strategy starts with a great question. Leading with Questions
offers leaders the concepts and actionable tools to empower their organization and
expand their business value through the art of asking the best question.
—Simon Reese,
Lecturer in Strategy Management, Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice
University
Marquardt and Tiede have remarkably brought together their collective wisdom in
leading with questions and the input from executive leaders from diverse professional
backgrounds. Leading with Questions helps you understand why and how to ask good
questions, how to build engaged relationships and energizing communication
between leaders and followers, and how to create an enabling environment for people
to be better thinkers and, thereby, to better solve problems.
—Bekele Shanko,
President, GACX
MICHAEL J. MARQUARDT
AND BOB TIEDE
Copyright © 2023 by Michael J. Marquardt and Bob Tiede All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Marquardt, Michael J., author. | Tiede, Bob, author.
Title: Leading with questions : how leaders discover powerful answers by
knowing how and what to ask / Michael J. Marquardt and Bob Tiede.
Description: Third edition. | Hoboken, New Jersey : John Wiley & Sons,
Inc., [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022053619 (print) | LCCN 2022053620 (ebook) | ISBN
9781119912095 (hardback) | ISBN 9781119912101 (adobe pdf ) | ISBN
9781119912118 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Leadership. | Communication in management. | Questioning.
Classification: LCC HD57.7 .M3924 2023 (print) | LCC HD57.7 (ebook) | DDC
658.4/5—dc23/eng/20221103
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022053619
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022053620
Cover Design: Wiley
Cover Image: © graphicsdunia4you/Shutterstock
Author Photos: Courtesy of the Authors
CONTENTS
ix
x LEADING WITH QUESTIONS
Resources:
Notes233
Index249
I N T RO D U C T I O N T O T H E
THIRD EDITION
D o you feel that people aren’t providing the information you need?
Do you wonder whether the people in your unit really
understand your vision for where things need to go? Do you speculate
about what your boss is really thinking?
Have you ever thought about getting all this information, and
more, by asking questions?
Questions can elicit information, of course, but they can do so
much more. Astute leaders use questions to encourage full participation
and teamwork, to spur innovation and outside-the-box thinking, to
empower others, to build relationships with customers, to solve
problems, to develop leadership skills, and to change organizations and
communities, as we will show in this book. Recent research and the
experience of a growing number of organizations are now concluding
that the most successful leaders lead with questions, and use questions
more frequently. Successful and effective leaders create the conditions
and environment to ask and be asked questions. When the Center for
Creative Leadership studied nearly 200 successful executives, researchers
discovered that the key to the executives’ success was asking questions
and creating opportunities for others to ask questions.1
Consider these successful leaders:
1
2 LEADING WITH QUESTIONS
Academic Honors
D.C.L., Oxford, 1894; LL.D., Cambridge, 1894; LL.D., Harvard,
1895; LL.D., Yale, 1897; LL.D., Columbia, 1900; LL.D., Magill, 1909;
President of the American Historical Association, 1902.
PUBLISHED WORKS
Uncollected Essays
REFERENCES
Genoa, 67
Germany, recent naval policy of, #$1#–xv, 51;
trade of, 25;
rivers of, 33, 69;
central position of, 53;
possible acquisitions in West Indies, 288;
political character and aims of, 292, 302–308, 317–327;
and Far East, 299;
her sea routes threatened by Great Britain, 312–316, 333, 336.
See Navy, German
Gibraltar, an important base, 20, 22, 58, 69, 74, 152, 154;
acquired by Great Britain, 26, 147, 157;
siege of, 85, 86, 107, 178;
Nelson at, 196, 199, 209
Good Hope, Cape of, 20, 26, 33, 51, 152, 290, 314
Graves, British Admiral, off the Chesapeake, 160, 164–170
Gravina, Spanish Admiral, at Trafalgar, 210–211, 214, 219–220
Great Britain, growth of, in naval power, #$1#, 32–34, 43–44;
colonial policy of, 45, 46, 343;
naval policy of, 47–48, 141–146;
community of interests with United States, 111, 291–295, 318–332;
in American Revolution, 143–144;
gains of, in Seven Years’ War, 147–154;
navy her first line of defense, 191–195;
in commerce warfare with Napoleon, 223–228, 310–311;
and problem of imperial federation, 293;
threatened by Germany, 302–308;
policy of, relating to seizure of private property at sea, 333–338.
See Navy, British
Guadeloupe, 25, 143
Guantanamo, 58, 103–107, 111
Naples, 38, 39
Napoleon, as a strategian, 11;
anecdote of, 12–14;
quoted, 4, 14, 55, 58, 70, 78, 110, 155, 173, 241, 271, 287, 296, 335;
at Marengo and Mantua, 76, 257;
a believer in the offensive, 80, 81, 152, 153;
in commerce warfare with Great Britain, 92, 93, 95, 223–228, 331;
armies of, 172;
and the northern neutrals, 184, 187;
his plan for the invasion of England, 191–198;
and the Trafalgar campaign, 221–223, 248;
downfall of, 237;
at Waterloo, 239
Napoleonic Wars, 12, 31, 80, 81, 142, 307, 310, 343
Naval Administration, civil vs. military, 113–115;
in peace and war, 115–118;
British, 118–122;
United States, 122–124.
See Admiralty
Naval Training, 8–15
Naval War College, Mahan at, #$1#;
aims of, 10–15
Navarino, battle of, 178
Navies, motives for, 18, 355–357;
a protection for commerce, 19;
fighting order of, 61;
an offensive weapon, 71–73
Navigation Acts, British, 337
Navy, British;
training of officers in, 8–9;
compared with French, 43;
maneuvers of, 72;
tactics of, in the 18th century, 156–158;
protection afforded by, 306–308;
French:
training of officers in, 8–9;
compared with British, 43;
weakness of, in Revolutionary Wars, 146, 171–174, 178;
faulty policy of, 155–158;
German: growth and purpose of, 111, 299, 307, 317–320;
United States:
interested chiefly in material, 8;
in Civil War, 41;
insufficient, 44;
in Spanish War, 59–60, 245, 250–253;
concentration of fleet of, 60, 274–275;
administration of, 122–124;
requirements of, 128–134
Nebogatoff, Russian Admiral, 83
Nelson, British Admiral, his place as a naval leader, #$1#;
in the Trafalgar campaign, 5, 62, 63, 196–223;
his pursuit of Napoleon in the Mediterranean, 58;
on concentration, 61;
quoted, 80, 82, 85, 175, 253;
and the rule of obedience, 126–127;
in the Copenhagen campaign, 184–190;
in command of channel forces, 191–192, 195
Netherlands. See Belgium; Holland
Neutrality, League of Armed, 184–190
Newport, Rhode Island, #$1#, 164, 166
New York, 31, 69, 73, 164–167
Niagara frontier, warfare on, 231–232, 235–236
Nile, battle of, 153
North Sea, 23, 25, 51, 313–316
Nossi-Bé, 82, 83
Pacific Coast, of United States, 35, 40, 67, 111, 112, 285, 289;
immigration to, 350, 356
Pacific Ocean, interest of the United States in, 289, 299–301
Panama Canal, its effect on naval policy, 18, 27–29, 325;
an interior line, 51, 301;
central position of, 67, 70, 77;
strategic importance of, 100–112, 149, 150, 356–357;
need of controlling approaches to, 285–287;
and the Monroe Doctrine, 288–291, 318
Paris, Treaty of, 147–148;
Declaration of, 99, 337;
city of, 198
Parker, British Admiral, 184–190
Peace Conferences, at The Hague, #$1#, 132, 331, 342, 346
Peninsular War, 81, 82
Pensacola, 29
Philippine Islands, 252, 349
Pitt, Sir William, British Prime Minister, 143, 151
Plevna, 56, 57
Plymouth, England, 24, 31
Pondicherry, 78, 154
Population, affecting sea power, 43–44;
of Pacific Coast, 301
Port Arthur, threatening Japanese communications, 56, 57;
attacked by siege, 71, 82;
squadron based on, 256–271, 275
Port Mahon, 289
Porto Rico, 241, 349
Ports, in Gulf and Caribbean, 128, 29;
flanking communications, 56–58
Portsmouth, England, 31
Preparation, for war, 128–134, 229–230, 237–238, 357
Private property at sea, immunity of, 78, 93, 98, 99, 328–341;
Rule of 1756 regarding, 227–228
Prussia, 147, 153, 189, 191, 228
Puget Sound, 67
Pyrenees, 52, 65
Ratisbon, 50
Red Sea, 152
Resources, affecting strategic value of positions, 68, 69, 74
Revel, 188–190
Rhine River, 50, 52, 53, 55, 56, 60, 197.
Richelieu, Cardinal, 31, 60
Rions, Commodore de, 174