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A common perception among those in charge is that asking questions can be perceived as a sign of weakness. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The true markings of a leader are shown by asking questions to gain further knowledge and using that knowledge in problem-solving. There are many advantages of asking powerful questions, whether it be to improve understanding between you and your team or for team problem-solving and building bonds with each other. Below are some reasons why the best leaders ask great questions.

Increase Insight

Questions not only provide insight into situations that may arise but also paint a picture of how your way of thinking works, giving an opportunity for other team members to understand your leadership strategy and implement it on future tasks. This also in turn provides them a blueprint to solve problems on their own without your involvement, saving your time for other areas of work that may require attention.

Provide Inspiration

By incorporating an emotional element with the questions that you ask, you allow others to examine themselves and help them grow as individuals. This not only builds your status as someone to follow, but also builds their loyalty as they see you as someone who challenges them to grow into a better team member and keeps them enthusiastic about work. Furthermore, by asking questions you are also giving your team the chance to develop their own problem-solving skills. Eventually, asking questions will become a part of your team culture, and team members will adopt a solution-oriented mindset instead of stopping at the problem.

Become a Better Listener

Sometimes when you are always the one dictating tasks, you can forget to pay attention to other thoughts and opinions. One way to ensure a good rapport with others is to ask open-ended questions that require answers other than just “yes” or “no”. This technique lets you become a better listener in addition to fostering ideas that are creative, unique, and open to constructive criticism.

Being a leader doesn’t always mean that you’re the one with all the answers. By engaging with others in the form of asking powerful questions, you gain insight into their thinking, provide inspiration to be more inquisitive and solution-oriented, and become a better listener in the process. Next time you are in a leadership meeting, remember that you can help yourself and your team achieve by asking the right questions.

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Few skills are more important in C-level support than the ability to communicate effectively. If you can communicate your ideas in a straightforward and compelling manner, you can inspire the people around you and earn the trust and respect of your team members. Here are three ways you can become a better communicator.

Listen Carefully

Active listening is an essential aspect of effective communication because it facilitates understanding and empathy. To build trust with your audience and form a lasting connection, you must understand what is important to them. During conversation, listen carefully to what the other person says and take the time to reflect on their words before responding to them. By practicing active listening, you show your team members that you respect their opinions, knowledge, and feelings. Active listening will also hold back any urges you may have to interrupt, which is important because you don’t want your team members to feel like you’re talking over them.

Practice Body Language

Most communication is non-verbal. Make sure your facial expressions and body language match what your mouth is saying. For example, if you’re trying to inspire or motivate someone, wear a genuine smile, but if you’re giving bad news, keep your expression solemn. In most cases, your body language should be welcoming, so lean forward, relax your muscles, and avoid crossing your arms or using extraneous hand gestures. In contrast, if you step away from your audience, tense up around them, cross your hands, or tilt your head backwards, you risk making your team members feel threatened, inferior, or anxious. Practice speaking in front of the mirror. This will help you become more aware of how your body language can affect your communication.

Be Transparent

Transparency leads to better communication. As a leader, it is important to practice being open about your goals, the goals of the company you represent, problems that arise, and more so that you can cultivate trust within your team. Transparency also helps the team set goals and understand what is expected of them. As a leader, you can promote clear, open, and honest communication by trusting your employees to perform their work independently, encouraging team members to ask questions and speak openly about problems and concerns, and regularly meeting with your team members.

Effective communication is an essential leadership skill because it allows you to create a team that has a strong foundation of mutual trust, while minimizing miscommunication in the workplace. You can become a better communicator by listening more carefully, by becoming more aware of body language, and by being more transparent.

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More professionals in C-level support are working from home now than ever before. Leaders in the field have had to adjust their approach rapidly to ensure meetings remain focused, engaging, and effective. Below are some tips on how to improve your remote team meetings.

Keep Meetings Small

Remote meetings work best if there are fewer than twelve attendees. Before sending out invites, think about who needs to be in the meeting and who doesn’t. Larger meetings tend to be ineffective in a remote setting because it becomes harder for leaders to maintain the team’s focus. In addition, when there are too many people, not everyone will be able to participate equally, which may leave some of your team members feeling like you’re wasting their time. If the information discussed in the meeting is important but specific team members don’t need to be part of the conversation, you can also record the meeting and have them listen to it later.

Establish Guidelines

Many of your team members probably have an unclear understanding of what behaviors make virtual meetings successful. It helps to have periodic discussions with your team about meeting etiquette. For example, team members may need to know how long to make their responses and when it is alright to interrupt a speaker. Guidelines like this prevent meetings from lasting longer than they need to and ensure your team knows what to expect from remote conferences. Other guidelines you should address include whether attendees should have their video turned on, when should they mute their mic, and how they should approach disruptions, such as a phone ringing or baby crying.

Set Time Strategically

Long meetings put everyone in a foul mood, especially if the team has a lot of other tasks they need to complete for the day. Thus, you have to be strategic about time. Make sure necessary technology is set up before the start of the meeting and all documents are ready to go. Have a clear agenda and distribute the agenda to the attendees. Strict agendas keep the meeting focused and ensure everyone is on the same page. Adequate preparation is the key to hosting an effective virtual meeting. Technical difficulties that push the start of the meeting back stresses everyone out, hindering the team’s ability to create and cooperate.

Check for Understanding

It is a lot easier to tell if someone is confused in-person because you can see facial expressions better. In a remote setting, not everyone may have their cameras on. Even with video, images may be small or distorted. Additionally, not everyone will be comfortable interrupting you while you’re talking to ask for clarification. For these reasons, it is crucial you to pause for questions periodically throughout the meeting. This will ensure no one feels lost and everyone feels heard.

It can be difficult to lead team meetings in general, but it is especially challenging when the meetings are virtual. In a remote environment, there is more opportunity for technical difficulties and other disruptions and a lot of nonverbal communication is lost in translation. You can improve virtual meetings by limiting the number of attendees, setting clear guidelines, being strategic about time, and checking for understanding.

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There are many clichés about leadership. Often when advice and buzzwords become overused it’s because they come from a place of wisdom, but this isn’t always the case. Here are 4 cliches about leadership you should avoid.

All Opinions Count

The idea of a democracy makes us all feel good. It is nice to think that ever employee has a voice that should be heard. The reality is a company is not a government. You cannot consult all your employees whenever a decision needs to be made. This creates inefficiency and disorganization. Sometimes you will need to make quick decisions that might even step on other people’s toes. Ultimately, you have to if you want the company to grow.

There’s No “I” in Team

This saying has been used ad nauseam. There is no denying that teamwork is essential for a successful workplace. Yet every member of a team is also an individual, which needs to be recognized. Encourage cooperation and collaboration, but not to the point that the people just become cogs in a machine. There needs to be a balance.

The Customer Is Always Right

You want your clients to be happy, of course. But you also need your employees to be happy. Even more importantly, you need their trust and respect. If you consistently take the side of your customers over the side of your employees, they will start to feel like you do not trust or value them. Sometimes the customer is right and sometimes they are wrong. Assess the situation and be honest about it.

Don’t Come with a Problem Unless You have a Solution

This cliché can be tricky. While having a team that can problem solve is ideal, not every problem has an easy solution. Shutting down employees when they have problems does not always encourage accountability. Instead, it can discourage them from speaking up. You want the team to come together to solve problems. They can’t do so if the individual employees are afraid to speak up.

You’ve probably heard these four clichés more times than you can count. They come up often in the workplace. Take clichés with a grain of salt. They’re not all without merit, but you are better off avoiding them.

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