Luke Hartman Answers Questions Leaders Should Know the Answers To

There are specific questions that leaders should be able to answer without hesitation. Many basic leadership questions can be answered with ease if you have a strong leadership philosophy. Many leaders even write down their leadership philosophy because it can serve as an operating manual for your leadership compass. This philosophy should be able to answer the following questions with easy.

What do You Believe Regarding Leadership?
Principles are fundamental when forming a leadership philosophy. These basic principles can range from “leaders serve others” to “discipline is the key to achieving goals.” They are basic rules and guidelines that serve as the foundation for your leadership style. These should be seen as an outline.

What You Can Expect from Me, the Leader
This question is more regarding leader’s behavior. Some leaders can be hands-on while some can be hands-off. For example, “I will be fully engaged in every team effort but will also make efforts to delegate responsibility to those who are capable” is a fair statement to follow up on this question. The essence of this question is that your team wants to know to what degree do you want to have a relationship with them.

What Do I Expect of All of You, the Team?
This sets the tone of expectations for the team. Leaders find honesty, hard work, respect, and accountability when it comes to their team. Philosophies can reflect differently depending on the individual’s leadership style. Some leaders want their team to go to them with problems and solutions while some want to brainstorm solutions together.

What Are Your Absolutes?
These are the non-negotiable items that a leader has. Many of these include interrupting other team members, general negativity, or general low performance. These “pet-peeves” can also help shape the general atmosphere and “culture” of a team.

On a broader perspective, leadership philosophy can keep organizations on course for healthy cultures. On a lower-level, they reduce the amount of time team members waste trying to guess whether the leader appreciates or is annoyed when it comes to them regarding a specific situation. Leadership philosophies not only lower the amount of discontent in a relationship but also help create strong, healthy relationships as well.