Ask These Questions Before Talking on Leadership

When you are in a leadership role and have headed a company for a reasonable amount of time, chances are you will be asked to speak on leadership to a diverse audience. The types of viewers can be anywhere from high school aged students, college students, young professionals, older professionals, and many more. One of the biggest things you must do when speaking on leadership is to prepare your talk and make sure it is meaningful to your listeners.

No one wants to sit around and just hear about the success stories that led you to your current leadership role. This would make for a quite boring seminar on leadership and not give your listeners any insight on how to achieve this themselves. Instead, incorporate information in your talk that is going to inspire your audience. Many people may think this can be a difficult task to complete, but as long as you ask yourself the right questions, it can be very easy to utilize.

Forbes takes a deep dive into some of those inspiring questions that will leave your audience with thoughts to take away from your talk and inspire them to become great leaders. Although the Forbes article dives into ten of the essential questions to ask yourself, we are going to take a look at the first three to jump start your preparation for a speaking engagement on leadership.

A great question to ask yourself is whether or not you’ve taken significant steps within your career. This could mean anything from going from a team member to management position, taking on a new role within an entirely new department, or volunteering or being tasked with a significant assignment. It is beneficial to share with your audience how you’ve dealt with receiving big opportunities for leadership and how they impacted your life and work as a whole. People want to know how you received the opportunities you have and whether or not they were given to you based on work ethic and success or if you outright asked for them.

When formulating your talk, ask yourself, “who mentored you or inspired you during your career?” This is an excellent question as many people may have someone in their lives that could be a mentor for them to create success in their work. Not only can this inspire people looking to move up in the ranks and take on more leadership roles, but it can also give others who have done so, the thought of being a mentor for someone else and sharing their knowledge.

Lastly, share with your listeners if there was ever a time that you needed or wanted to walk away from an opportunity that was presented to you. Not every offer is going to be something that aligns with our career goals, and others need to know that it is okay to say no to something that doesn’t excite you. Along those lines, how did turning down the opportunity hinder or excel your career and what did you learn from doing so? These tips will give others the knowledge they need in order to figure out the right opportunities for them.