How does self-esteem determine our willingness to ask for what we want? And what is the impact in the workplace when leaders take an “ask don’t tell” approach? G. Dan Lumpkin recently tackled both of these questions in a conversation with me.

Dan is president of Lumpkin & Associates, a management consulting firm specializing in helping organizations deal with change, build cultures for survival, and negotiate agreement internally to accomplish business objectives.

Widely regarded as among the top 1% of management consultants in these areas, Dan is an international speaker and author who presents to audiences globally. His management skills span over 45 years in industries including banking, merchandising, textiles, printing, training, retail, professional counseling, and consulting. Dan and his wife, Marla, live in Fairhope, Alabama.

Paul Quinn: Dan, for the last 38 years you’ve been a consultant helping grow people as leaders. But you started out as a therapist. Tell us about that.

G. Dan Lumpkin: Yes, I have a psychology degree from the University of Tennessee and did a two-year internship under a famous psychiatrist named Dr. William Glasser, the creator of reality therapy, which began my quest working with people who were solving problems in their lives. At the same time, I was working my way through school in the business world. In the process, I began to be fascinated with what makes a person emerge as a leader. 

I practice as a consultant exactly the way I did as a therapist. What resonated with me in my study with Dr. Glasser as a reality therapist, was that the most important question I can ever ask a client is, What do you want to have happen? The reason people don’t get what they want in life is because they don’t know the answer to that question, or even think to ask it. 

And the second most important question is, what are you willing to do to get it? How badly do you want it? When I was seeing patients, my strategy was always helping them learn, to make a plan. I’d say to them, If this is what you want to have happen and this is what you’re willing to do to get it, between now and the next time I see you, you will have done these two things, right? 

Paul Quinn: And they’d leave with that commitment.

G. Dan Lumpkin: Yes. But if they came back and said they didn’t do what they said they were going to do, then they must have a really good excuse, or changed their priorities, or didn’t really want it bad enough to ask for it or change their behavior to get it. Or they lacked courage. We have to turn our wishes and desires into behaviors.

Paul Quinn: What stops us from doing that?

G. Dan Lumpkin: The most important problem a lot of people have is low self-esteem. If I don’t feel good about myself, I don’t treat me very well and I won’t treat you very well either. But courage develops when a person begins to build their self-esteem. When I feel good about myself, I’m willing to take the risk or have the courage to ask. I’m not going to hold back for fear that I might lose.

I’ve always had the courage to ask because my self-esteem was in a pretty good place. I never had any baggage that got in the way of asking. And so, I think when people don’t ask, they should explore the reasons they’re not willing to do that. Some of them are just comfortable sitting back wanting and not acting. But until you move from just thinking about things to actually doing them, you can’t change your life.

Asking for Input

Paul Quinn: So far, we’ve been talking about asking mostly in the context of wants, and the key role of self-esteem in that. That’s a topic I also explore in my book. How about asking as inquiry, such as asking for input? In your work with organizations, can you sense when there’s an unspoken rule at the top against asking employees for their input? 

G. Dan Lumpkin: Yes, especially in organizations where people have become leaders but have not earned the right to lead their people. We have this subconscious journey we go on in which we think, Once I move into a particular position of leadership or power over somebody else, my job is not to ask, my job is to tell. And so, I have to tell everybody. I have to judge and evaluate everybody. But asking is the #1 skill that I teach the top executives that I coach all the time. It’s about listening more than you speak, asking instead of telling. People get so used to telling as they come up the ranks. But the best leaders are the ones who take a breath and ask questions. Because the very nature of questioning is, I get to hear how you’re thinking. But if I just make statements I shut it down, there’s no dialogue. No process.

Paul Quinn: How does the tell-don’t-ask approach affect the organization?

G. Dan Lumpkin: In a lot of tell-oriented cultures, many people are afraid to ask or even to speak up. They feel like they’re being told, “If we want your opinion we’ll beat it out of you, otherwise shut up.”

Paul Quinn: And what is the cost of that way of thinking? 

G. Dan Lumpkin: High turnover. If in the environment I don’t feel valued, if I’m considered to be just a number, if you depersonalize me, I won’t want to stay there. If I have the opportunity to leave, I will. Some don’t leave because they feel trapped. They’re too afraid to look for a new job or, in the case of a bad relationship, they’re afraid to leave the relationship. Their self-esteem is beaten down to the extent that they stay in an abusive company, situation, or relationship. They feel like that’s all they deserve and don’t bother to ask for what they want, for something better.

Paul Quinn: So, how do good leaders use their influence in more positive ways?

G. Dan Lumpkin: Leaders have six tools to use for power: information, expertise, goodwill, authority, reward, and discipline. The last three are positional power bases, but information, expertise and goodwill are personal power bases. When you lead from your personal power base you get a result. If I give you the information you need and you know I have your best interests at heart, you will do what I ask you to do.

But if I lead from my positional power because I’m the authority and you’re not, if I lead from reward where I can determine if you can have your bonus or even keep your job, or [if I lead] from discipline, I can punish you or make life miserable for you, you’ll give me the same result as if I used personal power. The difference is that positional power results in mere compliance. 

But if I lead from my personal power, I’ll get the same result but also commitment. You’ll do what I ask you to do and something extra. So, a leader who leads from their personal power bases, who provides information and asks questions, doesn’t come across as a teller all the time.

Paul Quinn: Leadership has traditionally been associated with positional power. How is that changing? 

G. Dan Lumpkin: Younger workers coming into the workforce today want immediate results, they want to be in charge tomorrow and they’re not really ready, but they think they are. Most importantly, though, they need to be included, to feel that their opinions matter and that what they have to offer intellectually is as good as what they have with their sweat equity. A lot of times that isn’t the way the culture is set up for them. The boss says, “It took me 20 years to get where I am and it’ll take you the same.” But maybe it isn’t going to take them 20 years. Maybe it’ll only take them five. Because the reason it took us 20 years was that everybody was telling us and nobody was asking us, so we weren’t really learning.  Today they learn faster.

Paul Quinn: It seems to me that when an employee who’s not used to being asked for their ideas or advice is asked, it reads immediately as a sign of respect. 

G. Dan Lumpkin: That’s one of the tools that a successful leader must employ. It’s the ability to not just ask but listen, verbally and nonverbally; to participate in the dialogue to make the person feel heard and understood. The dynamic shifts so that if I ask, you tell me. Paul, I am a “tell” person by nature. But I’m in an asking business. I can’t be a consultant or therapist or any of the things I do unless I ask people appropriately.

Paul Quinn: I recently read about James Sinegal, the former CEO of Costco. He was known to visit Costco stores on his own, unannounced, and ask front-line employees, How’s it going? What are your challenges here? How can we improve the customer experience? His “ask don’t tell” approach not only gave him insight but earned him the company’s loyalty.

G. Dan Lumpkin: That’s exactly right. That’s why when I’m working with C-suite executives around the world, one of the things I tell them is to break from tradition, to not be predictable, to show up and make random unscheduled appearances somewhere on the front line. What the bosses in the TV show Undercover Boss are learning is, What’s it like to work for me? And that is a question that every good leader should always be asking themselves. If given the opportunity, would I work for me? Knowing all that I know about myself? (laughs)

Paul Quinn: For egos of a certain size the answer might always be yes!

G. Dan Lumpkin: It may be, but that tells you: are they really listening? If they asked but didn’t listen, asking didn’t work. 

Paul Quinn: Which takes us full circle to the foundation of your work as a therapist-trained consultant, with the focus on self-awareness and self-honesty. 

G. Dan Lumpkin: Exactly. The better I know myself, which comes back to self-esteem, the better I can influence others. So, my life has always focused on building the self-esteem of the individuals I interact with and teaching them that leadership is about earning the right to lead people and become merchants of hope. It’s leaders like that, leaders who ask more than they tell, that can help others become better individuals and, therefore, better employees. 

For information about G. Dan Lumpkin visit Lumpkin & Associates.

Paul Quinn is author of a book-in-progress about the power of asking, from which this content is excerpted.

Banner photo of ASK sign by Brett Jordan on Unsplash