Interview with Alicia McKay on leadership, strategy, curiosity and minimising bulls#!t

In this conversation Shelley speaks with New Zealand’s straight-talking strategist, Alicia Mckay about being strategic and about the power of asking questions.

Today, more than ever, it is harder and more important to create the space to be more strategic as a leader. She says “finding time to do this doesn’t happen by accident”, we must schedule, prioritise and be intentional about how we use our time and find the right space to enable ourselves to get a different perspective.

Alicia shares her views on the power of questions saying “asking questions is the single most useful leadership behaviour”. If you only decided to work on one thing as a leader it would be to create a default to questions…“just ask another question…” It is through questions that we are better able to maintain perspective, seek to understand and teach people to solve their own problems. It is through questions that we can teach the rule rather than solve the problem and truly build capability within our team.