After interviewing thousands of candidates, I’ve found these three questions to be the most catalytic in terms of learning more about a candidate:

a. In some ways, we’re probably all occasionally misperceived at work. People see us one way, but—in truth—we’re different than that. What’s the most common way you’re misperceived?

b. What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in your career? And why did you answer the question with this particular mistake?

c. At what skill are you world-class? And I’d be honored if you gave me some evidence of that talent?

If you’re not sure what your ideal environment looks like, ask yourself the following:

• Which six-month period of my life did I feel the most energetic and productive? What gave me that energy?

• In the past month, what moments stand out as highlights? What conditions enabled those moments to happen, and are they re-creatable?

• In the past week, when was I in a state of deep focus? How did I get there?

Here are your spades, questions to ask yourself so that you might reboot your leadership and move forward on your journey of growing up.

• How would I act were I to remember who I am? 

• What choices would I make, what actions would I take, if I regularly said the things that needed to be said? 

• Who would I become were I to be fully, completely, and wholly heard? 

• What is it that I wish the people in my life understood about me? 

• Who would I be without the myths I’ve told about myself; the stories that took hold when I was yearning to feel love, safety, and belonging?

So often I’m called in to help lead conversations about mission, value, and purpose. When, really, the only questions that matter are those that tell us who we are and wish to be.

• How would our organization respond were we to hear all the things that are being said, regardless if they are being said with words or deeds? 

• What does it mean to be a leader at our organization? 

• What does it mean to be grown, a fully actualized adult? 

• How would we feel if our children were to work for the company we’ve created or the team we lead? 

• How has the unsorted baggage of what has happened to us shaped who we are as leaders? 

• When our employees and colleagues leave our sides and our company, what do we want them to say about our time together? 

• What do we believe to be true about the world? 

• What do we, as a community of people working toward a common goal, believe the world needs?

Big questions interrupt the daily routines people fall into and prompt them to step back

and see their life from a distance. Here are some of my favorite questions that do that:

• “What crossroads are you at?” At any moment, most of us are in the middle of some

transition. The question helps people focus on theirs.

• “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” Most people know that fear plays some role in their life, but they haven’t clearly defined how fear is holding them back.

• “If you died tonight, what would you regret not doing?”

• “If we meet a year from now, what will we be celebrating?”

• “If the next five years is a chapter in your life, what is that chapter about?”

• “Can you be yourself where you are and still fit in?