In my last post, I summarized highlights from The Great Game of Business, written by business owner Jack Stack. In this post, I’ve listed nine tough rhetorical questions that remind me of Marcus Buckingham’s 12 (now 8) Questions. Here goes:

1. What are you personally giving to the people you manage?
2. Do you spend as much time thinking about your team as you spend thinking about customers?
3. Do you share your problems, or do you keep them to yourself?
4. Do you, yourself, operate with an open book? Do you let your people know everything that you know?
5. Are you getting the benefit of your team’s intelligence, or do you still think you’re responsible for coming up with the answers on your own?
6. Do your people know what to do without being told, or do they wait to get a list from you? Is everybody working toward the same goal? Does everybody know what it is? Do you let people figure out the best way to get there?
7. Do you know what gets your people angriest? Have you ever asked them about their frustrations and their fears? What keeps them awake at night?
8. Have you talked to your team about your own fears and frustrations? Can you let down your guard enough to do that? Are you willing to make yourself vulnerable? Do you have enough self-confidence to take the risk to be transparent with them?
9. Most important, if the answer to any of these questions is no, do you really want to change?

I’m guessing Marcus Buckingham would love this list.

Consider doing a self-assessment first. Then, have your leadership team members complete a self-assessment, followed by a company assessment.

For those of you who are nervous, I’ll quote my dad once again: “It is what it is.” Take the risk and, if you’re not where you could be, do something about it.