Leadership in Action: Power Source - Asking the Right Questions Energizes Leaders

SWINGING RIGHT

Leaders can affect their ability to ask powerful questions by limiting the way in which they gather information. Most organizations prize the capacity for intellectual analysis, in which issues are broken down into constituent parts. This has been called L-mode thinking because research has shown it to be typically (but not exclusively) associated with the left hemisphere of the brain. L-mode thinking deals with analysis, language, symbols, and sequence.

Fewer organizations—although the number is growing—have seen the value of a complementary approach, called R-mode thinking because it has been largely associated with the right hemisphere of the brain. R-mode thinking deals with patterns, synthesis, visual metaphors, emotions, ...