During meetings, it’s really hard to come up with solid and worthy questions to ask your manager. Asking questions is very useful as it increases your chances of getting remembered. When you are constantly in conversation with your manager they start to see you and think about you every time. This commonly happens with everyone because there are only a few times that we find someone genuinely interested in talking with you. Your manager would also get impressed by the way you engage with him/her. Let us know more about “One On One Meeting Questions To Ask Manager”.
Asking questions is good but there is still a limit to it. You may impress someone by asking them a few questions related to the job and work but if you continue asking questions for a longer period it will lead to negative effects. The manager might start feeling irritated and angry due to continuously asking questions. You need to control your questions. Sometimes we see employees who are quite shy to ask questions or don’t understand what they should ask and talk about. Thus, we are here to give you a guide that contains a lot of questions that you can use to ask your manager.
Let’s get to know the different one-on-one questions to ask your manager and the meaning behind the question. Before getting into the list let’s first understand the topic in a better manner.
What are One-on-One Meetings?
One-on-one meetings have been prevalent for ages. It’s an interacting meeting where you get a chance to openly converse with your manager and talk about all kinds of aspects associated with the company. There are a lot of questions that you can ask your manager to increase the connection between you and your manager. These types of meetings are meant to create a bond between the employee and manager and help them lead a successful work life. These meetings are quite helpful and form the foundations that generate trust and kinship relations with employees.
There are different aspects on which two people here, the manager and employee, can talk about. There are certain common topics that they can talk about it can include-
- Growth
- Career
- Development
- Work
These are the common four topics on which they can talk for long hours. These types of conversations help managers understand their employees a little better and decide on policies to help them grow in the work environment. The very important reason why one-on-one meetings are conducted by managers is to get a regular feedback model for the way work has been happening.
Questions to Ask
The type of questions you ask your manager in one-on-one meetings can differ a lot. As the main focus of the meeting is to improve connections and make this meeting a fruitful event, it’s really important to ask the right amount of questions that are appropriate and will reveal major answers. This can be used to manage the company well. The meeting is also sometimes referred to as a feedback meeting where the managers gain meaningful feedback from them on the working of the company, their policies, and principles, and want changes to be made to improve the organization. The feedback model works both ways.The employee would ask for feedback and understand his/her work performance, on which domains they can improve, and how they can make more profits for the company.
It’s really important to choose your questions wisely as it will help you in the meeting. Your major doubts and grievances about the company can get solved. Therefore, the meeting is quite important and you should present your thoughts and fears openly in front of them.
There are different topics on which a manager might wish to work on with his employees and there are different topics on which an employee would like to ask questions to the employee. The manager’s questions would cover the company aspect and he would talk as a communicator of the company. This will help you evaluate the meaning and true value of the company. While your questions can cover aspects about the company as well as yourself. This will help the manager know more about you and how you work. Here we will be discussing different topics on which an employee can ask questions to their manager. All these topics would be discussed in detail with certain examples of the type of questions you can ask your manager.
The various topics are as follows-
Professional and Personal Growth
As an employee, you can ask your manager questions related to career growth and personal development. It’s a broad topic that can be easily discussed for hours. It covers a lot of things related to work-life and how you can develop yourself professionally. Your manager would have a lot of experience and talking with them about these topics can help you understand their way of dealing with things around them and how they worked towards developing themselves professionally. You can discuss the plans of the company and how things are supposed to go. This will give you a brief idea about the company and you can prepare yourself for the challenges ahead.
The various type of questions you can ask under this category include the following-
What would you like to teach the employees to make their future resistant?
It’s a simple question with a lot of potential. This simple question can be answered in various ways by your manager. They might give you a simple answer about what they would want to teach their employees or would get in-depth into the topic and reveal certain things that they expect from their employees. This will help you bond with your manager and understand their point of view. Many times employees might find the manager to be very arrogant but talking to them in a one-on-one meeting will help you understand why they behave in that particular way. It’s a great question and will certainly help you during the meeting.
What skills do you think an employee needs to possess?
It’s an intelligent question to ask your manager. In a one-on-one meeting, the manager would be quite open with you, and thus you can ask every type of question related to work and business. Here is, when you ask them about certain desirable characteristics that managers demand in an employee. This will help you get an edge over other employees as it will help you develop your characteristics to suit the job. As a manager, they have met a lot of people, and they know what they demand from an employee. Their knowledge and experience can help you understand how you can develop yourself and make yourself desirable in the company. This will help you get over all other employees and grab a higher position in the company.
How does the company plan on developing itself?
This question is open-ended and will help you understand the company’s growth prospects. When you once understand where the company is heading you can make a good decision about where you can lead your path to excel within and outside the company. There are many companies out there that do not have a solid plan laid out for themselves. This would only lead to decreasing in the growth of the company and the individual as both of them wouldn’t know what’s best for them. When you know the strategies and plans of the company then you can understand their development pattern and a company’s success pattern is quite similar to an employee’s success pattern. Your success pattern will depend on your company as well. The more the company progresses in their work and business the more you can develop your skills and progress in your professional life.
Who do you think in the company has the potential to help the company reach heights?
It’s a simple, general question that can give you meaningful insights. This question will help you understand what the manager demands from their employees or what they wish their employees should possess. These questions might make you feel insecure for a moment but if you are in the right growth mindset then you will take it positively and try to achieve things to get into this list. This will help you learn new skills and habits that can be useful in the long run and they can work to get you to your dream position. Whenever you try to understand someone else try to keep an open mind where you don’t get fooled by the managers or your own biases. You need to be able to discriminate against your own bias and then try to judge the situation and the person, otherwise, you would find it hard to adapt and cope with the surroundings and people around you.
These were some questions that you can ask. All of them focus on the prime topic of career growth and personal development which is an important aspect of every person. Even though we are talking about professional development in life, goeth and development should be an integral part of normal life as well.
Business Growth and Planning
It’s a general topic that focuses on the productivity and success of a company or individual. In any company, the most important aspect that the managers or the heads focus on is how productive you are and how much work you can do within a specific period. Every company wishes to develop themselves, and they need work to be done fast-paced instead of slowly submitting the required things or documents. Delay is quite harmful to a business and thus you need to constantly be active to make things come true. When you are productive you can easily achieve success but work and growth are interrelated. You might get successful by not working sometimes. It all depends on your luck, but this same luck wouldn’t work again. It can fade away if you do not work towards it constantly.
The various type of questions you can ask under this category include the following-
How can I improve my performance?
It’s a short question to ask your manager. These types of questions can help you understand your manager’s inner thoughts and what they think about themselves. Your manager can give you their personally tested ways to improve your performance which can help you reach a level where your manager is at. One-on-one meetings are quite knowledgeable because they include the interaction between two people which is meaningful. Understanding someone else’s thinking pattern will help you understand others better and you can develop a skill to be compassionate towards others’ thoughts and opinions. It will also help you improve your performance as you would gain a lot of first-hand information, unavailable to others in the company.
How to lead a team towards success?
It’s a common question and is quite similar to the first one but this question’s answer will teach you how to handle people around you. Learning leadership skills has become a prerequisite in this modern world. Learning becomes possible when you have such an amazing manager who focuses and actively conducts one-on-one meetings to help their employees grow and work harder than you can learn a lot from them. Finding such managers is quite hard to take full advantage of this meeting to exact everything from them. As an employee who works under this manager, you may be aware of the fact that he/she ( your manager) has great leadership skills, and he can teach you the basics of handling people.
What do you wish to change about this company or team?
It’s an in-depth question that will force them to think and evaluate situations around them. The answer to this question needs to be perfect thus when you ask this question they might think a lot. This is a hard question for the manager as they wouldn’t love to openly reveal things that they hate about the team or company. The answer to the question will help you understand what’s lacking in your team or company and you then can make strategies to correct this. First, you need to understand their problem deeply and where it is coming from. Once you understand the core of the problem you can work on coming up with a solution for the problem. This process will take a lot of time thus you need to be patient. And the end step includes taking action and making the plan a reality.
Where do you see yourself and the company in the next 5 years?
It’s a general question and can reveal a lot about your manager and what they think about themselves and the company. This will help you understand your manager’s self-esteem and motivation and what they feel about the company. It will also help you know your manager’s plans and how they focus on moving forward in their career. You can contribute to your manager’s plan by doing whatever you can for them. When you understand your manager’s and company’s plans you can frame your plans for the future and lay down a strong path towards achieving those plans. When you have set a goal for yourself you are more determined to achieve it and this will help you achieve your own goal.
These were some questions related to productivity and success that you can ask your manager.
People skills and Interaction with Others
When you are part of an organization it’s really important to understand the importance of social skills. Every company has a certain amount of employees in it and you need to be active and assertive about your thoughts and ideas. Social skills can help you make your first impression in the company. Converting work with others is important as it helps you understand your colleagues and managers in a better way and you also get the confidence to exert your own opinions onto them. Another important thing you need to keep in mind is constructive criticism. It is a type of positive criticism that needs to be taken positively. Getting feedback from your manager can help you improve yourself and show them that you have the potential to change.
The various type of questions you can ask under this category include the following-
What is the one thing that needs an improvement in me?
This is a subjective question and the answers might be vivid or quite clear in the first go. When you ask your manager such an extreme question they might need to think for a second before answering it. This question will help you understand where you lack in certain fields, and how you can improve in them. It will help you prove yourself in front of the company and your manager. You should be able to take in every time feedback that the manager gives to you because as a higher authority who is more experienced and knowledgeable than you, you must respect their opinions and choices. You can choose to improve on the areas mentioned by the manager or try to readjust your existing talents and skills.
Do you think I can handle a large team?
This question is quite general but I hope you understand what the manager thinks about you. You can be in their top list, bottom list of employees, or somewhere in the between. This is a team question and you might understand what your manager feels. You can either be a team player or an individual player but what matters is the determination you have within to improve and be the best among others. You need to take their comments seriously and learn team building and management skills. Many times people with good management and team skills are chosen by the manager to become the team leaders in a project. This can negatively hamper you if you don’t have good leadership skills. Thus, if you get a negative answer from your manager and try working on those skills, they see an improvement.
Do you think I take feedback positively?
The best way to understand how you function and behave in a group setting or the office is by asking someone who is there to monitor your actions 24/7. Your manager is one of those people who loves to observe you and make conclusions based on your performance at the office. Asking them what they think about you is a great choice. You can ask them about how you behave or take feedback. As they love to observe others they might provide you with meaningful answers that can help you a lot. Receiving negative feedback can be hard for many people but taking it positively and working on it can be done by only a few people. Ask your manager how you behave after receiving feedback, whether you lash out, or get angry or, take it seriously and change your behavior to some extent.
Do I handle projects effectively?
It’s a general question to ask your manager. Handling projects given by the manager can sometimes be stressful and you might end up doing something wrong. It’s important to understand your way of dealing with things to make modifications in the process. When you understand what you are doing wrong, you can make a path towards understanding what’s right. Projects need to be handled with care and team partnership and if your team lacks both then your project wouldn’t be up to the mark. So let’s start asking our managers about the way they would want us to deal with the projects and what results they expect
These were some questions related to social skills and feedback that you can ask your manager.
Conclusion
You need to understand that your manager is there to help you through your problems and make you the best version of yourself. You need to understand their importance and start sh
aring with them certain aspects of the work that you are unaware of. You can ask your manager to conduct a one-on-one meeting if your company doesn’t engage in it. These meetings are truly worthwhile and help you understand a lot about yourself and the work you do.
