Leadership: How to Ask the Right Questions

Question-based leadership only works if managers don't provide all the answers. Here's how to focus on being a facilitator, not an oracle

By Gary B. Cohen

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What are the right questions for leaders to ask?

Like notorious law school professors who interrogate their students until the "truth" appears, many business leaders hold meetings where they pepper employees with rapid-fire questions. But too often managers' questions are designed to show off their own knowledge rather than actually solicit new information or ideas.

Question-based leadership is certainly preferable to the command-and-control model but not when leaders provide both the questions and the answers. It's what I call "Just Ask Leadership." Leaders can't know all the answers—not when information, tools, and practices change so frequently. Nor does it serve an organization to count on receiving answers from a single individual or a small leadership team. Centralizing power results in hasty, ill-informed decisions due to the sheer volume of decisions being made. It also yields instability when leaders leave abruptly. Worse, perhaps, it creates a culture of approval-seekers, not independent thinkers.

Leaders need to take their ego out of the equation and focus on being facilitators, not oracles. They should start asking questions they don't know the answers to. What follows are some pointers on how to make this work.

How do I ask questions without knowing or seeming to know the answers?

Challenge your certainty. Our beliefs and assumptions are skewed by personal biases and not to be fully trusted. Often they haven't been tested or revised based upon new information. They reflect partial knowledge and are only partially wise. Resist acting instinctively on your beliefs and assumptions, and open your mind to the subject's potential complexity. Before registering your opinion, enter into a state of not knowing. Zen Buddhists call this the "beginner's mind." Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey (Immunity to Change, Harvard Business School Publishing, 2009) would describe this as moving from the "self-authorizing mind" to the "self-transforming mind."

Once you learn to distrust yourself, it's easier to trust others. The goal isn't to locate the most trustworthy or least fallible individual and hand all decision-making to this person; the goal is to share the load and get everyone to feel ownership in the organization's direction and operations. This doesn't mean that everyone should participate in every decision, but decision-making needs to be more evenly distributed.

If my answer is better than my co-worker's, should I reveal it?

Before getting into answer mode, ask, "Whose decision is it?" If it is your decision to make (based upon your job description), ask questions that will help you arrive at the best answer. If it's your co-worker's decision to make, ask questions to help him or her—referencing his or her particular skills and tendencies. The best answer usually comes from the people responsible for employing it. Ownership of an idea creates more engagement, drive, and efficiency. So communicate trust in your co-workers' decision-making abilities and assure them you won't arrive at an answer independently. But encourage them to subject their ideas and answers to a vigorous questioning process, and hold them accountable for the results of their decisions.

What if I don't trust a particular co-worker to make sound decisions?

It doesn't make sense to ask questions of people you don't trust since you won't believe their answers. Provide your co-workers with increasingly important tasks and decision-making opportunities. Chances are they will rise to the challenge, provided your expectations for success are realistic. If they fail repeatedly, however, it's time to find a replacement or embark on training. Otherwise, you will be doing more of their work and less of yours than you should.

Why do co-workers keep coming to me with decisions they should make?

At first glance, everyone profits from your answer-providing habit: They get to hold you responsible for poor decisions, and you get to feel indispensable and powerful.

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