With the pace of business growing exponentially, great leadership is no longer about having all the answers on hand all the time, and more about building a cohesive team and having the ability to ask the right questions, of the right people, at the right time to gather the necessary information to make good decisions. Mastering the art of asking questions is one of the (not so secret) success factors of truly impactful contemporary leaders.
With the boom of Gen AI, answers are available everywhere, all the time, which means they are no longer a commodity of value. Instead, the ability to ask purposeful questions is what makes the real difference in the quality of the responses we get from ourselves, each other and the tools available to us.
At their core, questions are invitations. They invite thinking, sharing, connection, and exploration. Unlike statements or comments, questions open up possibilities and create a sense of space. Their purpose can be to:
- Seek information and clarify understanding
- Prompt reflection and deeper thought
- Stimulate creativity and problem solving
- Engage others and build rapport, and/or
- Identify assumptions and challenge the status quo
Great leaders understand that questions aren’t just about gathering data, but are equally a powerful lever to influence, develop and connect.
Asking vs Telling
At the most basic level, asking questions has a fundamentally different impact on the brain compared with telling someone something. When you are told information, your brain primarily engages passive processing areas; which means the information comes in, potentially getting stored, but with limited active engagement with the content. Conversely, when you are asked a question, your brain lights up and initiates a process called “instinctual elaboration”. We immediately begin working through the question. Interestingly, just being asked a question about something can significantly impact on our motivations and ways of thinking. A study from 1993 found that simply asking a person if they were going to purchase a new car within 6 months increased purchase rates by 35%!
So, questions stimulate neural networks related to:
- Activation – being alert, engaged and anticipating the need to respond
- Retrieval – actively searching memory banks for information
- Connection-making – linking existing information in new ways to formulate an answer
- Focus – directing attention to specific areas, which filters out distractions
In short: when the brain is told something, it is in a passive receiving mode; and when it is asked something, it is in an active contributing mode. As a leader, making the simple switch from telling to asking is already making a difference to engagement, participation and creativity in your team.
Questions in Groups
One of the most foundational human social cognitive needs is the need to belong and connect with others. By swapping from telling to asking, you are able to foster a culture of safety and belonging in your team which signals that input and contribution are safe and valued. Research shows that this foundation of psychological safety is essential for high performance across sectors and industries.
Encouraging expression, sharing and listening through questions will help team members to develop greater empathy, understand one another’s viewpoints and build a sense of connection and appreciation for diversity in the team. Many people can feel shy to share their perspectives unless directly invited, and questions offer a perfect format to welcome the input of all team members.
By inviting diverse perspectives, questions will help your team access a wider range of data points which, in turn, generates more innovative solutions and promotes critical thinking and better decisions.
Finally, using questions as a tool to shape and develop plans, goals and objectives supports team alignment and ensures everyone is clear both on the shared direction and how they can individually contribute. The collective mission, focus and sense of ownership that is inspired through the co-creative process of questioning can enable teams to work in more aligned, strategic and cohesive ways than if the direction is set unilaterally by a leader.
Using questions to flip the script
Embracing the power of questions shifts the leader’s role from being the sole source of information to becoming an enabler, coach and facilitator. As you practice using more questions in your leadership, you will facilitate more expansive discussions that ensure everyone’s voices are heard, help individuals unpack their own potential and find innovative solutions. This ultimately creates an empowering culture where people take ownership and are inspired to contribute.
This approach, based on science, not only leverages the collective intelligence of your team but it also builds their capability and confidence. Asking more questions moves beyond traditional, outdated models of leadership, fostering a dynamic, adaptive team capable of higher performance and ready to tackle the challenges of the future.
When do questions make a big difference?
There’s plenty of opportunities to transform your leadership by making the switch from telling to asking. However, to get you going, we have compiled a quick-pick matrix of some common leadership moments, and the questions that might help you to navigate them in a more spacious and engaging way.
You can find the full quick-pick table in our ASK Toolkit, which we developed to support leaders to ask the right question at the right time to achieve better results. The ASK toolkit includes a clear guide to help you pick the right type of question for any moment, a library of powerful, practical and purpose-built questions sorted by type and business lens to bring a sharper focus to how you do strategy, finance, culture and more. You can check it out here.
