Article 4
Sometimes the most developmental thing a leader can do is resist giving the answer and ask a better question.
Earlier in my leadership career, I thought one of the ways I added value was by helping people find answers.
Someone brought me a problem, and I helped solve it.
It felt useful. It felt efficient. And, very often, it produced the result we needed.
After all, many of us become leaders because we are good at what we do. We know the work. We have experience. We have solved similar problems before.
So when someone comes to us with an issue, the answer may seem obvious.
Why not just give it?
Experience has taught me that there is another question worth asking:
Am I solving today’s problem, or am I developing someone’s ability to solve tomorrow’s?
When Helping Becomes Doing the Thinking
There are times when a leader absolutely should provide the answer.
A new employee may need instruction. A serious performance issue may require clarity. A crisis may demand decisive action.
But not every situation requires us to tell.
If every problem comes to the leader and every solution comes from the leader, we may unintentionally create a team that becomes very good at bringing us problems.
We become the bottleneck.
And perhaps more importantly, we can create dependence where we should be developing capability.
I have had to learn to ask myself:
If I am always the person with the answer, am I developing people, or am I teaching them to depend on me?
That can be an uncomfortable question, particularly for leaders who have built their careers on being competent, knowledgeable and dependable.
But leadership changes the responsibility.
It is no longer only about what I can do.
It is increasingly about what I can help others become capable of doing.
A Better Question Can Change the Conversation
Sometimes the shift begins with four simple words:
“What do you think?”
Instead of immediately offering the solution, we can become curious about the other person’s thinking.
What options have you considered?
What might you be missing?
What would happen if you tried that?
What is making this difficult?
What support do you need from me?
The value is not in memorising a list of clever coaching questions.
It is in becoming genuinely interested in how the other person is thinking, rather than simply waiting for an opportunity to tell them what we think.
A good question can help someone examine an assumption, see another possibility or recognise that they already know more than they thought they did.
And sometimes, the person asking the question learns something too.
Then Comes the Silence
This is one of the lessons I have had to learn myself.
We ask a question.
There is silence.
And because silence can feel uncomfortable, we rush to fill it.
We rephrase the question. We give a hint. We offer our own view. Sometimes we answer the question ourselves.
But perhaps the other person is simply thinking.
I was fortunate to have leaders who helped me understand the value of leaving space for silence. It is a lesson that has stayed with me and one I now bring into my own coaching conversations.
A good question needs room to breathe.
Ask.
Wait.
Listen.
The pause that feels uncomfortable to us may be exactly the space someone else needs to think more deeply.
And listening means more than remaining quiet until it is our turn to speak. It requires us to pay attention to what is being said, what may not yet have been said, and what we might learn if we resist preparing our response too quickly.
Coaching Does Not Mean We Stop Leading
I want to be careful here.
A coaching leader is not a leader who responds to every situation with a question.
Sometimes people need direction.
Sometimes they need our expertise.
Sometimes they need feedback.
Sometimes a decision simply has to be made.
The objective is not to replace telling with asking.
It is to develop the judgment to know which is needed.
Do I need to tell? Do I need to teach? Do I need to ask? Do I need to coach? Do I need to decide?
Leadership maturity is knowing the difference.
Someone doing something for the first time may need clear direction. An experienced team member wrestling with a difficult problem may need something quite different: the opportunity to think it through.
The same leadership response will not serve every person or every situation.
That connects directly to the self-awareness we explored in Article 3. Once I understand my own natural tendencies, I can make a more intentional choice about what the person in front of me actually needs.
From Performance to Potential
There is also a longer-term question.
If my only concern is today’s result, giving the answer may sometimes be faster.
But leadership carries responsibility for more than today’s result.
We are also developing the people who will have to make decisions, solve problems and lead when we are not there.
That changes the question from:
“How do I get this done?”
to:
“How do I get this done while also developing the person who may need to do it without me tomorrow?”
That, for me, is where coaching leadership becomes stewardship.
Earlier in my career, I often thought being helpful meant helping people find the answer.
Experience has taught me something more.
Sometimes my greater responsibility is to help people discover that they are capable of finding the answer themselves.
That requires me to listen differently.
To become more curious.
To ask rather than immediately tell.
And sometimes, to become comfortable with silence.
Because leadership is not only about what gets accomplished while we are in the room.
It is also about what people become capable of doing when we are no longer there.
Next in The Stewardship Leadership Series: Leading and Communicating Across Generations.
