A shift from ‘tell’ to ‘ask’
There is a misconception that leaders need to have all of the answers. I thought that this was the case for many years but discovering that I could apply the principles of coaching to leading a team was a gamechanger. The reality is that great leaders create the conditions for others to find the answers.
As Sir John Whitmore, one of the pioneers of performance coaching, put it:
“Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.”
When people think about leadership, they often jump to authority; making decisions, providing clarity, solving problems. In my experience, the leaders who create the most sustainable impact aren’t the ones who provide solutions, they are the ones who help others discover solutions for themselves. Whitmore understood this long before it became popular in management books. His point was simple, telling people what to do might feel efficient, but it stunts their growth. Asking the right questions, on the other hand, develops their capacity to think, act and lead.
When an employee asks a question and the leader simply tells them what to do, a cycle begins. The leader feels under pressure to provide instant answers, the employee’s independent thinking stops, and soon the leader finds themselves burdened with work and decisions that others should own. I have seen leaders spend thirty to forty percent of their time this way, leaving them frustrated, exhausted and wondering aloud, “Why do I have to do everything around here!?” The impact of over-reliance on telling is real. It clogs up decision-making pipelines, disengages employees, increases costs and creates leaders who feel permanently overwhelmed.
By contrast, when the leader asks, the entire dynamic shifts. A question such as “What have you tried?” or “What else could you do?” forces the employee to think independently. The responsibility for finding solutions rests with them, not with the leader. Over time, the result is fewer questions directed upwards, more ownership at every level, and a team that starts to solve problems without waiting for permission. Leaders discover that their time is freed up for the bigger picture, while their people grow in confidence and competence. The effect on the organisation is profound: decisions improve in quality, individuals grow, people feel more positive and engaged, and organisational performance lifts. Costs reduce, retention improves, communication flows, relationships strengthen, and productivity increases.
This shift from telling to asking has played out in some of the most celebrated examples of leadership in history.
Silicon Valley legend Bill Campbell, known as “The Trillion Dollar Coach,” worked with Steve Jobs, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt and Sheryl Sandberg. He was not a technical expert, yet he was indispensable because of his ability to draw out the thinking of others. Rather than telling them what to do, he asked questions that sharpened their clarity and conviction. Campbell understood that a leader’s role was not to be the smartest person in the room, but to create the environment in which the collective intelligence of the team could flourish.
In sport, Sir Alex Ferguson was famous for his ferocious half-time interventions, but those who played under him often talk about his ability to challenge players to think for themselves. After a poor first half, he sometimes resisted the temptation to give direction and instead turned to his senior players with the question: “What are you going to do about it?” That single question placed the responsibility firmly back on them. He was not just producing footballers, he was producing leaders on the pitch.
In the military, General Stanley McChrystal led one of the most significant shifts in modern command philosophy. In his book Team of Teams, he describes how the U.S. Army had to abandon a traditional command-and-control model in favour of something that looked much more like coaching. The pace and complexity of modern warfare meant that decisions could not be funnelled upwards. McChrystal had to let go of answers and instead create a culture of shared consciousness where leaders at every level were empowered to think, act and solve. This was not an abandonment of responsibility, it was the recognition that adaptability could only come from many minds working together, not from one person trying to control everything.
The lesson is clear. Leaders who default to telling might feel decisive in the short term, but they trap themselves in a cycle of overwork and dependency. Leaders who ask unlock thinking, growth and ownership across their teams. They free themselves to lead strategically, while at the same time building the capability of those around them.
Both history and research point to the same truth, the best leaders are not defined by how many problems they solve, but by how many problem-solvers they create.
So before asking, “How do I get my team to listen to me?” perhaps the better starting point is: “How can I ask better questions?”
In most cases leadership isn’t about having all of the answers. It’s about creating independent thinkers and decision makers.
