A Perspective on Asking the Right Questions
When I first became a leader, I was sure I knew what the job required. I had been promoted because I had strong ideas and could solve problems quickly. My value, as I understood it, was being resourceful, having answers, and helping people get unstuck.
Then something started happening.
People came into my office constantly with problems. I gave advice. I suggested solutions. I jumped in. And many of those same people came back. Same challenge. Same frustration. Sometimes they told me my idea did not work. Sometimes it made things worse.
I did not realize it at the time, but I was training people to rely on me rather than developing their ability to think, decide, and move forward.
And it was not just at work. Ten years into marriage and five years into parenting three young kids, I was winging it at home, too. I came home and tried to solve everyone’s problems. Over time, I felt exhausted and more frustrated than I wanted to admit.
What changed everything was discovering coaching, and more specifically, the skill of asking better questions.
Stop Solving, Start Coaching: How Great Questions Change Everything
Getting promoted to a leadership position is exciting, but for many first-time leaders, it can quickly become overwhelming. When people climb the ladder, they often believe it happened because of their resourcefulness, problem-solving skills, and ability to help team members get unstuck. Those things may be true to some degree, but they can also become the root cause of ineffective leadership.
Part of being “the boss” is listening to team members’ problems. The natural instinct is to advise, suggest solutions, and solve issues on employees’ behalf. But when leaders jump in with all the answers, they fail to develop their team’s ability to think, decide, and move forward. Instead, they train employees to rely on them rather than giving people the tools they need to take ownership of their work.
So how can leaders empower their teams without spoon-feeding them the answers? The secret lies in asking the right questions at the right time.
Questions Are Invitations to Connect
Dale Carnegie once wrote that you can make more friends by becoming genuinely interested in other people than by trying to get them interested in you. The same concept applies at work. Questions are one of the simplest ways to show interest. A good question invites exploration and creates space to think. It helps people feel seen without being judged or evaluated.
When leaders learn to ask the right questions, they help their people:
- Explore their own thinking
- Share what is below the surface
- Vent safely without feeling dismissed
- Clarify what they actually want
- Move from emotion to insight
- Strengthen trust through being heard
Questions help leaders see into their team’s world in a way that taking control and giving advice rarely can.
Workplace Connections Are Not Optional
Asking good questions does more than improve communication. It helps build a sense of connection, and that connection matters more than most leaders realize.
Gallup reported that globally, one in five employees experienced loneliness a lot of the previous day, and that loneliness was higher for employees under 35 and for fully remote workers. When loneliness takes hold in a workplace, it changes how people show up. It reduces collaboration, weakens trust, and makes everyday challenges harder to navigate. One of the most practical ways leaders can push back against disconnection is to ask better questions and listen with real intent.
The Shift Every Leader Has to Make
Keeping employees engaged starts with shifting from being helpful to being developmental. When you lead with answers, you may solve today’s problem. When you lead with questions, you develop the person who will solve tomorrow’s problem.
“I have found that great questions reduce relationship tension, build credibility, and help teams move faster because the thinking is owned by the person doing the work. That is why coaching is not an extra leadership skill. It is a leadership multiplier.” — Bob Parsons, executive coach and master facilitator of InsideOut Development
How GROW Coaching® Helps Leaders Ask the Right Questions
At InsideOut Development, we teach leaders to coach in everyday conversations using the GROW® Model, a structured framework that guides the questions they ask. What makes GROW Coaching effective is not just the model itself. It trains leaders to stop jumping to solutions and instead ask focused questions that help others think clearly, take ownership, and commit to next steps. For organizations building a coaching culture, GROW Coaching® gives leaders a shared language and a repeatable approach they can use consistently.
The Three-Question Rule
The next time an employee brings you a problem, try this: ask three good questions before you share an opinion, comment, or idea. Then listen closely. You will be surprised by what your team members discover on their own, and how quickly they move forward when they feel heard and guided rather than simply directed.
What Makes a Question Good
Not every question opens a door. The ones that do tend to share a few common traits:
- Start with who, what, where, or how
- Stay around 10 to 12 words
- Avoid embedding your opinion into the question
- Stay focused on clarity and forward movementLearning to ask good questions takes practice. The results, though, are real: fewer problem-centric conversations, more capable employees, and a culture where people own their work.
The More You Ask, The More You Hear
As leaders, the instinct to jump in with the right answer at the right moment is understandable. But advice-giving, however well-intentioned, is not always the most effective path.
A personal reminder that still makes me smile came from my wife of 43 years. One day, after I offered yet another solution, she said, “You do not have to comment on every comment. I would love it if you just asked a few questions and listened.”
She was right.
The more I ask, the more I hear. And the less trouble I get into.
