The Question: An Overlooked and Undervalued Leadership Tool

Once again, what we learned in early education is relevant to gaining insight in our leadership style. The four sentence types – declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamatory – and how you use them reveal much about your leadership competency. While each one has its time and place, the interrogative is vastly underused by most leaders.

While the declarative (“I think you should do this”), the imperative (“Do this”) and even the exclamatory (“Do this now!”) all get a fair amount of play (hopefully with ‘please’ peppered in), not enough leaders are asking enough questions. Surely, all interrogatory sentences are not equal. Although leading questions (“Don’t you think I’m right?”) and rhetorical questions (“What do you think I am, an idiot?”) are technically interrogatives, they will not advance your leadership competency.

Behold the humble question. I define it as being genuinely solicitous of another’s perspective, and requires relinquishing both ego and control. For example, the interrogatory “What do you think?” may suggest you don’t know. The answer you receive may undermine your plan or approach, and therefore your control over the situation. However, a wise person knows that the benefits outweigh the risks.

Asking questions gives you additional perspectives. Additional perspectives help ensure an informed decision, approach or direction. If someone feels that her perspective is respected, it is more likely you will obtain buy-in even if you are not in total agreement. And if you have buy-in you’re less likely to have subtle (or not-so-subtle) attempts to undermine your decision down the road.

Questioning why we don’t ask more questions is itself an interrogatory that would benefit most leaders. From where does this reluctance stem? A distaste for conflict? Fear of appearing ill-informed? Concerns about relinquishing control? Afraid you won’t like the answer? All are worthy of exploration and will serve as valuable leadership development lessons. Besides, there are better ways to address these concerns than pretending they don’t exist and avoiding questions entirely.

Some might consider using questions as a leadership tool to be prosaic, others profound. But they make employees happy. They make clients happy. Want to be a better leader? Ask more questions!