Leading with Questions Summary: Help a Team Think Better

Key Ideas

1. Check whether your question seeks learning or delivers a judgment

The authors’ discussion of a learning mindset draws on Marilee Adams, as shown in the licensed chapter preview. This is a useful attribution: the distinction is part of the book’s approach, but the guide should not present it as a model the coauthors invented. Its practical value is in examining what your question invites.

Ada prepares to ask why the team still cannot complete reviews on time. The wording could invite an explanation, but her tone and prior comments may make it sound like a verdict about effort. If she only accepts an answer that supports tighter deadlines, the question has little learning purpose regardless of its grammar.

An original preparation exercise is to write what you currently believe and what answer could change that belief. Ada believes reviewers are not prioritizing the queue. She identifies a competing possibility: the records may enter review without information needed to finish them. She can then ask where a description most recently became blocked and what the reviewer needed at that point.

This does not remove accountability. Once the sequence is understood, Ada can address a missed responsibility directly. It does make the inquiry more honest. The leader should be able to receive an answer that changes the account of the problem, including an answer that points toward a decision or omission the leader owns. Otherwise, a statement may be clearer than a question whose outcome is already fixed.

2. Notice what your questions tell people to pay attention to

In the preview of Asking the Right Questions, the authors connect a leader’s questions with organizational attention and values. A question about speed directs thought differently from one about quality, responsibility or the customer’s experience. Choosing the focus is part of leadership, not merely a matter of conversational style.

If Ada asks only how many records each person finished, staff will prepare counts. Counts may be useful, but they do not tell her whether the records are ready for review or whether the same defect is being returned repeatedly. The question has narrowed what appears relevant before anyone begins answering.

An original alternative is to ask what would make a record ready to complete in one review. The team can then identify information requirements, unclear standards and unnecessary handoffs. The word might can also leave room to explore possibilities, a concern reflected in the book’s published contents. It is not a magic word that makes any request empowering.

Check the implication of your question as well as its topic. Asking what support would help someone complete a task differs from asking them to justify why they are always behind. Neither guarantees candor, and some conversations require a direct statement of a missed commitment. The practical aim is to select a question that serves the work you actually want people to examine, without hiding a criticism inside the request or making a person responsible for a condition they cannot change.

3. Follow the answer instead of conducting a question recital

Wiley identifies active listening and follow-ups as practical techniques in this edition. That pairing is central to useful inquiry. The answer should influence your next question. Otherwise, you can ask a polished series while ignoring the information the conversation is producing.

Ada asks the cataloguer about the last blocked description. He explains that its object identifier did not match the image set. Her planned next question concerns how he manages his time. That question might be relevant later, but asking it now would abandon the issue he has just introduced. A useful follow-up asks how the identifier is checked and where the mismatch first becomes visible.

Try an original exercise in which you prepare only the purpose of the conversation and one opening question. After the response, identify the term or event you understand least well. Ask about that before consulting any further prompts. In the museum case, the phrase returned for correction needs explanation: who returns the record, what is missing and how does the next person know it is ready again?

Following an answer does not mean chasing every detail. Ada can explain when she needs to return to the project decision, summarize what she has understood and ask whether she has missed something essential. Pace matters too. Several questions at once can leave a colleague choosing which to answer. One clear follow-up and time to respond often give the leader a better basis for the next move than a rapid sequence designed to demonstrate how curious they are.

4. Build conditions where questions can travel in both directions

The book gives questioning culture its own attention. The organizational challenge is larger than teaching a manager to ask open questions. People also need to be able to question an assumption, request missing information or raise a concern about the leader’s proposal without being treated as disloyal or unprepared.

Ada says that she welcomes questions, but the image coordinator remembers being interrupted when he asked who would approve a revised naming standard. A new invitation will have limited effect unless Ada responds differently when another awkward question arrives. The team learns from what happens in those moments, rather than only from the meeting’s announced rules.

An original practice is to make one uncertainty in Ada’s plan visible. She can say which completion date is fixed and which details of the review process remain open. The coordinator can then ask a meaningful question about the process without having to guess whether the date itself is negotiable. Clear limits make inquiry more credible than pretending that everything is available for discussion.

The response should also have a destination. If Ada cannot answer a question immediately, she can identify who will check it and when the team will hear back. An invitation followed by silence may teach people that asking creates work but changes nothing. Building a questioning culture therefore involves follow-through, access to information and honest authority. It cannot be established by counting how many questions were asked in a workshop or expecting less senior staff to take every interpersonal risk.

5. Learn about the team’s process while acting on a real problem

The edition includes a resource on action learning, connecting inquiry with practical problems and leadership development. WIAL’s own explanation distinguishes several components, including a real problem, a group, questioning and reflective listening, action, commitment to learning and an action-learning coach. A short team reflection can draw inspiration from those concerns without being described as a complete action-learning program.

For Ada’s team, an immediate action is to test a clearer entry condition for review. The group decides which information must accompany a record and who checks it. It then compares a small set of records with the previous process. The test can reveal whether the revised handoff addresses the blockage or whether another assumption needs attention.

The team also reviews how it reached the decision. Which question helped distinguish a standards problem from a capacity problem? Who supplied information that had previously been missing? Did anyone stop asking after the leader expressed a preference? These original reflection questions examine the collaboration rather than merely the number of records completed.

Learning does not excuse indecision. The team needs authority to take the selected action and a date to examine what happened. Equally, reaching a workable answer should not end attention to how the group thought together. The authors’ wider organizational emphasis makes that second result important: a leader can help solve today’s problem while developing the questioning habits needed for the next one. Neither result is guaranteed by using a particular set of prompts.