Leading with questions, not answers

Early in my career I thought leadership meant having the answer. The longer I work, the more I believe it means having the question.

Answers expire. The market shifts, the technology shifts, the team shifts. A leader who is the source of all answers becomes the bottleneck and, eventually, the single point of failure.

Questions scale. 'What would have to be true for this to work?' travels further than any directive. It teaches people how to think rather than what to think.

The discipline is in resisting the urge to fill silence. Ask the question, then wait. The best thinking in the room is often the thinking you haven't heard yet.