The wise man doesn’t give the right answers; he poses the right questions.
– Claude-Levi Strauss
I have always been a trivia fan. This would include board games and shows like Jeopardy. I got hooked when Trivial Pursuit came out in the early 1980s and have enjoyed all trivia-related games since.
Speaking of trivia, the following have been identified as among some of the hardest trivial pursuit questions:
- Who was the official hair consultant to the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics?
- What is the scientific name for a rabbit’s tail?
- How many rings make up one arm of the Michelin man?
- What was the name of the Douglas family dog on My Three Sons?
- What was broken in Oxford, England, on May 6, 1954?
- What eye-catching device was invented in the 17th century by Anton van Leeuwenhoek?
- (Answers: Vidal Sassoon, Scut, Four, Tramp, The 4-minute mile, The microscope)
Having fun with trivia is great for family game nights and other occasions. But how does that play out in your day-to-day leadership? While being knowledgeable as a leader is imperative, when does it become a liability for your team instead of an advantage?
John Maxwell said, “The smartest person in the room is never as smart as all the people in the room.” In fact, on another occasion, Maxwell said, “If you’re the smartest person in the room, then you’re in the wrong room.”
As leaders, how do we embrace the tension between what we know, the experiences we have gained, and the wisdom we can share without coming across as the proverbial “answer man” to everyone around us?
Marcus Kreth, the CEO of Asia Media Publishing Group, wrote an article titled “Why Leadership Isn’t About Knowing All The Answers—But Asking The Right Questions.”
In it, Kreth writes, “As a leader, is my role to know the ins and outs of every single department? Should I be the one who excels at every technical skill? Or is my role to guide, set direction, to ask the right questions, and bring the right people together to execute the vision? That’s the moment I realized something fundamental about leadership: It’s not about being the best at everything. It’s about creating an environment where everyone can be their best”.
Kreth’s first main point states, “Great Leaders Don’t Have All the Answers”.
Over the decades in leadership, I have come to know and understand the weight and burden of providing answers. Early in my career, I felt a particular obligation to be ready with an answer. I figured that at best, it might be something solid and helpful, or at worst, I could wing it well enough that the other person wouldn’t notice. It could be exhausting.
Now, at this stage in my life, I fully embrace Kreth’s assertion that great leaders don’t have to have all the answers. It’s a refreshing posture in leadership. However, it does not absolve you from your leadership responsibility to constantly learn and improve. But now you are free from having to prove it.
When thinking about whether you are the answer man or the leader, consider these thoughts.
Are you trying to impress people or make an impact?
John Maxwell said, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Ultimately, people will be more impressed by how well you cared for them than by how much you tried to impress them with how much you know. Don’t be confused about this as a leader.
Additional Resource: Elevating Your Leadership Influence
Are you empowering your team or hindering it?
If you are the answer man and your people constantly come to you for all the answers, you are stalling your team’s flow and progress. As Kreth said, you want to guide, set direction, and ask the right questions to empower your team. The most liberating day in your leadership is the day you realize that you don’t have to know everything!
The writer of Ecclesiastes said there is a time to be silent and a time to speak. As a leader, you have to know the difference.
Additional Resource: Building a Culture of Empowerment
Those in positions of responsibility should admit that they don’t know everything and ask for support from their team and other stakeholders to find solutions. This approach can be scary, because it seems to weaken the credibility of those who lead, but it is widely demonstrated that expressing vulnerability and asking for help is a strong signal, which generates trust in people.
Of course, it also depends on the type of questions that are asked. Certainly not the kind that puts the person in front of us in difficulty, but rather the kind that invites people to explore new possibilities for the organization. Questions that push us to focus on the new rather than on what already exists and demonstrate that we are ambitious and projected towards the future.
But above all, they invite collaboration. In a large and complex organization there are infinite details that necessarily escape the leaders. It is therefore useless to think that the leader can make the right decision alone, because inevitably there will be something that escapes him, he does not know and does not consider. Asking questions means giving importance to the team, making it work by giving everyone the opportunity to express their point of view, their skills and knowledge, making their talent bear fruit. It is a different and useful form of humility, the humility of not knowing everything.