Why asking questions can get you promoted

The best colleagues, managers and leaders I have ever worked with all had one thing in common.

They were curious, and they asked great questions.

I remember the CEO of a startup I worked at. When I brought him a problem, he never jumped in with his own answer. He asked about my approach first. He genuinely wanted to understand my thinking before he shared his.

That habit meant he got the best out of everyone on his team.

He did the same with customers. He kept asking questions about their world, and he kept finding needs that no one else had spotted. Those hidden needs became the core of the product.

At one point, the startup was the fastest growing in its industry in the UK.

I have seen the same in my own career. My work as a workshop facilitator is really the art of asking curious questions, so a team can see what they could not see before. When I do customer insights work, it is the same skill.

Good questions uncover valuable opportunities.

Why this matters for your career

Here is what I realised over time: Asking great questions is one of the few ways to show strategic thinking before you have a strategic title.

Your daily work rarely gives you a chance to look “strategic”. But when you ask one great question in a meeting, the senior people in the room notice. You get seen as someone who thinks ahead - and you never had to promote yourself to do it. (I know how uncomfortable self-promotion feels for many of us.)

Curiosity is helpful in other ways, too.

You explore more ideas, so you find better ways of working and create more value for the business, for example because you find out unmet customer needs.

And when you do step into leadership, it makes you a better leader. People who ask and listen coach their teams well, and make more well-rounded and informed decisions.

Even the top leaders depend on this
 

This is not a “junior skill” you will grow out of. It becomes more important the higher you go.

Hal Gregersen, senior lecturer in innovation and leadership at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, studied how the most innovative leaders work. He found that the higher you rise, the more people filter what reaches you - they only tell you what they think you want to hear. The leaders who escape that trap and become successful, are the ones who keep asking questions. I have linked Gregersen’s findings below.

“But won’t I look stupid if I ask?”
 

Maybe this is what worries you. You picture yourself asking a question and someone thinking, “Oh, she should know this.”

I understand that fear. Many of us feel we have to prove our competence repeatedly, especially in technical teams with majority male colleagues.

But here is the difference:

A question lowers your status when it asks someone to fill a gap in your knowledge. A question raises your status when it opens a gap in everyone’s thinking.

The first says “I’m behind.” The second says “I’m thinking ahead.”

Let’s imagine an example - a product design review at your company.

“Sorry, how does this part work again?” puts the spotlight on you, and on what you don’t know.

“What happens to the design if the load is doubled?” puts the spotlight on the problem. Now the whole room is thinking, including the directors. And they will remember who made them think.

You are still asking a question - but it leaves a completely different impression.

3 question techniques (and when to use them)

1. The 5 Whys.
 

Ask “why” up to five times until you reach the root cause. Best moment: an incident review or project post-mortem where senior people are involved. Your questions will get to the bottom of the problem to help everyone fix it - that shows your leadership potential.

2. What-if questions.
 

Ask about a future scenario that the plan has not yet considered. Best moment: when a senior leader presents a plan and you want to understand it better. Try “What would have to be true for this approach to fail?” It shows you think in scenarios and consider the wider risks.

3. The question burst.
 

This one comes from Hal Gregersen at MIT (same article I mentioned above) Instead of brainstorming answers, the group spends four minutes asking only questions about the challenge. Two rules: nobody answers, and nobody explains why they are asking.
Gregersen tested this with thousands of leaders. About 80% of the time, the group ends up seeing the challenge in a better way. Best moment for this technique: when you are asked to lead a session and want to come across as a facilitator, not just someone who takes notes.

Your one action this week
 

Pick one meeting this week where senior people or other important stakeholders will be in the room.

Before the meeting, write down 2-3 questions you could use to open a gap in everyone’s thinking.

Then watch what happens.

Remember: People who know how to ask great questions hold the power in the room.

The research of Hal Gregersen is described in this World Economic Forum article.