Formulating questions is a skill.
It sounds basic, even elementary, yet I see brilliant, accomplished and experienced adults struggle with it every day in our classrooms. The quandary is that most of us are completely unaware of the struggle.
People often come to our courses expecting to learn how to give better advice. They want stronger tools, more effective solutions and greater confidence telling people what to do.
What they discover is that advice is not influence. Questions are.
That realization can be uncomfortable. Many successful people have built their careers by becoming the person with the answers. Their knowledge is part of their value, and they have been rewarded for using it.
Coaching requires a different discipline. You must set your answer aside long enough for someone else to find theirs.
The habits we cannot hear
In early coaching practice, we hear the same patterns again and again. Students ask closed questions without realizing they have narrowed the conversation. They offer advice with a question mark at the end. They use several questions at once, hoping one of them will land.
These habits are rarely intentional. Most people have simply never been taught how the structure of a question influences the thinking that follows.
Consider this question:
“Do you know anyone who can help?”
It sounds helpful. It may even be asked with genuine curiosity. Yet it is a closed question, narrowing the response to yes or no and offering the brain a shortcut.
More often than not, the answer is “no.”
Now ask:
“Who do you know who can help?”
It is a millimetre shift. Only two words have changed, yet the thinking invited by the question is entirely different.
The brain begins searching. Names, faces and connections start appearing. A former colleague comes to mind. Then a neighbour, a friend or someone met years ago at a conference.
The first question asks the person to confirm whether a resource exists. The second sends the person looking for it.
That is the power of question structure. Every question gives the brain an assignment.
Questions shape what we retrieve
Research supports the broader principle we witness in our classrooms: how a question is asked influences what people retrieve and report.
A 2024 study examining memory reports found that the mode and structure of questioning affected the quantity and quality of the details participants shared. It reinforces something important: questions are active ingredients in a conversation. They influence the cognitive work a person is invited to do.
Closed questions confirm facts, clarify details and support decisions. “Did you submit the report?” may be exactly the question that needs to be asked.
Discovery requires more room.
Questions such as “What are you noticing?”, “What possibilities have you considered?” and “Who could support you?” invite recall, reflection and elaboration. They allow people to organize their thoughts and make connections that may not have been available a moment earlier.
A skilled coach understands the purpose of each question and chooses its structure deliberately.
When advice wears a question mark
Closed questions are only one part of the challenge. Another habit we see in our classrooms is advice disguised as a question.
It often sounds like this:
“What do you think about taking X and Y to make Z happen?”
Technically, it is a question. Except, the solution is already embedded inside it and supplied by the person asking. There is very little room left for discovery, ownership or connection.
The other person is being asked to approve, reject or lightly modify an answer that has already been chosen for them.
Now shift the question:
“What are you noticing about this?”
The first question leads. The second is curious.
“What are you noticing?” creates space for someone to think, explore and contribute something you may never have considered. You get to glimpse their perspective before yours has had a chance to taint it.
This is often where the learning becomes humbling for new coaches. They begin to hear how frequently their questions contain their own ideas. Their instinct to help has taken over the conversation.
The intention is genuine. The impact is constraining.
Questions communicate interest
Questions also shape how people experience us.
Across several studies, researchers found that people who asked more questions during conversations were better liked by their conversation partners. Follow-up questions were especially powerful because they signalled responsiveness: the listener had heard what was said and wanted to understand more. (Harvard Business School)
This matters because connection is created through the experience of being seen, heard and understood.
A follow-up question says:
I heard you.
I am interested.
There is more I want to understand.
The quality of attention beneath the question matters. A perfectly worded question asked without presence will feel mechanical. A simple question asked with genuine curiosity can open an entire conversation.
In our classrooms, students often focus first on finding the “right” question. With practice, they learn to listen for the question already waiting inside what the other person has said.
Their attention shifts from performing coaching to connection.
Why leaders should speak last
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says he tries to speak last in meetings because he wants to learn from everyone in the room. He remains willing to change his mind when new information warrants it.
That practice is more than a gesture of humility. It protects the quality of the conversation and innovation.
When the most senior person speaks first, everyone else’s thinking can become anchored to theirs. People begin responding to the leader’s perspective instead of contributing what they genuinely know, think and see.
Research on group deliberation describes anchoring as a form of path dependence: opinions expressed early can exert greater influence on the final outcome than opinions expressed later. A 2024 computational study found that the order of speech could shape collective preferences, with the first speaker gaining a considerable advantage. The effect became even stronger when the first speaker also carried greater social influence. (Erkenntnis)
A senior leader already carries weight. Speaking first adds an anchor.
Speaking last creates the opportunity to hear what exists in the room before authority organizes the conversation around itself. It gives emerging leaders and quieter team members a chance to contribute information, insight and dissent.
The leader gains access to more of the intelligence available.
The role of ego
Closed and leading questions are often driven by ego. I am referring to ego as self-protection, which is different from egocentrism.
Most of us were taught to create value by having answers. Expertise was rewarded. Certainty inspired confidence. Being helpful meant solving the problem.
Ego learned to say:
I have the answer.
Listen to me.
This is how I prove my value.
Telling, fixing, advising and steering people toward your preferred answer keep the conversation centred on your knowledge, your ideas and your desired outcome. They position you as the smartest person in the room, which assumes everyone else is a little less smart.
That puts you at a disadvantage because you lose access to what other people know, think and see.
Coaching calls for enough confidence to loosen your grip on being right. It asks you to trust that another person’s thinking contains information your advice cannot reach.
Curiosity becomes a form of respect.
Listen to the question beneath your question
The quality of a question depends on more than grammar. An open question can still lead. A short question can still carry judgment. A beautifully phrased question can still be centred on the person asking it.
Before you ask your next question, pause long enough to consider:
- Have I already chosen the answer?
- Am I listening to understand or to confirm what I already know?
- Does this question expand the conversation or narrow it?
- Am I creating space for discovery and connection, or shutting down exploration?
Quality questions are the difference between using coaching techniques and developing a coaching mindset.
Quality coaching questions are the gateway to connection because they make another person’s inner world available to us. They allow us to encounter perspectives beyond our own and communicate that someone’s thoughts, experiences and capacity matter. They are connection conversations.
Sometimes, only a millimetre shift is needed.
Change “Do you know?” to “Who do you know?”
Change “Have you tried?” to “What have you tried?”
Change “Don’t you think you should?” to “What do you think?”
Then listen.
Your question may change the conversation. The way you listen to the answer may change the relationship.
Research referenced
- Braun, S. T., Rafiee Rad, S., & Roy, O. (2025). Anchoring as a structural bias of deliberation. Erkenntnis, 90, 2879–2907.
- Huang, K., Yeomans, M., Brooks, A. W., Minson, J., & Gino, F. (2017). It doesn’t hurt to ask: Question-asking increases liking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(3), 430–452.
- Riggenbach, M. R., Gronlund, S. D., & Zoladz, P. R. (2024). Impact of modality and mode of questioning and testing on memory reports. Frontiers in Cognition, 3.