top of page
  • Linkedin
  • Twitter
  • Instagram

When under pressure, ask questions

Writer's picture: Heather BinghamHeather Bingham

In this article I’m going to talk about something close to a lot of UK SME leaders’ hearts; how to positively influence outcomes when pressure is ramping up. When a leader is fully under the cosh there is very little to stop them moving into “boss mode”, but it isn’t the only way to steer an organisation out of a crisis.


What is a leader? If you ask Google for a definition, you get a range of descriptions. Some tell us what a leader “is” (i.e. the person at the head of an organisation), but most include an element of aspiration (the person who inspires enthusiasm, develops goodwill, makes employees feel valued, asks rather than commands etc.) This is all incredibly important, and these ways of leading work fantastically well when a business is thriving. However, none of it gives leaders what they might need if their backs are against the wall. The longer an organisation struggles, the more impossible it can be to achieve these aspirations. As those aspirations pass into the distance, a leader of an SME without a fully-fledged leadership team can be left feeling completely unsupported by their team. They are making tough decisions and having to make them on their own.


This is because when an organisation is feeling the pressure, its leader/s fall into all the things they aren’t supposed to be; the commander, the micromanager, the hard task master, the authority. They don’t want to go to those places and they certainly didn’t become a leader to have to resort to those ways of working. However, it feels inevitable to them that they are going to have to drive the ship and drive it hard to get through their challenges. They will simply have to seek forgiveness from their team when/if everything is back on an even keel. Pressure soars.


The problem with this is that most of today’s leaders don’t want to be the “boss”. I see people who do it, and they do it well, but it doesn't always have the best effect on their teams. Furthermore, they can be very reluctant - calling every shot isn’t what they signed up for. It is simply the case that, when their organisation is struggling, they experience an inordinate amount of pressure to step into that role. With so many tough decisions to make, they don’t know how else to do it other than to command, micromanage, drive the ship and be the authority. It feels like their responsibility to step into these uncomfortable spaces, even though more often than not causes them a lot of stress to do it. It is deeply uncomfortable to them, and to their team, but there is seemingly no other way to drive the ship.


Thankfully, this isn’t the only option. The one neat trick that helps leaders to avoid falling into these unwelcome “boss” style traps is to focus, not on being the fount of all knowledge, but on asking questions to help the other person to open up their thinking.

When did this problem first arise?

What assumptions have you made?

What do you think is at the centre of the issue?

What do you think is behind this problem?

Why did you choose that course of action?

How do you think you solution will work?

What might your solution not solve?

Where do you want to focus your efforts, and why?

Is there any additional data that you don't yet have, but think will be useful?

If you do that, what do you think will be the direct outcome? And the indirect outcome?


You’ll perhaps notice that none of these questions are “What should I/we do next?”. That’s because this isn’t leadership by consensus. This isn’t a leader who is casting around for their next steps. Instead it is a leader who wants to understand why and how things are being done, so that they can make changes where necessary, pull all the threads together and move their organisation forward.


The by-product is a team that feels better engaged in turning around the fortunes of their organisation. Not everything their people do will be “right”. Not everyone in the team will provide the answers required, at least not at first. But as time progresses, they will quickly appreciate that their CEO/MD needs top quality answers and this will become their focus, not “will I have a job?” or “I am sick of being bossed about”. The agency they feel for turning the business around will grow, along with the quality of their answers.


For most leaders, asking questions when under pressure isn’t intuitive and it doesn’t feel comfortable, at least not at first. In fact, it can seem a silly thing to do when hard decisions need to be taken; leaders fear asking questions of their team will make them look like they have no idea what they are doing. However, being best informed is the way to both reduce pressure and to arrive at the best outcomes. This has a knock-on effect. In the same way that the team becomes focused on giving answers, the leader focuses on asking the right questions. This shared focus is far better than simply feeling exhausted by “having to do everything”, layered with the feeling that the team just doesn’t understand what the organisation is up against.


To get this approach to work, a mental shift is required. The leader doesn’t constantly hold every thread that leads to every decision. They aren’t responsible for knowing everything about everything. They don’t need to be the person who knows when a rat crosses the road, if they don't need to know the rat's schedule. They aren’t actually there to tell everyone what to do every minute of every day.


Instead, they are there to help the team to gather in the information they need, when they need it, and to make their decisions based on the fullest dataset they can gather. Through remaining curious and focusing on asking the right questions of the right people, the leader can take even the toughest decisions with greater fluency. There should be no need for micromanaging, commanding people or being the sole authority on their business when people realise they are there to provide you with insight. Engage the team by remaining actively curious and a leader will soon see how much agency their people take for giving them the quality of answers they need.  If a leader doesn’t like being the “boss”, they don’t need to suffer the stress of inhabiting that role.


In tough times leaders can lead by asking the difficult questions, synthesising the answers, and making the difficult decisions with the all the information and insight they require. They do not have to generate every answer themselves. Some members of the team won’t thrive, it’s true, but most – all those who are valued - will experience an uplift in job satisfaction, even before the organisation turns its corner. Leaders should reduce the stress that they and their team members are carrying by habitually asking questions and seeking answers. That’s where the best decision-making lies, even when under immense pressure. Switch focus to asking questions, away from always providing answers.

3 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Commenti


CONTACT US TO START A DISCUSSION

Please contact us by using this form:

Thanks for submitting!

info@opcoach.uk
+44 7956 122027

+44 7391 618409

Please join our mailing list

Thanks for submitting!

© 2025 by OPCoach UK Ltd. Powered and secured by Wix

bottom of page