283. The Leadership Power of Asking Better Questions with Mick Spiers

What if the mark of extraordinary leadership isn't found in having all the answers, but in asking the right questions? This eye-opening episode distills powerful insights from recent conversations with leadership experts Gary Cohen, Scott Burgmeyer, and Joe Davis—revealing a leadership framework built on curiosity, development, and generosity.

Gary Cohen's journey from founding a company to growing it to 2,200 employees taught him a crucial lesson: leaders who constantly provide answers become organizational bottlenecks. The pivotal shift happens when leaders move from information-gathering to asking questions that empower others to think, act, and own solutions. This simple change transforms you from an answer-giver to a true multiplier, unleashing potential throughout your organization while satisfying people's fundamental needs for autonomy and recognition.

Scott Burgmeyer adds another dimension by emphasizing that leadership isn't just about leading today's business—it's about consciously building tomorrow's leaders. His powerful personal journey reminds us that often we can't "read the label from inside the jar"—sometimes others see leadership potential in us before we recognize it ourselves. The true measure of leadership becomes not just what you accomplish, but who you develop along the way.

Joe Davis completes this leadership trifecta with his concept of "generous leadership"—bringing vulnerability, authenticity, and genuine presence to your role. This approach isn't weakness; it's creating the psychological safety needed for teams to acknowledge mistakes, seek help, and collaborate effectively. Perhaps the most valuable gift? Your undivided attention—increasingly rare in our distracted world, yet precisely what makes people feel truly seen and valued.

These insights are further enriched by glimpses into our new Psychology and Leadership series, exploring how understanding the brain's functioning transforms leadership effectiveness. From the astonishing case of Phineas Gage to recognizing how our unconscious patterns influence decisions, these psychological insights help us lead with greater intention and empathy.

Ready to transform your leadership ap

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Leadership Through Questions
• 4:38 Gary Cohen: The Power of Questions
• 4:40 Scott Bergmeier: Building Future Leaders
• 6:46 Joe Davis: The Generous Leader
• 11:15 Psychology Series: Understanding Human Behavior
• 20:24 Q&A Series and World Leadership Crisis
• 23:18 Final Reflections and Next Episode

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:01

Have you ever noticed how the best leaders are not the ones with all the answers, but the ones who know how to ask the right questions develop others and lead with generosity. Today's episode is a solo cast where I'm going to share the key takeaways from my recent conversations with Gary Cohen, Scott Bergmeyer and Joe Davis. I'll also reflect on insights from our new Q and A leadership coaching sessions and the psychology and leadership series we've just kicked off. And finally, I'll connect the dots on what's happening in the world right now, because leadership lessons aren't just theory. They're alive around us every single day. So grab a coffee, settle in, and let's dive into what it really means to lead with questions, to grow other leaders and to do it all with humanity. Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm your host. Mick Spiers, today is a solo cast where I reflect on what we've learned on The Leadership Project podcast through the month of August, I'll be reflecting on lessons from Gary Cohen, Scott Bergmeyer and Joe Davis, and talking about what we're learning through our new video series, the Q and A series, and our psychology and Leadership Series, our Q and A show is where we're answering your questions, real life questions from real life leaders to help you become the leader that you've always wanted to be. So let's dive in. First up Gary Cohen, who taught us all about the power of asking better questions. Gary reminded us that leadership is less about having answers and more about asking questions that move people forward. He built his business from just two founders into 2200 people, and quickly learned that if you're always the answer person, you become the bottleneck. His interviews with over 100 leaders reinforce this. The pivotal shift happens when leaders move from gathering information to asking questions that empower others to think, act and own solutions. The lesson here is that leadership isn't about control. It's about curiosity. The best question you can ask your team is not what should I do, but what do you think we should do? And why the benefits here are multi faceted. First of all, it is a very common trap for leaders to fall into to think that they need to know all of the answers. And this is a very limiting belief. You become the bottleneck, and you become the point of dependence for everyone. If all you do is always give answers, what people learn is that they come to you for anything that they need, and they don't become self motivating, self dependent. Secondly, there's something special. When you ask a question, it unlocks something in the other person. It creates learning and growth, and you'll see them starting to develop at a much greater rate. And it gives people what they want in the workplace. They want autonomy. They want the freedom to be able to choose their own destiny and to make decisions that impact their own outcomes. It gives them that empowerment. It gives them ownership and makes them feel seen. It makes them feel heard, and it makes them feel valued, and most of all, you become a multiplier. I hate to break it to you, but you're a human being, and you only have 24 hours in a day, and if you keep on answering all the questions, you are going to be that limit, whereas if you are enabling people to learn and grow and to take that empowerment and that ownership, you become a multiplier, and before you know it, there's seven of you, there's 14 of you, there's 28 of you, depending on how big your team is. So key takeaway here, let go of control. Get more curious and ask better questions. The key here is, even when you know the answer, resist the temptation to instantly give that answer and rather pause and convert it into a question that unlocks something in the person that's come to ask you that question. Next up, we had Scott bergmeyer and he spoke to us about leaders who build other leaders. Scott highlighted that leadership is not just about Leading today's business, but building the leaders of tomorrow. His own journey shifted when someone saw in him a potential he didn't yet see himself around. Reminder that often we can't read the label from inside the jar. He stressed the importance of process and people. Yes, systems and tools matter, but it's the leaders you develop who will carry the culture forward. A key lesson here was that a true measure of leadership is whether the people you lead, are equipped, confident and inspired to lead others. So my questions and actions for you here are to think about, Well, are you a leader, and are you a leader of leaders? What are you doing to develop the leadership skills of the next generation? How can you help them build their own self awareness of what it means to be a leader, self awareness of their own leadership styles. What are their values? What do they stand for? What won't they stand for, and are they living those values? Are their actions congruent with the values that they tell their team, are they truly leading, or are they managing? Once again, there's nothing wrong with being a manager. We need managers. But if you want to develop leaders, they need to develop leadership skills. So what are you doing to encourage them to step in to what it means to be a leader? How are you coaching them to become better leaders and better coaches themselves. This is another case of a true multiplication effect. If you can master this and you create other leaders around you, you're going to see a great change in your team and in your organization. Our next guest was Joe Davis, and he spoke to us about the generous leader. Joe introduced us to his concept of generous leadership, giving of yourself for everyone's gain. He believes leaders must bring their human selves to work, vulnerability, empathy and authenticity, not 100% of our private lives. That's not what it's about, but enough humanity that people know we're real. He reminded us of the multiplication effect, another multiplier, if you inspire even a handful of leaders, their teams, their families and communities are all impacted. The lesson here is leadership. Generosity is not weakness. It's one of the most powerful ways to create trust, connection and sustain performance. A key reminder here from Simon Sinek is that all businesses are people businesses, and if you don't understand people, you don't understand business. And what it really means is that we succeed through our people, not at the expense of our people. So when we're generous, when we're open, when we look after people, they will look after us. It's also about role modeling behaviors that will drive what you're looking for in the organization. When you are vulnerable, it gives them a license to be vulnerable. When you are authentic and you show up as your authentic self, it gives them the comfort that they can do so as well. And when people feel themselves at work, when they feel a sense of belonging, when they feel a sense that they can be their true selves. They're ready to do their very best work. Vulnerability here is one of the biggest gifts that you can give, and when you think about the opposite here, imagine if you're a leader that never showed that you ever make a mistake, you're going to make people feel very self aware and very self conscious and probably never come to you with their own mistakes. They'll feel like you're some kind of untouchable genius and that they can't possibly come to you when they've made a mistake themselves, and that would be an absolute disaster. So vulnerability enables people to stick up their hand ask for help when they need it, to admit a mistake, when they've made a mistake, and to be able to work together, to be able to fix whatever the problem is. The other great gift of a generous leader is presence. The gift to be able to give someone your undivided attention. This is actually getting a bit rare in modern days, we're distracted by technology. We've got our smartphones on the table. We're distracted by messages and notifications or thinking about a different meeting instead of being focused on the meeting that's in front of us. One of the greatest gifts that you can give your people is your undivided attention to show them respect, to show them that they matter, because you see them, you hear them, and you're paying 100% attention to them, that you're fully immersed and present in the current conversation that signals to them that they are important and. Is what people want. They want to feel seen. They want to feel heard. They want to feel that they matter. They don't want to feel like you're in this meeting right now, but if a more important topic comes up, you're going to drop them any second and run to something else, or that you're not really present. You're you're thinking about some other meeting, or if you're watching your phone, or whatever the case may be. So the number one gift of a generous leader is your undivided attention, your immersed presence. Something will also happen when you do this. You will learn so much more when you're distracted and you're not really fully paying attention to the meeting in front of you. I'm going to tell you you miss 70% of what just happened in that meeting. And when you take the time to intentionally be fully present, fully immersed and fully with the person that's talking to you, you're going to pick up so much more information. You're going to learn so much more about the person, about the problem about the business, whatever the topic is, you will learn so much more and to be more helpful to them and helpful to the business if you're 100% in the moment. Okay, now I'd like to share with you what we've been learning from the leadership and psychology series. We recently started a new video series where I'm sharing my journey as I formalized my education in psychology. I've been studying psychology for more than a decade now, but usually through short courses and different activities, and I've decided to dive deep and formalize my study in psychology so that I can better understand the human condition, what drives people, how to motivate people, what drives their behavior, which sometimes can seem very irrational, behavior, and to understand human behavior at a much deeper level. So we've started this video series to share with you my journey of what I'm learning about psychology and what it means in terms of driving human behavior and what it means for leadership. In video one, I introduced the audience to someone called Phineas Gage, a railway foreman in 1848 who survived a horrific accident where a metal rod shot through his skull and brain. He lived. He could speak, walk and reason, but he was never the same again. Before the accident, he was dependable, focused and respected. Afterward, he became erratic, profound and impulsive. The only thing that changed was his brain, and that's the key. This brings us to what Nobel laureate Francis Crick called the astonishing hypothesis that everything we are, our personality, our decisions and even our moral compass, is the result of neural activity. In other words, the mind is what the brain does. So as a leader that changes everything, if the brain drives behavior, then Leadership isn't just about motivation or vision. It's about understanding how people think, what shapes their decisions, and how context affects them neurologically, it helps explain why someone might show up one day as driven and composed and the next as distracted and withdrawn. Maybe it's not lack of motivation. It could be sleep, stress, trauma or neurological overload. So the more we understand the science behind behavior, the more it allows us to lead with more empathy and effectiveness. Instead of assuming laziness, we become curious. Instead of reacting to people, we start understanding them. In video two, I introduced you to the concept that your brain is lying to you and you don't even realize it. It fills in the blanks, filters information, and constructs a version of reality that feels completely real, but isn't always true. And if you're a leader, that illusion could be costing you more than you think. Your brain isn't built to show your reality. It's built to make meaning, and sometimes that meaning is incomplete, distorted or entirely fabricated to make the world feel more coherent. We like to think we see the world objectively, but what we're really seeing is our brains interpretation of the world filtered through our memories, our biases and expectations. And here's the thing, that's what everyone else is doing as well. So it all becomes about perspective taking for you to be able to understand what you're seeing and hearing and interpreting and understanding that someone else is looking at the same events and seeing and hearing and interpreting them. Differently, and because of our brains neuroplasticity, we also become expert shortcut takers. This is great for building mastery, but it can be incredibly dangerous when we start extrapolating from incomplete information. And this is dangerous as a leader, if you find yourself in a conversation where you're listening to another person but you already assume you know what they're trying to tell you. You're not fully listening anymore. You're extrapolating. You're already in your head, you're already finishing their sentences and assuming that you know what they're talking about. So this has huge implications. What conversations are you missing? What body language are you overlooking? What opportunities or warning signs are hiding in plain sight because we're not primed to notice them. It's not just about what we see. It's about what we expect to see. We might misinterpret someone's silence as disengagement when it's really just deep thinking, or take confidence at face value when it's actually masking insecurity. So the more we aware of our own cognitive filters, the more we can step back and ask, What else might be true here? What am I not seeing? What assumptions am I bringing into the room? So be careful of the assumptions and the extrapolations that you're making, and be careful of confirmation bias, where you only start hearing the things that confirm what you already believe, and you're ignoring the signals that are contrary to what you believed before a conversation started. In video three, we started talking about decision making. As a leader, you make hundreds of decisions every day. You think they're conscious, rational yours, but what if I told you that most of them aren't? There's a hidden force influencing your thoughts, your reactions, even how you lead, and it's running in the background without you ever noticing. So let's start with this question. If you ever driven home and realize you don't even remember the drive or reacted emotionally in a meeting and only later, ask yourself, Where did that come from? That's the unconscious mind at work. It's the storehouse of your habits, memories, biases and emotional patterns. Freud famously called it the dark, inaccessible part of our personality, and Carl Jung called it the shadow everything we've pushed down or chosen not to see but whether or not we see it, it's shaping us every single day. So imagine this, you get a vague email from your boss, just a subject line that says, Can we talk? No context, no details. What happens next? For some it's no big deal. For others, it sets off a storm of anxiety, catastrophizing or over preparation, same email, very different responses. The difference it's not in the email, it's in you. It's the stories, experiences and unconscious triggers you carry with you that determine how you react as leaders. Our unconscious mind influences how we respond under stress, who we promote, who we listen to, who we avoid, and how we give feedback without awareness, our leadership is at risk of becoming reactive, not intentional. We might reward confidence over competence, silence over dissent, or sameness over diversity without even realizing why. But here's the good news, the more we shine a light on the unconscious, the more power we have to lead with intention rather than impulse. How do we begin? Here's one step pause before reacting. Ask yourself, what's really driving this reaction? We're talking about your own reaction or the reaction of the other person. Is this about the current moment or something older, deeper or familiar? Even better, get curious about your own blind spots. Seek feedback, reflect and journal your triggers. It's one of the fastest ways to reveal your own internal patterns. So curiosity is the key here. When you have an emotional reaction to something, notice and name it. What is this emotion? Why this emotion? Why this emotion now? And the more you ask yourself these questions, the more emotionally intelligent you can become, and the more you can have a considered response rather than an immediate reaction. So that's a little teaser of the leadership and psychology. Series. If you want to know more, please do follow us on YouTube and subscribe to the channel, and you'll be able to watch the entire series unfold before you, and it will help you become a better leader. When we understand the psychology of the brain, the psychology of human behavior, we can become better leaders. The other series that we've recently kicked off is our Q and A series where we answer real questions from real leaders about their real leadership challenges. We get questions from the audience, and we answer them either anonymously, or you can leave your name if you like. It's really up to you, and we look to answer the question and give some guidance for everyone to hear. There's a good chance that if you've got the question, someone else has had that question at some point as well. So we've asked a few different questions already, and if you're following the Q and A series, you'll be able to see the questions and the answers out there in in real life. In the first video in the series, we answered questions about how to make a good impression if you're newly promoted into a new role or new team. And the key lesson here was not to try to impress, but try to connect. Unlock curiosity. Ask Great Questions. Get to know the team that you're about to lead. Get to know them individually. What are their preferences? What do they like, not like? Ask them what's working well right now, what are the biggest challenges? So you'll connect by tapping into curiosity. We also answered questions about how to be taken more seriously in the workplace, and we answered a question about what to do if your manager starts to present your work as if it was their own and you're not getting any visibility. So if you're curious about the Q and A series, also please subscribe to the YouTube channel, and you'll see me answering those questions from real leaders about their real challenges. The final reflection I'd like to share with you today is about what we see happening in the world today. We're living in a world where we see crises of trust every single day in politics, business and society. The leadership vacuum is very real, and you can help us to fill that vacuum, whether it's how global leaders handle conflict or how organizations respond to disruption, the theme is clear, people are craving leaders who are curious, who develop others, and who lead with generosity and humanity, ones that are open and transparent, building trust leaders that make you feel seen, heard and valued, that your opinion matters, and the headlines remind us every day that leadership done poorly creates division, but leadership done well creates unity, progress and hope so. Let me ask the question, are you going to help us? Are you going to help us by being a better leader, by bringing people together, by being a source of co creation, someone that brings people together, not pulls them apart? Here's what I want to leave you with today, some calls to action. I want you to remember these things, that leaders ask better questions. Next time you're about to answer someone's question, pause and convert it into a question and watch them grow. That leaders grow leaders, not followers. So ask yourself, What are you doing to develop the next generation of leaders? And leaders lead with generosity and humanity. Are you being vulnerable? Are you building trust? Are you building connection? Are you being a human being at work? And are you leading with generosity and stay aware of your own mind, your biases, your blind spots and your unconscious patterns? Because Leadership isn't about you, it's about the ripple effect you create in the life of others. So three questions to ponder, am I asking questions that empower others, or am I still being the answer person? Who am I developing today? And how will they remember my influence, and how can I show up with generosity and humanity in my leadership this week. Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project, mickspiers.com a huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of The team at TLP. Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo and my amazing wife Sei Spiers, I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel, where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Program. Now, in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.