Leadership FAQs

As a Leadership Coach, I spend a lot of my time discussing leadership with individuals and teams. It is a topic that relates to organisational success, business growth and people development, but what are the most asked questions about leadership?

My experience tallies with the research, and so in this article, we explore the 10 most asked questions about leadership, along with clear answers to what effective leadership looks like.

So, whether you are managing a team, starting a business, or aspiring to grow professionally, you will hopefully find some of the answers you are looking for.

1. What Is Leadership?

Leadership has many definitions. McKinsey and Company, the consulting firm offer up this technical definition:

“Leadership is a set of mindsets and behaviours that aligns people in a collective direction, enabling them to work together and accomplish shared goals.”

In other words, leadership is the ability to guide, influence, and inspire individuals or teams to achieve a common goal. A leader sets the direction, motivates others, and ensures that everyone works towards a joint purpose. 

Effective leadership goes beyond giving instructions. It involves building relationships, fostering trust, and creating an environment where people feel motivated to perform at their best.

However, my favourite definition of leadership is also one of the simplest, and it comes from leadership expert John C. Maxwell. He said that:

“Leadership is influence – nothing more, nothing less.” – John C. Maxwell

This definition is far more encompassing, and I think it helps to open the mind to leadership outside of corporate settings and job roles. You can read more about this concept of leadership in:

What is Leadership? (Hint: It’s Not Just a Job Title)

2. What Makes a Good Leader?

Many people wonder what qualities separate great leaders from average ones. While leadership styles vary, several traits consistently appear in successful leaders.

Key leadership qualities include determination or drive, confidence, integrity, emotional intelligence, and vision. 

You can read more about these traits in:

What Traits or Characteristics Does a Leader Need?

Alongside these traits, there are also accompanying skills. A good leader should have good communication skills – especially listening skills – as well as the ability to encourage collaboration, manage conflict and support professional growth.

You can read a more detailed breakdown of essential skills in:

In-Demand Leadership Skills for Today’s Workforce

3. Are Leaders Born or Made?

This is one of the most debated questions in leadership discussions. The first formally recognised leadership theory is the Great Man Theory, which posits that great leaders are born to change history. You can read more in:

The Great Man Theory of Leadership

Thinking has developed a lot since then, but some people believe leadership is a natural talent, while others believe it can be learned.

Research in the field of leadership development suggests that while some innate personality traits may influence leadership ability, most leadership skills can be developed through learning, experience, and practice. Training programmes, mentorship, and real-world experience all play a role in shaping effective leaders.

What’s more, when we go back to the definition of leadership being influence, we can see that we are all leaders to some degree, as we all have a level of influence, even if it just on ourselves, our immediate environment and those we come into contact with.

“Everyone is a leader because everyone has a measure of influence. The choice then is: how do we develop and use that influence to lead ourselves and others better?”

4. What Are the Different Leadership Styles?

Leadership is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Different situations require different leadership styles and various leaders will also favour certain approaches, depending upon their personality and character. Some of the most common styles include:

• Transformational leadership – inspiring and motivating teams to achieve ambitious goals
• Democratic leadership – involving team members in decision-making
• Autocratic leadership – leaders make decisions independently
• Servant leadership – prioritising the needs and development of team members
• Transactional leadership – focusing on performance, rewards, and structured goals

You can read more about these popular styles in:

Exploring Different Types of Leadership Styles

Further to these styles, there are a number of important leadership theories and models. You can read about these in:

An Introduction to the 10 Most Influential Leadership Theories

Understanding these styles, models and theories helps leaders adapt their approach depending on the situation and team dynamics.

5. How Do Leaders Motivate Their Teams?

Motivating people is one of the most important responsibilities of a leader. Employees who feel motivated are more productive, engaged, and committed to their work.

Effective leaders motivate teams by setting clear goals, recognising achievements, providing constructive feedback, listening to their teams, and creating growth opportunities. You can read more in:

How To Set Goals and Delegate the SMART Way

A strong sense of purpose and belonging (often expressed through a vision or mission statement and shared values) also plays a major role in team motivation. Find out more by reading:

Why Personal, Corporate and Universal Values Are Important   

6. How Do Leaders Handle Conflict?

Conflict is inevitable whenever people work together. Strong leaders understand that disagreements can actually lead to better ideas if handled correctly. If reviewing performance and giving feedback is part of an organisation’s culture, it makes it much easier to manage conflict. Using a simple feedback tool, such as the traffic lights approach, can help, as you can read about here:

How to Simply and Effectively Review Progress and Performance

Good leaders address conflict by listening carefully to all perspectives, remaining neutral, and focusing on solutions rather than blame. Encouraging open communication and maintaining respect among team members are key to resolving disputes effectively. But dealing with conflict can be hard, which is why a structured approach is helpful. Here are some simple ways to deal with challenging conversations:

How to Manage Difficult Conversations

7. How Do Leaders Build Trust?

Trust is not only the foundation of every successful team, but it is the basis of all productive relationships. Without trust, collaboration becomes difficult, and effectiveness suffers.

Leaders build trust by being transparent, consistent, and reliable. Research has shown that the components of trust can be expressed mathematically, as you can read about in:

How to Judge if Someone is Trustworthy using the Trust Equation

Following through on commitments, admitting mistakes, and treating everyone fairly also helps strengthen trust within a team. When employees trust their leader, they are more willing to share ideas, take initiative, and support organisational goals. You can find out more in:

How to Build Trust in the Workplace

8. What Is the Difference Between Leadership and Management?

Although the terms are often used interchangeably (and there is some overlap between these roles), leadership and management are not the same thing.

Management focuses on planning, organising, and controlling processes to achieve objectives. 

How to Make a Successful Project Plan and Achieve Your Goal

Leadership, on the other hand, focuses on inspiring people, setting a vision, and driving change. You can find out more about the importance of vision in:

What is a Vision Statement and Why are They Important?

In most situations, there is a need for both, and therefore, the most effective professionals combine both leadership and management skills to guide their teams successfully.

9. How Do Leaders Make Difficult Decisions?

Leaders are often responsible for making complex decisions that impact teams, organisations, or communities. We all make choices every day, but a leader has a particular responsibility when these decisions require careful thought and consideration.

Effective decision-making involves a process of gathering relevant information, consulting stakeholders, evaluating potential risks, and considering long-term outcomes. The decision-making process is explained here:

How To Make Decisions And Use A Decision-Making Process

Ethical judgment and clarity of purpose are also critical factors in making responsible leadership decisions. You can find out more in:

How to Make Good (Ethical) Decisions

10. How Can Someone Develop Leadership Skills?

Leadership development is an ongoing process. Anyone who wants to become a better leader must commit to continuous learning and self-improvement. You can get a good idea of where you are in your leadership development by exploring:

Leadership Skills: The Five-Level Competency Framework

Leadership development can be boosted through participating in leadership training programmes and reading books about leadership. 

Leadership Development: Master the Top Leadership and Life Skills

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Personal reflection and getting feedback is also vital to learning and continual improvement.

Gaining experience and challenging ourselves is also important. Over time, these experiences help individuals build confidence, improve decision-making abilities, and strengthen their leadership impact.

One of the proven, most effective ways to develop leadership skills is through mentorship or getting leadership coaching. You can find out more here:

What is Leadership Coaching and How is it Beneficial?

Final Thoughts On The Top Leadership Questions

Leadership is not limited to executives or managers. Anyone can demonstrate leadership by influencing others positively, solving problems, and contributing to a shared vision.

By understanding the most common leadership questions and applying the insights discussed in this article, aspiring leaders can build stronger teams, improve communication, and create meaningful impact in their situations and organisations.

Developing leadership skills takes time, patience, and continuous growth, but the rewards — both personally and professionally — are well worth the effort.

I am passionate about supporting people to be better leaders, and you can read more of my personal call to action in:

Why Leadership is Important to Everyone (and How We Can All Be Better Leaders)

This YouTube video uses a real personal example to explain the GROW model and how it is used:

The GROW Coaching Tool

The GROW framework is a coaching tool, used by coaches, leaders and individuals to help people define a goal and create a simple plan.

GROW is an acronym that stands for four steps:

• Will (or Way Forward/Wrap Up) – The Will is the motivation to proceed, and the Way Forward is breaking down the goal into achievable steps.
• Goal – The goal is the clearly defined endpoint and definition of success.
• Reality – The reality is the present situation, where you are at right now, with its challenges and opportunities.
• Options (or Obstacles) – Having identified challenges and opportunities, various options can be explored to help achieve the goal and overcome any obstacles you might foresee. 

For more information, follow the link to the full article:

GROWing Up: How the GROW Framework Helped Me Summit Mont Blanc

Fear lurking in the dark

It was dark. I was lying in my hammock and couldn’t see a thing beyond my mosquito net, but I could hear something rustling in the bushes nearby, which I hoped was small and non-lethal, even if not overtly friendly. It was hard to be sure amid the more distant but louder roars of howler monkeys, carried through the dense jungle canopy. 

The air was pungent with the smell of wet earth and dripping leaves, recently soaked by a rainforest downpour. All that water reminded me that I needed to go to the toilet. This was a bit of a challenge, as the hole in the ground that was our ‘restroom’ was some distance away, yet I knew that within an arm’s length of where I was, there would likely be a poisonous snake, spider or scorpion lurking in the shadows. To access the toilet, I would have to navigate a narrow forest path, where, when you shone a torch at night, you could see the reflection of a thousand tiny eyes looking back at you on either side. It was disconcerting to say the least.

What was worse was that I knew that if anything bad did happen to me, it would be a real problem, as I was about a day’s travel from the nearest civilisation.

So, guess how I felt?

Well, actually, I felt more content than I could ever remember!

Surprised by happiness

Surprising right? I too was slightly shocked by that deep feeling of happiness in that moment (despite needing to go to the loo). I had never felt anything quite like it before (the contentment, I mean, not the growing urgency to pee!)

In that moment I was thinking that if someone said I could do the same thing every day for the rest of my life, I would sign up right there and then, but I could not quite explain why.

How about you? Have you ever felt that level of amazing contentment? 

Well, today I am going to explain the secret that I discovered, which explained why I felt so good in that moment. It turns out it was all about personal values. Learning this truth has helped inform my decisions from that point and steer my life into other places where I could flourish and be happy.

But let me explain what I mean by personal values.

What are personal values?

The word ‘value’ denotes a degree of worth. For example, in monetary terms, we set a value on something by how much we are willing to pay for a product or service.

In moral terms, a value is a concept to which we give a high level of importance. Values are the moral code that guides us, and the priorities that motivate us. They are the principles we uphold, the ethics and tenets that we believe in and ascribe to. These ideals are our rules of conduct and standards of behaviour.

If you do not know what your most important values are, then it is very likely that you are living your life – whether you know it or not – according to other people’s principles or priorities. If you are not careful, this can quickly lead to dissatisfaction. 

What is the difference between personal and corporate values?

There are values we hold personally, as an individual, and those we share corporately, be that with friends or family, a team or organisation, a community or society. They are often similar but expressed in subtly different ways. 

For example, a common personal value might be expressed as kindness, but a team might talk about respect. A person may value honesty, whereas an organisation might express that as transparency.

Also, each word we use for a principle, such as integrity, excellence or creativity, might mean something slightly different to a given individual or context, so it is important to define exactly what we mean by a value, and most importantly, what the related behaviours are linked to that word.

How do values affect our decisions?

Positive values, or virtues, are inherently good, so we might agree that a whole list of such ideals are things we agree with, but when pushed, we will hold some principles higher than others. 

This is important to understand as it is linked to how we make many decisions.

For example, when you go shopping, what you choose can reflect certain principles. You might pick an item because that is all you can afford, but usually, there is some level of choice. For instance, you might pick something because you are loyal to that brand. You might choose something expensive because you prioritise quality above price, or want something ethically sourced because you value sustainability or fairness for the producers.

Therefore, as you can see, values impact our everyday choices, no matter how big or small. The jobs we choose, the friends we make, and the ways we use our time all reflect our values. 

What is the right number of values?

There is no exact number for how many personal values are too few or too many; too few, and it is unlikely to be truly reflective of your character, too many, and it becomes hard to discern the real priorities. So, a good rule of thumb is to identify three to five top virtues. 

For me, my top three personal values are:

1. Adventure
2. Service and
3. Leadership.

So, let’s get back to the story to explain how, deep in the rainforest, I worked out what these were and what they mean to me.

Adventure: embracing challenge

I was in the jungle, and I was happy. Therefore, you might not be surprised that one of my personal values is adventure. And this principle was the easiest for me to work out, as I had long had a passion for adventure.

I grew up reading, watching and dreaming of adventure. At that time, my favourite movie character was Indiana Jones. I watched those films more times than I can count, and I loved the stories so much that I owned a Dr Jones wide-brimmed hat and satchel that I took when exploring. My friend and I even learned how to use a bullwhip, just to be more like Indy!

Indiana Jones also intersected with my love of studying the past, and while at university, I took courses in ancient history and archaeology. One day, my flatmate showed me some information about an expedition to map archaeological remains in the jungles of Central America. She had been invited but could not go, so she offered to introduce me to the expedition organisers.

I wasted no time in contacting them. For me, this was literally a dream come true. I had the opportunity to be a real-life Indiana Jones!

Suffice to say, I passed the selection criteria and was invited to join the trip. That is how, some months later, I found myself in my hammock (and yes, I did have my Indy hat with me!)

So, the principle of adventure is not surprising, but what about my other values?

Service: helping others

My next value is service. And although not as obvious as adventure, when I now look back at my old school reports, I can see comments from various teachers that highlighted that I obviously liked assisting people – be that classmates, staff or visitors. 

This virtue also reflected the example set by my parents, who were both committed to serving their family and community. I had obviously caught some of their passion for supporting others.

In time, this grew into a larger desire, one to serve my country, which I realised through serving as an officer in the military (I became a bomb-disposal officer), something I had already committed to when I went to college. 

When in the jungle, my commitment to service was often expressed in little ways. I would get up before anyone else to start the fire for breakfast. I had spent a lot of time outdoors, camping and hiking, so I shared that experience with people who were less comfortable living in the woods. Every day we had to walk for hours in the heat, and it was natural for me to check up on people, making sure they were ok and seeing what I could do to help anyone who might be struggling. 

It wasn’t really anything I had to consciously think about; these were mostly natural behaviours and ways of being. It was only when I stopped to reflect on the patterns that I realised that these actions stemmed from the value that I call service.

Leadership: positive influence

So, I was happy being on an adventure and serving my colleagues on the expedition. Then, the overall leader surprised me. He asked me to help lead. There were two official leaders, but the overall group needed to be split into three teams, so he asked me to lead the third team.

I hadn’t thought about it until then, but my experience of adventure and love of the environment gave me confidence. My desire to help and serve people had built trust. Now, the expedition leader was pointing out something that was already happening: I was being looked at as a leader.

This was a surprise as I have never thought of myself as a natural leader. I am more introverted than extroverted, self-conscious and easily embarrassed. I was skinny, gawky and gangly in my early teenage years, with spots and braces to boot. None of this, funnily enough, helped my self-confidence!

What is leadership?

Thus, I was often quiet in a group context and did not generally push for attention or power. But, it turned out that the idea of me not being a leader was based on some false assumptions of what a leader is or isn’t. The biggest thing that helped me change how I thought about this is the definition given by leadership guru John C. Maxwell. He said that:

“Leadership is influence; nothing more and nothing less.”

In other words, leadership is not just an official role or natural charisma. There are leadership positions, but we are all leaders, as we all display leadership every time we influence a person or situation, even if we are just influencing and leading ourselves.

In the jungle, I discovered that in that adventurous context, where it was easy for me to serve people, I realised what leadership truly is, and why it is important. I embraced it, I loved the challenge and satisfaction it brought, and I have ever since. 

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How to find and embrace your values

So, there we have it. That is why my top personal values are adventure, service and leadership. Those principles continue to guide me today, informing my decisions and helping me find contentment in what I do. 

I have not always made the right choices, and there have been times when I have been unhappy since, but understanding my values has helped me better recorrect my course in those situations, as you can read about in:

Analysing Values and How to Re-Find Happiness

And, you are probably glad to hear, that you don’t need to go to the depths of the jungle to find out your principles! There are some simple things you can do to reveal them. If you would like to find these out, check out my post on:

How to Discover Your Top 3 Personal Values

When was the last time you made a decision? It was probably when you decided to click on the link and read this article! So, what decision-making process did you use? How much time did you think about it? One way or another you just experienced a decision-making process. And that was but one of perhaps hundreds of decisions you have made already today.

What is decision-making?

Put simply, decision-making is the process of considering, and making a choice between, various courses of action.

A decision can be defined as:

“Come or bring to a resolution in the mind as a result of consideration.”

or

“Make a choice from a number of alternatives.”

Lexico (Oxford English Dictionary)

Decision-making can be further defined as:

“The action or process of making important decisions.”

Lexico (Oxford English Dictionary)

But even these definitions, though useful, can be misleading as many of the decisions we make every day are unconscious. Also, we apply process – of sorts – even to non-important decisions.

Decision-making is constant

Coming to a decision is a process, but it is actually something we do constantly. Whether we are conscious of the process or not, we are faced with a multitude of decisions to make every day. Estimates vary as to exactly how many, but, researcher Sheena Iyengar did studies of US adults showing they made around 70 conscious decisions on a daily basis.

And there are higher estimates. Researchers at Cornell University have shown that we make 226.7 decisions each day on just food alone (Wansink and Sobal, 2007). I am guessing my .7 decision was when I nearly had that extra cup of coffee…

And that is just for choices about food! Think about all the other decisions we have to make. For example, even as I type I am making a constant string of choices of which words to use in order to express what I want to say.

Some online sources estimate that we make around 35,000 decisions a day. This estimate is based on the number of thoughts we have per second. This is not an exact measure by any means. But, what is certain, is that we have to make loads of decisions! Many of these choices are conscious ones, and these require some sort of applied process.

“Time is like a river that carries us forward into encounters with reality that require us to make decisions. We can’t stop our movement down this river and we can’t avoid those encounters. We can only approach them in the best possible way.”

Ray Dalio

The Paralysis of Analysis

Have you ever stood in a supermarket and stared for an age, weighing up a choice between similar items?

Most of us will have experienced this kind of analysis paralysis to one level or another. It happens when the choice is too great, alternatives too similar or the choice is outside of our usual frame of reference. To avoid this paralysis we often rely on heuristics – simple decision-making tools, rules or hacks – to help us make informed decisions. For example, we might prefer one particular brand or product and just pick that so we don’t have to give it too much thought. This can be an effective heuristic – to save us time, ensure quality or save money.

Using Heuristics

But, knowing about psychology, it is also these sorts of biases and heuristics that marketing experts love to exploit. To understand more on this subject then I recommend you read Daniel Kahneman’s acclaimed book Thinking Fast and Slow. Kahneman is recognised as the world leader in understanding heuristics and bias.

As Kahneman demonstrates in his research, most decisions we make are actually unconscious ones. It would take too long to use a process or explore the pros and cons of every decision. We can risk paralysis by analysis if we spend too much time on a decision, as we can become overloaded by information.

Some decisions are relatively unimportant. This could include choosing which clothes to wear, what to eat for lunch or what to watch on television. For these decisions, simple heuristics – even flipping a coin or rolling dice – can be effective.

Some decisions are much more important, such as the choice of spouse, partner, career or work. Similarly, large purchases, such as buying a property, are significant decisions. We instinctively know that we should take more time and effort over the more important decisions. The problem is that we do not necessarily understand how we make decisions. Nor do we have the tools to help us make the best choice. So how can we do it better?

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How do we make decisions?

What was the last big decision you made and how did you make it?

We often think of decision-making as a rational process involving our logic to solve a problem. But decision-making is not just problem analysis (although they are linked). Also, a lot of decision-making is influenced more by emotion than by logic.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. Our emotions are very important and employing them does not necessarily make a choice irrational. Emotions and passions are connected to our experiences, preferences and values.

If we were purely rational we would operate according to Rational Choice Theory. This means we would always make the choice that offers the best statistical chance of success or reward. However various scientific studies have shown that this is not the case. We are not purely rational and can be heavily influenced, by ourselves, others and circumstances to make quite irrational decisions.

The psychology of decision-making

People don’t realise that they often influence and even fool themselves. Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber published a paper in 2011 that concluded we use our reason and logic, not to get to the truth or to make good decisions, but primarily to strengthen our position and persuade other people that we are right. This is confirmation bias, where we selectively choose data that supports our decision. This is just one example of cognitive bias.

Our circumstances also play a large part in our decision making especially if we are in stressful conditions. At the extreme level, we could be affected by the ‘fight, flight or freeze’ responses first outlined by Walter Bradford Cannon. These physiological responses have a direct influence on our psychology and may even completely override our conscious decision-making capacity.

Other people can also bias our decisions. This could be simple peer pressure or more manipulative influence employed by an individual. Our psychology can be exploited. As mentioned earlier, salespeople have long understood this, hence strategies such as creating the idea of scarcity or advertising using subliminal suggestion and product placement.

The psychology of decision making is a fascinating and growing field. If you would like to dig deeper into the subject, take a look at The top 10 books on decision-making and thinking.

What is a decision making process?

Being aware of the influences we have is very important if we want to make good decisions. Decision-making processes can help us as they encourage us to take a step back from our situation and assess it more objectively. This will not eliminate bias but it will help.

Decision-making processes also seek to identify the stages needed to make a decision so we can follow through on a choice in a logical manner. One common breakdown of the steps is shown below:

The 7 steps to a decision-making process

1. Outline the goal or outcome/analyse the problem
2. Gather data/consider factors
3. Develop alternatives/courses of action
4. Consider the pros and cons of each alternative
5. Make the decision
6. Implement the decision/take action
7. Learn from the decision

To some level, most people apply a decision-making process at some time, even if they don’t call it by that name. Making a list of the pros and cons of a decision is one of the simplest and most common decision-making processes. Related to this is the setting of priorities or by reducing choices by process of elimination.

One process we employ is giving our decision making to people and things. Acquiescing responsibility for a decision, as we do to our elected politicians, or delegating decision making to subordinates is a decision making process. Flipping a coin is a way of acquiescing responsibility to fate or probability (depending upon your view of the world) whereas there is also an increasing array of software that we can also use to support our decision making, or even to make decisions for us.

Why are decision making processes important?

How much training have you had, specifically on decision-making?

Despite the importance of decision-making and the general awareness of decision-making processes, very few organisations put much time and training into teaching people how to make better decisions. We gain a certain amount of critical thinking and problem analysis through our formal education but few people feel properly prepared to make important decisions in their work, especially when they may need to defend their position, demonstrate their rationale and persuade others to follow a decision.

Many existing processes within organisations support decision-making. For example, a tender process, where bids from vendors are received and reviewed, is a decision-making process. This sort of selection process takes into account factors important to a contract, such as cost, quality and the track record of a company. Voting in a meeting is another simple process. It is a democratic heuristic, testing not only how people think or feel about an idea but also then putting pressure on others to support a decision once votes are cast.

Teaching decision making

But few people – including leaders – are taught decision-making skills that can be used more generally. There are a few institutions that have recognised the importance of teaching tools and processes to their decision-makers, to equip them to make informed choices. The military and the medical profession are key examples of this. This is because those with responsibility in these professions are dealing with life-and-death decisions, often made under highly stressful and emotionally charged situations. In these careers, where people are held accountable for such weighty choices it is no surprise that a lot of thinking has gone into good decision making.

The Military Decision-Making Process of the United States Army) and the UK Military Combat Estimate Process (known as the Seven Questions are examples of these sorts of tools that share much in common and reflect the seven steps outlined above.

But the challenge I bring to leaders in all walks of life is this: even if a decision you make is not likely to be life or death, it can still radically affect the quality of people’s lives, as well as the success and profitability of an organisation. So is it any less important to make good decisions in other spheres of work?

What decision making processes are there to use?

The good news is, that even if you have not had formal decision-making training, there is help available. There are plenty of robust decision-making processes and tools around, it is just choosing the best one for you, your team and your situation.

A good starting point is understanding decision-making at its most basic and for this I would recommend looking at the OODA loop. OODA stands for ‘Observe, Orientate, Decide, Act’ and you can learn more about it in my post on The OODA Loop Decision Making Cycle.

My experience as a Bomb Disposal Officer, leadership coach and management consultant led me to develop my own decision-making process that I dubbed The Right Questions. This is a simple tool that uses the interrogative words of the English language as prompts for the steps you need to take and questions you need to ask when making decisions. You can find out more by reading The Right Questions Framework Guide.

Is decision making just for leaders?

Decision making is becoming of increasing importance to those not in traditional leadership roles. Organisations are becoming less hierarchical in structure and in today’s fluid and fast moving work place the best employees are those who can take the initiative, make and act upon good decisions.

Therefore everyone can benefit from understanding more about the way we make decisions and from learning simple decision-making processes.

And as we have seen, good decision-making is not just important in the workplace. We all have to make decisions that affect the direction of our lives. This is why as a coach I have found that processes, such as The Right Questions, can be equally as helpful in exploring the bigger questions of life.

Where are you heading? What do you want to achieve? How are you planning to get there?

Taking things further

You may want also want some help, improving your decision-making and becoming more effective at achieving your goals. I have the pleasure of seeing amazing, positive, transformations in the individuals and organisations I work with. If you would like some assistance too, in person or online, then please do drop me a line. You can email me via the contact page.

I look forward to hearing from you!

What are The Right Questions?

Well, to understand that let me first ask another question:

How do you deal with an unexploded bomb?

This is an academic question to most, but for me, there were times when it was very real. Times where I needed the right answer.

That’s because my first job after university was as an Army Officer. I graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, was commissioned into the Royal Engineers, and was then selected to become a Bomb Disposal Officer.

Not long after I went on my first operational deployment. This was to Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Balkans, helping to ensure safety and security, after the war.

I was leading an Incident Response Team, composed of service men and women, from various countries and with various capabilities. There were helicopter pilots, medics, firefighters, and communicators – even a dog trained to find mines – as well as my bomb disposal team. Depending on the nature of the incident, be that a mine strike, vehicle crash, or unexploded bomb, I could pull together the team I needed to deal with the specific issue.

As a young commander, I was keen to do a good job. I wanted to earn the respect of my team (many of whom were older and more experienced than me) and to make a difference. There was so much destruction, but I was determined to help. Even if it was just by removing a few of the pieces of unexploded ordnance that littered the countryside.

But I did not feel like a hero, hardly even a leader. So, I had to hide any lack of confidence, remember my training and work hard. One critical bit of training, that I relied upon more than anything else, was the question technique that my instructor taught me. As he said:

“The quality of your plan, your decision and your success are dependent upon asking the right questions.”

How to Ask The Right Questions

The question technique was similar to that used by philosophers, journalists and the emergency services. It was based on the 5Ws and an H, the common interrogative words of what, where, when, who, why, how. These are utilised to generate a series of open questions. This in turn allows one to quickly gain an understanding of a situation and formulate an effective plan.

I loved it because (unlike so many other things I’ve been taught) it was easy to remember and because it was effective. This was true even in high-pressure situations.

But, in between the moments of adrenaline, and responding to callouts, things were a routine of training, administration and waiting. Often it felt like just another day in the office. And, as with offices the world over, we ensured that there was a supply of good coffee.

On this particular day, I was savouring a cup of this excellent coffee, when a wide-eyed and breathless soldier stumbled into my makeshift office. My cup was poised in my hand. The aroma was fantastic, and the thought of drinking it was more alluring than anything I could imagine that this soldier might interrupt me with. This had better be good, I thought.

“Sir! The guards think there is a bomb at the gates to the camp!”

I put the mug down; coffee time was over.

Making Decisions Under Pressure

Thoughts of panic, injury and death started to try and crowd my mind. What to do?

I took several deep breaths, tried to focus on what needed to be done. I also did my best to give the impression of calm confidence.

As I walked out of the office, I asked my first question:

“What do you mean by a bomb?”

“There is a suspicious package, the guards think it could be a bomb,” was the reply.

The threat of terrorist attacks was very real. In this context, an unexplained bag, right up against the front gates of a military camp, was screaming out ‘IED!’ (Improvised Explosive Device) and required immediate and serious attention.

Therefore, I went to take control of the scene and do an initial threat assessment. I met the guard commander and asked him some questions such as:

• Where exactly was the package?
• What did it look like?
• Who had seen it first?
• When had it been found?
• Why was it suspicious?
• How had it got there?

The Right Questions Ensure the Right Answers

Very quickly a picture emerged that put my mind at ease.

One of the guards had seen an old and infirm lady dropping off the parcel. Upon questioning the local interpreters, I found out that this lady was well-known to them. She was a little eccentric, and that she had made similar deliveries before. It was more than likely that this was just a gift for the soldiers in the camp.

A short trip to visit the lady at her house confirmed that yes, she had just dropped off some biscuits for the troops. It just so happened that she thought that dropping off a ‘surprise’ in an unmarked bag, unannounced, at the front gate of a military base was a good thing to do!

After establishing all of this I was able to go back, safely deal with the package (no, I didn’t eat or blow up the biscuits), give the all-clear, and return the security levels to normal. I thanked the lady for the kind thought and gift. But asked her to refrain from such ‘surprise’ generosity in the future!

Thus, the right question was not ‘do we cut the red or the blue wire?’ In fact, the right questions were not technical ones at all.

Developing The Question Technique

And that made me think; if I could use this technique to deal with a problem that wasn’t a bomb, what other non-explosive issues could it help with?

So, I started to experiment.

I started to use the technique for any problem that I had to think about. I used it to draft articles, plan expeditions, and even think about my life goals.

And it worked. So much so that I could not believe that other people were not doing the same thing! Why wasn’t this being taught in school? I certainly wished I had known about it sooner.

My next step was to research the origins of question technique, going back all the way to philosophers in ancient Greece, and found that they used seven questions, not just six. That is when I started incorporating ‘which’ into my list of interrogatives, to help capture questions of choice that had previously been missing from the system.

As I experimented further, I started to write articles to share my discovery with others. It was just a case of highlighting how the interrogative words prompt the relevant questions that are needed to think, decide, and act.

When trying to think of a name for my blog I remembered back to my instructor’s words, and so the website became ‘The Right Questions.’

It was a frustratingly slow start. I knew how transformative The Right Questions could be, so I was disheartened that the idea did not immediately take off. For some reason, people were not flocking to the idea. And then I realised I was communicating it wrong.

The Importance of Decision-Making

I was talking to people about decision-making processes, something that many people thought were dull, irrelevant or both! Having a background in the military, where formal decision-making processes were a core part of training, I was blind to the fact that most people don’t think about how they make choices.

For most people, decision-making is like walking. It is something you just do. Why would you need someone to teach you how to make decisions? After all, we make hundreds (if not thousands) of choices every day without any formal training.

At about the same time I was qualifying as an executive coach, and I realised that The Right Questions achieved the same thing that many coaching frameworks tried to do. So, I started to use the framework as I coached people, helping them to understand themselves better, to set and achieve their life goals.

Furthermore, as a consultant, as I worked with leaders and teams in businesses I realised that The Right Questions was also what people needed to develop strategy and solve problems.

So yes, The Right Questions helped people to make choices, but it was decisions about personal goals and work-life balance, or business strategy and leadership challenges. That was what mattered to people. Those were the issues they wanted to address.

Guidance on Life’s Journey

This second revelation impacted me so much that I started to realise I had found my real vocation; to serve others by sharing what I had learned, to guide them on their journey. 

I started my own business and started to help people, both individuals and teams, through coaching, teaching, articles, and talks.

I helped CEOs think strategically, assisted entrepreneurs in growing their businesses and helped hundreds of managers unlock the next level of their leadership potential.

People started to come to me asking for help, rather than me pitching to them, and I was invited to write a regular leadership column.

The Growing Quester Community

Hundreds of thousands of people have now accessed The Right Questions, via the website and other online content, and the community of ‘Questers’ continues to grow.

And the result? I am doing what I feel I was made to do. Serving people on their adventure, guiding them on the next step of their journey and equipping them with the tools they need for success.

Which leaves us with another question. How can I best help you?

• Are you seeking more direction and want to a live life that reflects your values?
• Would you like to lead yourself and others more effectively?
• Are you wanting to get better at setting priorities and to make better decisions?
• Do you want to create an action plan to help you achieve your goals and dreams?

Or it could be something else, but please do drop me a line and let me know!

And you can read more about me in my short bio: An Introduction to Simon Ash

Enjoy the adventure!

Simon

Heuristics are simple rules of thumb that we use to make choices. This YouTube video introduces heuristics and other basic decision-making processes :

Heuristics and Decision-Making Processes (such as the OODA loop)

We make many quick choices using heuristics, but sometimes, we need to employ more logical decision-making processes for the best outcomes.

For more information, follow the link to the full article:

How We Make Decisions and Use Decision-Making Processes

Your personal values are important as they are the things that guide you in life, particularly when you make choices. This YouTube video gives an introduction to how you can work out your top 3 values:

This video looks at 4Ps that can help understand and identify your personal values. These are:

1. Personal stories
2. Priorities
3. Passions
4. Principles

You can find out more information in the related post by clicking on this link to read How to Discover Your Top 3 Personal Values.

What is The Right Questions Framework? The Right Questions is a conceptual tool to improve critical thinking, decision-making, problem solving and planning. Here is a short introductory YouTube video:

The Right Questions Framework Video Content

The video includes:

• The story behind The Right Questions
• Question technique using the seven main interrogatives
• How the framework relates to decision-making, planning and better thinking

If you would like to find out more, then click on the link to read The Right Questions Framework Guide

Here is a short introductory video about The Right Questions.

“Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.” Tony Robbins

Ask the right questions, get the right answers and become more effective at decision making, strategic planning and achieving goals.

“A prudent question is one half of wisdom.” Francis Bacon

To make a good decision, whether, in a personal or business context, the first step is to correctly frame the challenge. Asking questions does this. ‘The Right Questions’ is a simple and memorable method to make good decisions and to create effective plans.

Philosophers identified the most important questions over two thousand years ago. But this first-principles approach has been somewhat lost in formal education today, partly due to the level of detail that is pursued in an increasingly complex world.

The information available via the Internet is seemingly endless but this has a downside. It is easy to become overloaded with data or miss out on important factors when making a decision. And there is a problem with some decision-making processes too; a lot of systems rely on jargon that is not memorable or straightforward to apply.

Interrogative Open Questions

Therefore we need an easy to access tool to deal with complex and evolving situations. The good news is that the core questions are actually embedded in language.  The seven basic interrogative questions of what, where, why, when, who, how and which are the triggers needed to unlock any problem. It is then just a case of understanding their application.

The Right Questions methodology uses the seven core interrogatives and applies them to strategic planning, implement projects and achieving goals. It is a creative process, described as “deeply motivational”.

The Right Questions approach is used in coaching and consultancy as well as being a decision-making tool. Simon Ash developed the framework from his experience as a Bomb Disposal Officer.

“Ask the right questions, get the right answers, and be more effective.”

Leadership Development: Master the Top Leadership and Life Skills

Better lead in life and work to maximise your success. Sign up and access materials for free!

The Right Questions framework is a process and set of tools to help people who want to:

• Lead themselves and others well
• Think analytically and critically
• Develop effective strategic plans and achieve goals
• Set priorities and make better decisions

The Right Questions framework is based upon the main interrogative words in the English language, linking each to a key theme and further questions:

Interrogative	Use	Application
Why	Reason	Values, principles, priorities, passions
Where	Place	Situation (past and present), vision
What	Thing	Mission, end-state, success, USP
Which	Selection	Options, courses of action, risks, reflection
How	Manner	Plan, route, tasks, resources
Who	Person	Self, team, network, relationships
When	Time	Timing, programming, prioritisation

Navigating The Right Questions Website

To help you navigate the posts that explain the framework, follow the links under the headings below that correspond to the individual posts.

Beside each post, on the right sidebar, you will see the main categories that relate to the posts below. These are:

• The Right Questions (Background and Overview)
• Why (Values)
• What (Mission)
• Where (Situation and Vision)
• Which (Options, Risk and Opportunity)
• Who (Individual, Team and Network)
• How (Goals, Planning and Resources)
• When (Timing and Programming)

The Quest – Using The Right Questions on a Journey of Self-Discovery and Fulfilment

Leadership Development: Master the Top Leadership and Life Skills

Better lead in life and work to maximise your success. Sign up and access materials for free!

Introduction to The Right Questions Concept

What Are The Right Questions to Ask Yourself and Others?

Overview of The Right Questions Framework

What are The Right Questions for Decision Making and Strategic Planning?

Stage 1: Strategic Framing

The initial questions of why (principles, priorities and passions) where (situation and vision) and what (mission, success criteria) provide the strategic framing for any plans we make. The quality of the options we develop to achieve success and the effectiveness of our planning depends largely on the development of the overall strategy.

Why? Values

Principles, purpose, passions, priorities

How to Discover Your Top 3 Personal Values

Where? Situation and Vision

Situational Analysis – where am I now?

How to do a SWOT Analysis

Vision – where am I going?

What is a Vision Statement and Why are They Important?

What? Mission, success and end-state

What is a Mission or Success Statement and Why Do You Need One?

Stage 2: The Reflection Point

The second part or stage is called the ‘reflection point’. In every decision making cycle you consider your options in the light of the situation, the risks and opportunities. This reflection point either takes you back to Stage 1, and a further iteration of refining the Strategic Framing, or onto Stage 3, Developing a Plan, where an actionable plan can be created for the chosen course of action, fulfilling the strategy.

Which: Route, risk, review, reflections

Which is the Best Course of Action?

Stage 3: Developing a Plan

The third section on planning uses the questions how, who and when to explore the detail needed to deliver on your desired course of action in alignment with your overall strategy.

How? Planning, Resources

How to Set Goals, Tasks and Milestones When Planning

When? Timing, programming and prioritisation

The Secret of Perfect Timing

Who? Self, team and network

Know Yourself: The Importance of Self-Awareness

How To Leverage Your Network And Build a Team

Case studies, examples and application of The Right Questions

The Right Questions in Organisations

How To Write A Business Case

How do you develop a new business system and create a process flow chart?

The Right Questions in Coaching Individuals

How to Make an Action Plan to Achieve Your Goal

The Seven Most Important Questions You Should Ask When Considering a Career Change

How to Make a Successful New Year’s Resolution