Never Ask a Question You Don’t Know the Answer To

Never ask a question you don't know the answer to does not mean to not ask questions. You absolutely should ask questions in order to learn, discover, grow, and become a better person, leader, and manager.

What I mean by this phrase is that when you are leading folks, you need to be able to understand, at least from a fundamental, foundational standpoint, what the answer is going to be before you ask the question.

You need to guide your team. If you're asking a question, it should be more on a basis of helping the person to investigate further or to understand better.  It's not a matter of you not knowing the answer, asking the question, and them giving you the answer.  It’s more a statement of did they fully understand what they were looking at and find the full, complete answer.

Keep in mind, people can lose trust in leadership, particularly, if they start asking questions that they find simple or easy to answer.  They wonder how are you a leader, what do you actually understand and know, and how are you able to take them to the goal if you don’t know such fundamental concepts.  You need to understand what you're asking from a base standpoint.

You need your folks to understand the details.  No one is expecting you to understand deep, in the weeds specifics. You do need to understand the foundation so that you don't end up with egg on your face when you're asking really simple questions.

Rely on your team to do the deep dive and understand the specifics on their assigned topics.  Managers are not expected to know every detail, but they are expected to understand the basics.  Don’t ask simple, easy to answer questions.  You will be wasting your team’s time and be chipping away at your credibility.  Never ask a question you don’t know the fundamental, foundational answer to in order to drive your team to a deeper understanding.