What happens if there is a fire?

There's one in every room.

You know the one. They arrive 30 seconds before you're due to start, fresh from a very important meeting. They check their phone every 10 minutes (business-critical, obviously). And within the first five minutes, they've already shared their most impactful coaching conversation ever - unprompted, at length.

I've been running leadership development programmes for a long time. Long enough to spot them before they've even taken their coat off. And long enough to know exactly what's coming.

The question that always comes

We were working through active listening and questioning. The kind of session that explores how you use coaching skills to get the best out of the people who work for you - not by telling them what to think, but by creating the conditions for them to think better.

The exercise was simple: participants could only ask questions. No statements, no advice, no answers. Just questions.

Which, of course, led to the inevitable.

"Yeah, this is all well and good, but sometimes you just have to tell people what to do. What happens if there's a fire?"

Ah. You got me.

They're not wrong, of course. You don't invite people to leave a burning building. You're not trying to get the best out of them in that moment - you're trying to save their lives. Fair point, well made.

But here's what that question is really doing. It's looking for the exception that makes the rule redundant. It's finding the edge case so the whole conversation can be dismissed. And it's a pattern I see not just in training rooms, but throughout organisations at every level.

The real question underneath

Because most of the time, there isn't a fire.

Most of the time, the people in your team are trying to work out how to tackle something new. Solve a problem that doesn't have a simple answer. Navigate something that's never quite come up before.

And in those moments - which are most moments, if you're leading in any kind of complex environment - the instinct to tell, direct, and resolve can actually get in the way. Not because you don't know the answer. But because your answer might not be the only one. Or the best one. Or the one that builds the capability of the person sitting across from you.

Senior leaders often carry a quiet pressure to perform competence. To have the answer ready. To be decisive, clear, and certain - because that's what the role seems to demand. But that pressure can close down the very conversations that would most help your team, and most help you.

What if you just listened?

I'm not suggesting you abandon your judgement or pretend you don't have experience worth sharing. You do. That's not what this is about.

What I am asking is this: what would happen if, just occasionally, you admitted to yourself that you don't have all the answers - and let that be okay? What if you got curious before you got conclusive? What if the question you asked opened a door that your answer would have kept shut?

It's a small shift. But in my experience, it's one of the most powerful ones a leader can make.

The smarty-pants in the room will always find the fire. Your job isn't to argue with them. It's to stay curious long enough to find out what's really burning.

What might that do for you today? Try it. I'd love to know what you notice.

If this resonates and you'd like to explore what coaching skills could do for your leadership, I'd love to have a conversation.