I love answering people’s questions.

It fills my ego with an almost perverse sort of glee when somebody comes to me with a question I definitively know the answer to. The joy my ego derives is directly linked to the unspoken power I now wield over the other person.

Now, you might disagree, thinking the word power in this context is stretching things a little thin, but if knowledge is power, and somebody is coming to me to acquire said knowledge, then it must follow that I do in fact have all the power.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

But if you’re in any sort of leadership role, it’s quite likely this simple power disparity is killing your teams ability to function at an exceptional level.

Why?

Because teams who’ve been trained to go to their manager for answers have inadvertently been trained to stop looking for answers themselves.

On the micro-day-to-day level this isn’t such a big deal. There will always be situations where people come seeking an answer, and in the interest of time and efficiency, it’s best just to give them what they need.

On the macro-scale, however, this tendency to always provide answers at the drop of a hat is handicapping your team’s ability to think critically through the cascade of possibilites to arrive at the most suitable course of action.

Being an effective leader is never about being the smartest person in the room, or being the one who always knows the right way, or even the one whose always making the decisions…

No, effective leaders know their primary obligation is to helping grow and develop the skills of the people around them so that they can realize their full potential.

Effective leaders trust in the synergistic powers of the team.

All this is to say, if you want to be an effective leader, you’ve got to learn how to grow the people around you.

The first step towards that end, is teaching them how to find answers for themselves.

To do that, we’re going to channel a little of our old friend, Socrates.