Thought Leadership
The fear of asking questions should never be a boardroom problem
The fear of asking questions can rear its head in any business landscape, but it’s especially unwelcome in the boardroom. This guide will help you understand why.
Not asking questions means the opportunity to receive key information gets replaced by silence. In the boardroom, silence is a killer.
These arenas are high-stakes, hyper-competitive corporate settings where risk can easily manifest unless communication is at a top standard. Sooner or later in this process, you need to ask questions, but cultural norms in business sometimes dissuade us from doing so. The cost of this isn’t merely a missed opportunity—it’s a potential catastrophe.
If you’re sitting on a new piece of data that makes no sense, or a strategy that seems too good to be true, or a new project whose key overseers you can’t instantly name, your fiduciary duty demands that you speak up.
Curiosity is crucial
For senior leaders, asking questions is the absolute bedrock of effective oversight and risk management. This duty cannot be discharged by simply nodding along to a presentation and signing off on decisions others have suggested.
This is a hallmark of boardrooms of the past, and it has often resulted in massive corporate failings down the line, as responsibility dies and crucial calls go unchecked.
The corporate ‘why’
When corporate leaders fail to press for clarity, they introduce systemic risks:
- The most important of these is the failure of fiduciary oversight. A board’s primary function is to scrutinise the business, analyse important decisions and approve/reject/amend them based on complete information and feedback. Not asking questions means the board can’t do this job, which means the board has automatically failed in its duty to stakeholders.
- Un-asked questions mean management loses an important check on its operations. Management can and will get essential calls wrong. It might be through intent or, far more commonly, through acting in good faith but not thinking the decision through. Boards with questions can often be the lifeline, but if those questions aren’t asked, you’re in trouble.
- Not asking questions increases the risk of echo-chambers, a symptom of a bad corporate leadership culture where one view predominates and dissenting voices are discouraged or simply ignored.
- In some cases, the above cultural flaws can spill over from the boardroom, influencing how management and employees operate and view their roles.
A catalogue of errors: Lessons from catastrophe
History provides a chilling catalogue of errors enabled by boardroom silence. Major corporate failures and scandals often boil down to executives and directors who failed to ask the right questions at the critical moment:
- FTX: The infamous cryptocurrency exchange firm descended into one of the most high-profile bankruptcies in modern times. It centred on questionable financial control and disgraced former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, but critics also blasted the lack of questioning at high levels, which would otherwise have caught blatant wrongdoing far earlier.
- The UK Post Office Scandal: This was a devastating miscarriage of justice that continues to play out in the UK public arena. Faulty software was responsible for accounting errors at hundreds of Post Office branches, but leadership maintained that branch workers were the problem, resulting in extensive, unjust campaigns of prosecution. During this process, the board had ample chance to question the information available, but did not do so for many years.
Why do leaders stay silent?
There’s no point in denying that the fear of asking questions exists, because it does. The best move, at this point, is to try and understand why it exists:
| The Reluctance Factor | The Necessary Deconstruction |
|---|---|
| 1. The fear of looking foolish, simple or stupid. | Unfortunately, not everyone around the boardroom will have the same information and, because of that, someone will eventually ask a question others consider “basic.” Despite that, boards are Boardrooms are highly competitive environments where anything “basic” can be perceived negatively. In truth, all questions, even simple ones asked for clarification, demonstrate a commitment to accuracy. |
| 2. The fear of breaking consensus | Being the contrarian is tough, especially for introverts. But always remember, your role as a director is not to be a cheerleader; it’s to ensure that everything makes sense. If something doesn’t make sense, even after explanation, you can feel free to challenge the entire concept. |
| 3. The fear of signalling weakness | Some continue to look at questions as a weakness, especially if they consider their knowledge to be their greatest strength. This cultural phenomenon will always persist, which is why it’s always worth reminding yourself that, even later in life when you feel like you’ve seen it all, you’ll still come across new concepts. Asking questions is the key to understanding them. |
The future belongs to the curious
The age of the omniscient, know-it-all leader is over. In a world defined by exponential change and volatility, the ability to rapidly learn and adapt is the ultimate advantage. This ability is powered entirely by high-quality questions.
To safeguard your firm’s future, you must deliberately cultivate a culture where curiosity is celebrated, not censored. This starts at the top: by modelling the behaviour you want to see. Be the one to ask the tough question. Be the one to ask the “silly” question. Be the one who breaks the silence.
It is your most effective tool for mitigating risk and driving genuine, sustainable success.
