Is it a Strength or Weakness to Admit You Don’t Know All the Right Answers?

Entrepreneurs are highly self-confident, energetic and optimistic. We love changing the world with our new products and services and get fired up when we brief our company and employees/partners/investors on our latest victories! What is better than that? Getting up in front of the team and enthusiastically updating them on what is going right; especially when it involves our exciting vision for the future…that is until somebody has a probing question you don’t know the answer to!

Let’s look at the options we have when confronted with a great question we truly don’t have a real answer for.

1. We will come up with an answer, right or wrong, and then sound confident in our response to avoid any potential sense that we have not already thought about their question, or even worse, that we might not know the answer. We don’t want to show any sign of weakness in front of those who are relying on us, right?
2. We can push back on their question and redirect, so we don’t really have to answer it.
3. We can get defensive over the question, wondering why somebody would even dare ask us that question!

Or we can let them know what a great question they asked and…

Our job is hard enough as an entrepreneur, let’s not make it harder thinking we have to be the Jeopardy champion when it comes to questions about our businesses.

We don’t know all the answers. There I said it, and it is true. And it is perfectly okay.

Steven Covey introduced us to this very important question:  “Are you listening to respond or to understand?” It is incredibly important to understand what people are asking, rather than simply responding. In the case of a great question, rather than getting defensive or making up an answer, try listening intently to their question. Ask them to elaborate and then give them a response that lets them know you appreciate their input. Something like, “That is a fantastic question. I am not sure I have the answer for you at this point, but we will do some thinking/research and get back to you with an answer…thanks for that question!”

If you do that successfully, your people will feel comfortable to ask even better questions in the future, knowing they have the freedom to think and truly be a contributor to the company. If you give answers like #1-3 above, they will feel the opposite, and to make matters worse, your leadership skills might (and should) be called into question. You might want to involve the person who asked the question in helping you find a solution as well. There is nothing that fires up employees more than feeling they are contributing and being recognized for their efforts!

I consider it a strength to admit we don’t have all the right answers. That is why we surround ourselves with great teammates. One of the qualities of great leaders is their courage to be vulnerable. Admitting you don’t know everything can indeed be both a strength and courageous.

Next time somebody asks you a great question, thank them for it. Your leadership and courage to do so will encourage the rest of the team to do the same…especially when you don’t know the answer to their question!