Asking the right questions and listening to the answers can expose blind spots and turn your team’s input into shared ownership.
Early in building my venture fund, I made a mistake many founders make: I worked alone and rushed decisions.
Even after I built a team, I would walk into a meeting, feel like I understood the opportunity and start connecting the dots out loud. I thought I was being decisive. In reality, I had blinders on. I was seeing what I expected to see and missing what I should have been asking. The turning point came when I forced myself to do something different. Instead of talking, I paused and asked a few simple questions. Then I went around the room and got input from the team. What I heard changed the direction of the decision.
My team raised issues I had completely missed. Risks, gaps and constraints that were obvious to them were invisible to me in the moment. In a few cases, they talked me out of decisions I was ready to make. In others, they strengthened the case in ways I hadn’t considered. Either way, the outcome was better because I stepped back and listened.
That shift made something clear: Asking questions isn’t a leadership weakness. It’s a leadership advantage. It makes you sharper, makes your team better and protects your business from blind spots you can’t see on your own. The best entrepreneurs understand this. They don’t try to have all the answers. They learn to ask better questions and actually listen to what comes back.
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