This means that the best way for leaders (and everyone else) to use philosophy is to become aware of the secrets that would otherwise escape their attention. Being a philosopher of questions, I have discovered six secrets every leader should know:
1. Questioning is a human superpower
No matter how well thought out a management theory, and no matter how quickly generative AI can answer a question, leaders will always have more problems to solve and questions to ask. But why has questioning not been replaced by a more effective management technique during the constant optimization of recent years? What is it about questions that make them resist the evolution of times and theories?
The short answer is that questioning is a human superpower. Throughout thousands of years of philosophical history, there has never been a truth, theory, or technique that has been as powerful and effective as questioning at making people consider their own position, connect with each other, and commit to a shared purpose.
That is why philosophers have rejected one answer after another and stuck to the questions. And that is why successful leaders love questions.
2. The power of questions has been monopolized for millennia
When something is very powerful, two things typically happen: first, it is monopolized by people who want to control other people, and second, the people who have the monopoly build systems and structures that ensure they stay in power.
This is also the case with questions. When Plato had Socrates ask almost all the questions in his world-famous dialogues, he not only laid the foundation for a 2,400-year-old belief that some questions are more insightful than others, but he also planted the idea that some people are more entitled to ask questions than others.
This idea is at the heart of key societal institutions, such as courtrooms, classrooms, and newsrooms, where we have an unspoken contract that says only lawyers, teachers, and journalists are entitled to ask questions. In a business context, that entitlement has been enjoyed chiefly by corporate leaders and HR. And it is continuously maintained and reinforced by the coaching, interview, and survey techniques leaders and consultants use to understand and develop organizations.
3. Other people’s questions are the most valuable data you can get
When I realized that an age-old monopolization of questions keeps employees in today’s companies in a position where they get to respond to lots of questions in surveys, etc., but rarely get to proactively ask them, I couldn’t help but think of German American phenomenologist, Erwin W Straus.
In his 1955 article, “Man, A Questioning Being”, Straus wrote that questions are as revealing as dreams, or even more so. “As their selection depends on historical, social, and cultural conditions, a full inventory of the questions that have animated and agitated or failed to disquiet a person, a nation, or an epoch gives us deep historical insight.”