From Giving Answers to Asking Better Questions

This article was written by James Venning, Fashion Retail Landscapes Unit Leader, and lecturer on the BA (Hons) Fashion Buying and Merchandising Course at the London College of Fashion.   

I remember sitting at my desk at River Island when one of my team came over with a problem. Without really thinking, I started telling them exactly what I thought they should do. 

They thanked me, walked away and got on with it. 

A few days later, they were back with another problem. Then another. 

At the time, I thought I was doing exactly what a good manager should do. I was available, supportive, and using my experience to help my team overcome challenges. Looking back, however, I wasn't really developing their thinking. I was becoming the answer. 

It's something I've reflected on many times since. 

When I first heard about coaching, if I'm honest, I wasn't entirely convinced. I'd spent years working in retail leadership where pace was everything. If someone had a problem, you fixed it. Coaching felt slower, and I questioned whether simply asking questions rather than giving answers would really make a difference. 

The irony is that I now realise coaching often gets people to a better answer more quickly because they're genuinely committed to the solution they've reached themselves, rather than simply following someone else's advice. 

What I've come to realise is that while giving advice might solve today's problem, coaching helps people solve tomorrow's. 

That has become one of the biggest leadership lessons I've learned. 

Today I use coaching in three very different environments. I work with SME leaders when delivering the Help to Grow: Management Course, I coach private clients and I teach undergraduate students at the University of the Arts London. Although the contexts couldn't be more different, the conversations are remarkably similar. 

Alongside this, I'm currently studying an MA in Academic Practice, exploring how coaching-informed approaches can support learning, leadership, and personal development. The more I study coaching, the more I find myself returning to the same conclusion: people grow most when they're given the space to think for themselves, rather than being told what to think. 

Whether someone is trying to grow a business, navigate a career change, or complete a final-year project, they rarely need me to have all the answers. More often, they need someone to help them slow down, think more clearly, and see options they hadn't previously considered. 

That shift has changed the way I lead.

Rather than immediately offering a solution, I now try to pause and ask questions like: 

• What have you already considered? 

• What does success look like? 

• What's stopping you? 

At first, this felt uncomfortable. Silence can be difficult when you're used to filling it with advice. There's also a temptation to jump in because it feels quicker. 

But time and again I've found that people often arrive at better solutions than the ones I would have suggested. More importantly, they leave with greater confidence because the idea is theirs, not mine. 

Perhaps that's because coaching isn't really about asking clever questions. 

It's about genuine curiosity. 

It's about resisting the urge to be the smartest person in the room and instead creating space for someone else to think. Often, they already have more of the answer than they realise. 

For many SME owners, this can be one of the hardest leadership transitions to make. 

The skills that helped you build your business, working hard, making decisions quickly, and solving problems, are often the very things that become difficult to let go of as your team grows. Before long, every decision comes back to you. Your team waits for your approval and, without realising it, you've become the bottleneck. 

Coaching offers a different conversation. 

It isn't about having fewer conversations or withholding your experience. It's about creating conversations that develop capability rather than dependency. Instead of solving every problem yourself, you help others build the confidence to solve them independently. 

Through my work delivering Help to Grow: Management to participants, I've seen how powerful this shift can be. Leaders often arrive looking for practical tools to grow their business, but many leave talking about something quite different. They describe listening more, asking better questions, and trusting their teams in ways they hadn't before. Those small changes often have a much bigger impact than they expected, not only on the business but on themselves as leaders. 

If I could go back to that conversation at River Island, I probably wouldn't give the same answer. 

In fact, I might not give an answer at all. 

I'd ask a question instead. 

It may have taken a little longer that day, but I'd like to think it would have helped that colleague become a more confident decision-maker long after they'd walked away from my desk. 

For me, that's what leadership looks like now. 

Not having all the answers, but asking the questions that help other people discover their own.