So that was the question to him – "how did you cope with that?" His answer was profound.
He said, he stopped asking ‘why’.
At the start, he used to ask:
“Why are they like this?”
“What’s happened to them?”
“What’s underneath this behaviour?”
Yet over time, he stopped asking that question, not because he stopped caring, but because the ‘why’ behind these behaviours was heartbreaking and distressing.
Instead, his focus shifted to:
“Manage the situation.”
“Get through the shift.”
“Respond to the behaviour appropriately.”
He stopped asking ‘why’ as a coping mechanism to survive his environment.
Something similar happens in teams more than leaders realise. Not at that level of intensity, but the pattern is the same.
People join organisations and they usually ask lots of questions.
“Why are we doing it like this?”
“Why has this changed?”
“Why is this important?”
It’s not always easy for leaders to answer these sorts of questions and, without the right skills, these conversations can go badly. So questions may stop. Not always because the team member understands, but instead as a coping mechanism, because:
– They’ve asked before and didn’t get good quality answers
– It didn’t feel safe to question
– They were shut down or ignored
– They’re tired of constant change
– Or it just feels easier to switch off and get on with it
This is easy for leaders to misread, because they can see that and think:
“Good. They’re onboard.”“Less challenge. More focus.”
“Things feel smoother.”
“They’ve stopped being difficult!”
“They finally understand our business”
But a team that has stopped asking ‘why’ is sometimes a team that has simply stopped engaging to protect themselves from bad feelings (very human, of course).
That’s when you might see more team members who:
– Only stick to the script
- Won’t think for themselves
– Miss context
– Make customer issues worse
– Burn out faster
- Put the business at risk of non-compliance
This is where leadership matters, because teams don’t just 'lose' curiosity, they respond to the environment around them.
So there are two things leaders need to do deliberately
.First, always communicate the 'why'; Before decisions, during change, and after implementation.
Second, notice when the questions stop, and instead of assuming alignment, get curious:
“Have we answered this properly before?”
“Does this feel safe to question?”
“Have we shut this down somewhere along the way?”
“What might people be thinking but not saying?”
Silence is not always agreement, sometimes it’s protection. Great leaders know the difference!
