Christian Business Concepts
Christian Business Concepts
Great Leaders Don’t Rush To Answers; They Ask Better Questions
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What if the fastest path to growth isn’t a better answer, but a better question? We explore how leaders who slow down to listen, frame problems wisely, and invite God into their decision-making build companies that are healthier, more resilient, and more aligned with purpose. Drawing from James 1:19 and Proverbs 20:5, we share why wisdom begins with asking and how Jesus used questions to shape belief, reveal motives, and spark transformation.
We break down three categories every leader should master: strategic questions that set direction and safeguard mission, operational questions that expose friction and fix broken processes, and leadership-and-culture questions that surface unspoken issues and the behaviors your team really rewards. Think GPS before directions, diagnosis before prescription, and chess over checkers. You’ll hear practical prompts you can use this week to clarify destination, test assumptions, and weigh the long-term position created by today’s choices.
We also unpack case studies that show questions driving innovation at scale. Jeff Bezos institutionalized the customer with the “empty chair,” forcing leaders to ask what is best for the customer, which led to one-click purchasing and Prime convenience. Satya Nadella reset Microsoft by asking what would happen if learning beat proving you’re smart, shifting from know‑it‑all to learn‑it‑all and unlocking collaboration and cloud leadership. Howard Schultz reframed Starbucks by asking what experience people were buying, designing a third place that built loyalty beyond price. Along the way, we share weekly and annual rhythms—one hard question to God, one curiosity question to a teammate, and a year-end self-audit—to keep your leadership humble, focused, and effective.
If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a leader who needs it, and leave a review with the best question you’re asking right now. Your questions could spark someone else’s breakthrough.
Christian business comments with your host Christian business common steps.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks, Kelly, and uh welcome everyone to this week's Christian Business Concepts Podcast. I'm your host, Harold Milby, and each week I try to um apply biblical business principles to your business and to others and to organizations and even departments within a business. You know, the Bible is filled with principles that can be applied to every area of our lives, and business is just one of those areas. You know, my desire and my prayer is that you find true godly success and that what you hear each week will encourage you, enlighten you, and empower you. That's what we're about here at CBC. Uh, before we get started, I want to thank you, uh, each of you, for helping us grow the CBC community uh by sharing this podcast with four to five other people every week and for posting a link to this podcast on your Facebook and LinkedIn pages. That makes just a huge difference. And we are now heard uh as of the end of 2025. We are now heard in over 50 countries around the world. And uh it's not just exciting, but I got to tell you, it's humbling as well. But we thank you for helping us to grow the CBC community. I believe in your business. I believe in you as a Christian business leader, and I believe that you can make a difference in the world around you. So I'm so thankful that you're a part of the CBC family. Now, before we get started, I want to give a big shout out to Denver, Colorado, right here in the United States. Uh, thank you, Denver, for having so many downloads this uh past week. Uh, we appreciate you and all of you around the world that make us a part of your personal growth plan every week by listening to this podcast. You know, let me start with this today. I want to start with uh uh a Bible verse, and that's James 1 and 19, and it says this Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath. Let me say this godly success is really it's not built on having all the answers, but it's built on consistently asking the right questions before people, obviously, and even before God. You know, in in business, answers may build revenue, but questions build wisdom. And wisdom, when you align it with God, it will build lasting success. You know, as as as leaders, as business owners, decision makers, we are we we often get rewarded for speed, for for confidence, for certainty. But but scripture and experience tells us something different. You know, the leaders who create sustainable impact, whether it be personally, spiritually, or financially, are not those with the fastest answers, but those who consistently ask better questions. Your future is often limited not by what you don't know, but by the questions that you never ask. You know, because questions, they do several things. First of all, questions reveal truth, they expose assumptions, they invite wisdom, they build clarity, they create alignment, and most importantly, they they invite God into the decision-making process. I mean, when you think about it, when you look at the biblical foundation, you know, God asks questions. One of the most overlooked leadership lessons in Scripture is this God frequently leads through questions. You know, Genesis 3 and 9, it says this, but the Lord called to the man, where are you? That was a question. God wasn't asking for his location. God was all-knowing. He was all-powerful, he knew exactly where Adam was. But he was inviting ownership. He was inviting awareness. You know, in 1 Kings chapter 19, verses 9, the Bible says, and the word of the Lord came to him and said, What are you doing here, Elijah? The question that realigned uh Elijah's uh Elijah's purpose, his calling and direction is found in this scripture because God knew exactly where Elijah was. For him not to know meant that he wasn't God. He wasn't omnipotent, he wasn't all-knowing, but God is. And so he knew exactly where Elijah was, but he was trying to realign his purpose and his calling and his direction. So he asked that question. You know, uh Proverbs 20 and 5 in the NIV says the purposes of a person's heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out. You know, great leaders draw out what really already exists through these intentional questions. Because great leaders ask great questions. Um, you know, James 1 and 5 says, if any of you lack wisdom, you should ask of God who giveth liberally and upbraideth not. Wisdom doesn't begin with answers, it really begins with asking. If you're not asking the right questions, you're not getting the right answers. So you've got to make sure that you ask the right questions. It begins with asking. You know, Jesus was a master at asking questions. You know, in in the Gospels alone, we find that Jesus asked over 300 questions, just in the four Gospels. You know, Matthew 16, 15 says, but what about you? He asked, Who do you say that I am? This was a really a question about theology, curiosity. It was identity formation. He wanted to know how what do you, as my disciples, who do you think that I am? In Mark chapter 10, verse 21, Jesus said, What do you want me to do? Now, now Jesus was asking this of a blind man. Now Jesus knew he was blind. He knew the answer would be because I want to see. That's what I want. But Jesus invited him to give clarity, to take responsibility, to exercise his faith. So he asked the question. It's some great leadership insight. You know, if Jesus, the Son of God, used questions, and he did so to shape belief, he asked questions to challenge assumptions, he asked questions to reveal motives, he asked questions to invite transformation. Then if Jesus did that, then asking great questions is not optional. I believe it's core. It's core kingdom leadership. Whether you're a business owner, whether you're a pastor, whether you're a department manager, great questions is core kingdom leadership. And that's what this podcast is about. It's about kingdom leadership. You know, uh let's let's talk a little bit about questions and and some strategic tools. You know, this I believe is a core business truth. The quality of a leader's results is directly proportional to the quality of the questions that they consistently ask. You know, as leaders grow, as you grow as a leader, as you grow as a leader, business leader, organizational leader, department leader, as you grow as a leader, what happens is there's an increase in complexity. Things get more complex. Variables are going to multiply. Certainty decreases. So if you're an elite leader, what happens with elite leaders is they shift from being an answer provider to being a problem framer. So they go from answering and trying to answer all the problems to let me let me reframe that problem so that I can ask the right questions. He he changes an elite leader. He changes, he shifts from being a fixer to being an insight extractor. He asks the questions to gain the insight. So first, there are three categories of business critical, what I call business critical questions. There's three categories. First is strategic questions. Now, what are strategic questions? These are questions to help you to develop direction. So you would you ask questions of employees and leaders uh like what business are we truly in? You know, what future does this decision create? Or is this aligned with with our definition of success? Those are strategic questions, those are going to give you some direction. But then there's operational questions. This is for execution. You can ask questions like, where are we experiencing friction? Where are we experiencing a an inordinate amount of inefficiencies? Uh, what process no longer serves our growth? What are we tolerating that we should be addressing? Those are operational questions. And then the third area is leadership and culture. This is about people. So, in other words, what am I doing that makes this harder for my team? Or you may ask, what conversations are we avoiding? What are we not talking about? Or what behaviors, behaviors are we actually rewarding? Or we are we rewarding the right questions or are the right behaviors, I should say? Are we rewarding the right behaviors or are we rewarding the wrong behaviors? So those are the three, uh, what I consider to be the three categories that are important for business to ask and to have questions about. So, you know, when you when when I think about, you know, when I think about us asking, you know, really, really good questions, when I think about that, I I think about a GPS system. You know, we when you when you start with a GPS, you don't start with directions. You start with a destination, right? So you don't really start with directions, you start with, here's where I want to go, and that's how you start the GPS. And if leaders don't ask, well, where uh are we actually going in this business? What are we truly about? Where is God actually calling this business to go? Then there's no tra uh strategy that's really going to truly work. We have to answer that question. You know, um recently I was I was very ill, actually, just you know, a few weeks ago, I was very ill and uh I had to go uh into an emergency care center. And the thing that you you really realize when you get around these people, a good doctor never, ever, ever prescribes anything for you before he diagnoses you. So great leaders don't really rush to solutions. They ask. They may say things like, well, what's the root issue? Uh they may say, is this a systems problem or a heart problem or a mind problem? They may ask, well, what's changed? You know, what's changed? You know, for years I I've I've played chess. I love to play chess. And my dad grew up playing checkers, and in, you know, I've played my dad in checkers. Uh, my dad never learned chess. But I I kind of this is such a great example because, you know, if you're a novice leader, you ask, okay, what's our next move? But a great leader is a chess player. So they ask things like, what position does this decision create? So they're looking ahead. You know, in chess, you're always four or five moves ahead. And so you have to ask those kinds of questions. If I move this piece to this position, what now does that create on this board that I'm playing against an opponent on? And so, you know, you have to understand that. It it's it questions and asking the right questions is so critical. It's so important. You know, and so, you know, as we we kind of look at some of these coaching examples, you know, uh a business uh, you know, assumes, well, we need better marketing. But a really great leader doesn't go there and say, well, we need better marketing. That again, that goes back to like the doctor. You're trying to, you're trying to prescribe medication for something you haven't diagnosed yet. But a great leader is gonna ask questions like, okay, where do our customers actually disengage? Where are we losing our customers? Are are we scaling with clarity? Or are we scaling with dysfunction? Because if you're scaling with dysfunction, then you're gonna just grow in dysfunction. You know, they they a great leader would ask, what promises are we making that operations can't keep? Are we promising our customers that we can do things when in operations we know that we can't? So we have to ask these questions. It's not just about better marketing. There's there's many more questions to ask to peel back the layers to find out what the real issue may be. So, you know, when you when great leaders ask great questions, what happens is instead of growing faster, the company grows healthier. And that's more important. You know, I think about Peter Drucker, who's a great leader, business leader. He said that the most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers, but of asking the wrong questions. And I think that is so critical. Uh, you know, when I was growing up in high school, I did a couple of book reports on Albert Einstein. And one of the things that he said was the important thing is not to stop questioning. He was a person that continually asks questions. Why can't this work? Why can't we do this? What's the real issue here? Uh he was constantly asking great questions. Uh Andy Grove, uh, another great leader, he said great companies are improved by crisis. And I think what he meant by that was crisis really doesn't destroy uh great leaders. What destroys great leaders is unmasked or unasked uh questions. And uh you've got to be able to ask the questions and ask the right questions. You know, so uh we we should be teaching our leaders uh uh questions to ask about vision and alignment, um, about stewardship and and execution. Um, and we should be asking questions about leadership and legacy. You know, who's becoming stronger because of my leadership? What am I modeling? Am I modeling faith or control? Do I have to be in control? Is that my issue? I mean, what kinds of things and questions um, you know, are we are we truly asking? Um, you know, questions every day. I I think there are uh there's not a day that goes by in business or on our jobs in our in our careers that we shouldn't be asking questions. You know, I talk about having a personal growth plan uh all the time. That starts with asking questions. Uh, you know, we've talked about this before, but I think it's so important for us as business leaders to ask every year at the end of every year to spend a few days and reflect on the year and ask ourselves questions. What did I do well this year? What did I not do well this year? What can I improve on by putting in a small amount of effort? What can I improve on uh applying a lot of effort? Uh what are weaknesses that were uncovered this year that I didn't realize that I had? Asking those kinds of questions. And when you do that and you give honest answers, and then you take those answers and you develop a growth plan, you're gonna grow as a leader. You're gonna become a great leader. And so we have to, you know, we we we have to do that and we have to learn those kinds of questions. You know, um, I believe I can share with you, I think, how we can challenge one another and challenge ourselves. You know, um, I would encourage you every week, at least weekly, to ask God one hard question in prayer. Ask him a hard question in prayer. Uh, I would encourage you to ask a team member one curiosity-based question at least every week. And then as you ask this question of God, uh, you should journal it. Journal what God shares with you. You know, Psalms 139, 23, and 24 says, search me, God, and know my heart. See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way of everlasting. I I believe that answers that we receive grow a business. I truly believe that. But questions, questions grow leaders. So answers may grow a business, but questions grow leaders, and leaders that are aligned with God create true and lasting success, not just for themselves, not just for themselves, but for for others. You know, let me let me just give you some examples that that I know of. You know, I I think about um Jeff Bezos. And Jeff Bezos uh talks about how that, and they still do this today, that in in executive meetings that they have, in high-level meetings that they have, they always have one empty chair in that room that nobody sits in. Nobody sits in. And when he first started doing this, uh somebody eventually asked, he said, you know, Jeff, why is this chair always empty? And this is what he said. He said, That chair represents the most important person in the room, the customer. Every major decision had to answer one question when Jeff Bezos had these meetings, and that was what is best for the customer? Not what's fastest for us, what's easiest for us, what most what's most profitable for us, but what does the customer actually uh How can we best serve, I should say, how can we actually best serve the customer? And so that chair is always there, it's still there in the meetings today. And that question, it really shaped everything. That one question, what's best for the customer, it shaped everything. That is what uh created that thought process with the customer in mind, is what created that one-click purchasing on Amazon. It's also what promoted uh and and created prime shipping uh and their pursuit to really have convenience at such a high level. And so Amazon didn't grow because Bezos had better answers. It grew because he instant institutionalized better questions. And so when leaders consistently ask the right question, systems, innovation, and scale always follow that. They always they always follow that. You know, when I think about questions, I also think about um I think about Microsoft, I think about the the the CEO, uh uh Satya uh uh Satya Nadella. She became CEO of Microsoft. The company at the time was massive, but internally it was stuck. Now there was brilliance everywhere. I mean, there was so much so much intelligence within the halls of Microsoft. There were so uh so so many smart people that were in Microsoft, but there was also ego. You know, there was also silos, you know, we talk about silos where that, well, you know, all the information flows, but it flows within these silos, and these silos are separate and they're not sharing information. So Nadella asked something completely different. She said, if what she said this, she said, what if we stopped trying to prove we're smart and started trying to learn? So you would think these are the smartest people in the world. What do they need to learn? But she understood the power of always having an attitude of learning. So that one question changed everything within Microsoft. It changed their meetings, it changed their leadership, and their culture shifted from a know-it-all to a learn-it-all type of culture. You know, people felt they had permission to ask questions. They had permission to admit what they didn't know. They had permission to collaborate instead of competing internally. So that single question unlocked innovation, it unlocked cloud leadership, and it really unlocked renewed relevance. So Microsoft didn't just recover, it exploded in value. In fact, it went up to almost three billion dollars in value. So here's the lesson: the most powerful leaders don't protect their intelligence, they create environments where learning beats ego. Now let's talk again about Starbucks, because this is another great example. Howard Schultz. He didn't build Starbucks by asking how do we sell more coffee? He asked a much deeper question. He said, What experience are we actually creating for people? So he noticed that early on. He noticed early on that people weren't just buying coffee. They were buying a place, they were buying a feeling of belonging. They were, you know, buying a pause in their day. So he said, What if Starbucks became a third place, not home, not work, but a place people feel known. And that question shaped their store design, it shaped employee training, uh, it shaped customer interaction. And so Starbucks became an experience, not just a product. And that experience created loyalty to the brand that price alone could never do. So they created this experience, but but that it started with the question. And when leaders ask questions about people, not just products, they build businesses that last because they build loyalty to the business and to the brand. So you might notice something here about all three of these leaders. They didn't start with tactics, they didn't start with answers, they started with questions that honored people, that invited humility and clarified purpose. And that's where real lasting success begins. Lord, I just thank you right now for those who have listened to this podcast today. Lord, I pray that as they implement these principles and strategies, that Lord, that you'll help them in their businesses and organizations. Lord, help them to become people who ask great questions and ones that will help be successful. These questions will be help them be successful, Lord, in their companies and in their organizations. Lord, I ask your blessings on them. In the name of Jesus, amen and amen. Well, again, I think that there's so many uh there's lots of things out there on the market. Let me encourage you to find a couple of more books maybe to read uh this year on how to ask great questions. There's a lot of material out there and more than I can provide you in 30 minutes. I just kind of wanted to give you an outline of the importance of asking great questions and some principles and guidelines and uh you're to give you an increased desire to want to become better at asking questions. So thanks for listening. I think that's all the time we have for for this week and today. So until next week, remember Jesus is Lord and He wants you blessed.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for tuning in to this week's Christian Business Concept Podcast. Go to Christian Business Concept for more information and resources.