The Ask You're Skipping

My client is a good leader. Observant, thoughtful, genuinely invested in his team. In our session yesterday he described something he’d been watching for months - his team defaulting to hub-and-spoke communication, everything routing through him, when what he wanted was for them to amplify ideas across the group, build on each other, operate more like a network than a wheel.

He’d noticed it, wanted it to change, and couldn’t understand why it wasn’t happening.

My first question: Have you asked them - individually - to do more of that?

He had, actually. One person. And it worked. He could see exactly how much more impact that person had when they started showing up differently. He just assumed the others would notice, absorb it, and reach for the same thing on their own.

This is the mistake good leaders make. Not the rookie mistake of never developing their people, but the more subtle one: they ask one person, notice it works, and then stop asking. The behavior they want stays locked inside one relationship when it could be spreading across the whole team.

There’s a principle I come back to constantly in my work with senior leaders: ask for what you want, notice what you get. It sounds simple. It’s surprisingly rare.

Most leaders are good at the second half. They notice. They observe patterns, read the room, track who’s performing and who isn’t. What they skip, especially the higher they rise, is the first half. The direct, individual ask.

Here’s where I learned the difference between the two. A teacher of mine showed me the difference this way. I offered her something and she didn’t take it. I tried again, still nothing. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure what was happening. Finally, uncertain and a little awkward, I just held it out steadily and waited. She reached for it.

Only then did I understand what she’d been doing. She wasn’t refusing. She was waiting for me to actually offer - to hold it out with full presence and no agenda, and let her decide whether to take it. The moment I stopped pushing and simply made it available, everything changed.

That’s the difference between handing and offering. Handing has an agenda. Offering has patience. Handing needs the other person to receive. Offering lets them choose.

I want more of this from you is about the leader.

You will be more effective if you do more of this is about them.

One is a preference. The other is an offering — a map to their own greater impact, held out and waiting for them to reach for it.

Your team can’t reach for something you haven’t clearly held out to them.

So here’s the Fewer. Better. Clearer. version of this:

Pick one person on your team who’s capable of more than they’re currently doing. Have the conversation this week — not a hint, not a general team message, a direct individual ask. Tell them what you’ve observed, tell them specifically how they’ll be more effective if they lean into it, and then hold it out and wait.

Notice what you get.

Do that for each person, one at a time, and you won’t recognize your team in six months.