Insight
The second most common question every leader asks
Beau Johnson · Co-founder & Faculty · March 4, 2026 · 3 min read
The most common question a leader asks me is some version of: what do I do about my difficult team member?
The second most common question — and the one I think actually matters more — is: what do other leaders do?
Not in a benchmarking way. Not in a what's-the-best-practice way. In a is-this-actually-normal way. In an am-I-the-only-one-who-feels-like-this way. In a what-do-people-who-are-further-along-than-me-actually-do-when-they-don't-know-what-to-do way.
That second question is the one we don't usually have anywhere to take. Not to our team — they're looking to us for answers. Not to our boards — we don't want to look uncertain. Not to our partner at home, usually — they have their own work.
It's the question cohorts answer. Not perfectly. Not always with a clean answer. But cohorts give you a small group of people you trust enough to ask it out loud — and that, more than anything else, is what helps a leader stop feeling alone in the work.