Libsyn Directory

#117: The Power of Questions

Release Date: 09/16/2026

Executive Commute With Jayson Krause

In Episode #117 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by Level 52 coach and facilitator Chris Foy to explore the power of questions and why strong leadership often requires letting go of the need to have every answer. Chris explains the shift many leaders must make after being promoted for their expertise: moving from the person who solves the problem to the leader who creates the conditions for other experts to think, decide, and grow. Questions can build agency, accountability, curiosity, and capability, but only when they come from genuine wonder rather than an attempt to steer...

#116: Coherence Is the Price of Being Trusted Under Pressure

Executive Commute With Jayson Krause

In Episode #116 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by Murray Rodgers, author of The Psychedelic CEO, for a conversation about coherence, internal fragmentation, and the inner state leaders carry into every room Murray describes coherence as a state with less conflict between our thoughts, emotions, and actions. It is not simply calmness. It is the ability to stay present, anchored in what feels true, and responsive to what a moment actually requires. Drawing from his own experience of career success, depression, psychedelic work, being fired from a company he founded, and a...

#115 The Best Leadership Lessons From My Summer Conversations

Executive Commute With Jayson Krause

It’s been a busy summer at Level 52. Rather than publishing our regular August newsletter, we spent the month recording conversations for with leaders, entrepreneurs and coaches who challenged my thinking in unexpected ways. Some conversations confirmed things I believed. Others completely overturned them. This month’s newsletter is a collection of ideas I haven’t been able to shake.

#114: Leading When Nothing Is Certain

Executive Commute With Jayson Krause

In Episode #114 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by Cathie Saroka, Level 52 Coach and Facilitator and CEO of Goldray Glass, for a conversation about leading through uncertainty without carrying the weight alone. Cathie has spent decades leading through recessions, business volatility, personal challenges, the pandemic, and constant change. Her experience has taught her that strong leadership in uncertain times is not about projecting certainty or having every answer. It is about building a team that can think, challenge, adapt, and solve problems together. Jayson and Cathie...

#113: Resilience Is Not Toughing It Out

Executive Commute With Jayson Krause

In Episode #113 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by Level 52 coach and facilitator Lara Koretsky for an honest exploration of resilience, adversity, and growth. Resilience is often described as the ability to bounce back or keep pushing when life becomes difficult. Lara challenges that definition. True resilience is not about returning to who you were before adversity or ignoring the toll it has taken. It is the ability to learn, adapt, recover, and create something stronger from the experience. Drawing from profound personal loss, family challenges, burnout,...

#112: How Transparent Leaders Build Trust in Tough Times

Executive Commute With Jayson Krause

In Episode #112 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by experienced entrepreneur, former CEO, and TEC Canada Chair Mark Terrill for a candid conversation about transparency in leadership. They explore why transparency is essential for building trust, particularly during difficult periods, and why employees create their own explanations when leaders fail to communicate clearly. Mark also explains why effective transparency does not mean sharing everything. Leaders must balance openness with confidentiality, timing, focus, and empathy. When handled poorly, transparency can become...

#111: The Practice of Curiosity and Why Leaders Default to Certainty

Executive Commute With Jayson Krause

A 360-degree review told Tyler Chisholm exactly what was wrong with his leadership: he filled every room, jumped to conclusions, and never let his team finish a sentence. His team had stopped contributing. They were just waiting to be told what to do. In this episode of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause talks with Tyler Chisholm, CEO and author of Curious as Hell, about the moment that feedback forced him to rebuild how he leads. Tyler unpacks the difference between the leader he was in the boardroom and the host he'd become on his own podcast, and how closing that gap turned curiosity from...

#110: Your Empathy Might Be Making You a Worse Leader

Executive Commute With Jayson Krause

Empathy gets treated like a personality trait: you either have it or you don't. Roxana Radulescu, Level 52 coach and facilitator, argues that's wrong. It's a muscle, and most leaders are either overusing it, avoiding it, or using it to avoid the hard conversation instead of having it. In this episode of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause talks with Roxana about what empathy actually is (her definition: care plus trust), what it isn't (sympathy, agreement, an excuse to skip feedback), and where it goes wrong at the top of organizations. They dig into a Yale psychologist's argument that...

#108: Why Burnout Isn't a Workload Problem

Executive Commute With Jayson Krause

Most leaders think burnout comes from too much work. So they respond with wellness programs, lighter workloads, and lunch hour yoga. Then nothing changes. In this episode of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause sits down with Dr. Tianne Foster, physician, burnout researcher, and author of Reality Check, to unpack what actually drives burnout and why most organizations are solving the wrong problem. Trained across Canada, the US, and the UK, Dr. Foster became obsessed with burnout after a senior physician told her entire class to get out of medicine while they still could. Her conclusion:...

#109 MML What does high performance actually look like?

Executive Commute With Jayson Krause

Welcome to The Meaningful Leader — July Edition. This month, we’re looking at the invisible forces that shape how leaders and teams actually perform: the standards we fail to define, the belonging we misunderstand, the thinking environments we create, and the warning lights we ignore. Three of this month’s sections were sparked by great conversations I had on with Level 52 coach and facilitator - Jessica Heafey, Flow state advisor - Dr. Murray Heber, and author of Reality Check - Dr. Tianne Foster. Links to each full discussion are below. But the thread running through all of...

More Episodes

Chris explains the shift many leaders must make after being promoted for their expertise: moving from the person who solves the problem to the leader who creates the conditions for other experts to think, decide, and grow. Questions can build agency, accountability, curiosity, and capability, but only when they come from genuine wonder rather than an attempt to steer someone toward a predetermined answer.

Jayson and Chris unpack the difference between high-impact questions and leading or "ninja" questions, why "what" often creates more exploration than "why," and when asking too many questions can actually undermine leadership. They also examine the role of clarity in crisis moments and situations where a leader simply needs to set direction.

Chris introduces the WATCH framework for stronger questions: Wonder, Accountability, Transformation, Challenge, and High Impact. The conversation also explores discovery listening, the danger of rescuing people or "stealing the lift," and the shift from problem solving to solution enabling.

Episode timestamps:

00:00 The power of questions

00:31 Chris Foy's path to leadership coaching

01:28 Why leaders need to ask more and answer less

03:16 Defining high-impact questions

03:50 Questions as a quest for understanding

04:48 Leading with wonder

07:00 Leading questions and micromanagement

08:44 From expert leader to leader of experts

10:03 The pressure to signal certainty

12:35 Good questions versus bad questions

14:19 Creating safety and agency

16:02 Helping people find their own answers

18:13 Rescuing people and stealing growth

20:33 What it means to "steal the lift"

23:46 Questions that activate growth

25:17 Why "what" can work better than "why"

26:10 Ninja questions and the need for clarity

27:42 Do more questions equal better leadership?

29:29 When too many questions hurt leadership

32:53 Great leaders do not have all the answers

35:09 Finding the right question before the answer

36:00 Leading outside your technical expertise

39:07 What makes a question hard?

40:43 Chris Foy's WATCH framework

42:00 The pause after a powerful question

43:35 Simple questions, significant impact

43:54 Challenge, discomfort, and ego

46:07 Smartest person or best question asker?

47:41 Problem solving versus solution enabling

48:41 Where leaders should start

50:01 Discovery listening

51:56 The worst advice about questions

53:05 Balancing questions with clear direction

54:05 Pushing the frontiers of your leadership

Follow Jayson Krause

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3Voc2qOmcqGKfqy6CDiZOw

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayson-krause/

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