When commitments are not kept: questions that leave responsibility where it belongs

A client recently described a situation that many leaders will recognise. One of her team members had committed to delivering a specific piece of work. The delivery did not come. The second time, the pattern repeated. The third time she sat across from me, wondering how to raise it without ending up doing the work herself.

Her uncertainty was understandable. She wanted to establish commitment while avoiding tighter control or effectively taking the task off her team member's hands. Many leadership situations move between these two poles: more pressure on one side, quiet absorption of responsibility on the other.

When something fails repeatedly, the impulse to step in grows. Priorities are set, deadlines fixed, checkpoints installed, solutions designed. That looks decisive and relieves the pressure in the short term. But it shifts something fundamental that becomes noticeable later. This is exactly the point where a different route pays off.

Not already knowing the solution

Systemically informed work has a stance for this that sounds paradoxical at first and is called not-knowing. It means neither having no opinion as a leader nor handing over responsibility. It means the deliberate decision not to assume automatically that you already know the solution and have to deliver it.

Whoever takes this stance helps the other person develop a workable path themselves. Responsibility for that path stays where the task sits, with the employee. This sounds like giving something up, yet it is more a relocation of your own contribution. The leader still steers, only on a different level. She steers the thinking process and leaves the result to the employee.

A conversation that leaves the path with the employee

What this looks like in practice can be shown through a conversation. The questions point forward throughout, towards options for action and the next step.

Leader: "How far along are you with project X?"

Employee: "I am not really making progress."

Leader: "What do you need in order to move forward?"

Employee: "I would need more time."

Leader: "How could you create that time?"

Employee: "Then I would have to deprioritise other things."

Leader: "How could you do that?"

Employee: "I would have to decide which of my projects matter less right now."

Leader: "Which ones are those?"

Step by step, a solution emerges here. It does not come from the leader. The employee develops it himself, guided by questions that each open the next step in thinking.

The effect depends on the direction of the questions. Asking what someone needs, which options they see or how they could create time directs attention to the room for action. The familiar alternative, asking for the reasons behind the failure, leads in the opposite direction. It pulls attention towards causes and justifications and shrinks the space in which the employee can become active. Both types of question sound polite, yet they produce fundamentally different conversations.

A solution is not yet a commitment

A possible path is not yet commitment. Being solution-focused does not mean being non-committal. Once the employee has found an idea, the point is to turn that idea into a concrete commitment. The conversation therefore continues.

Employee: "Then I will do it on Monday."

Leader: "How will you make sure you do it on Monday?"

Employee: "Monday is actually quite full already."

Leader: "How could you keep the time you need free?"

Employee: "I would have to move two meetings and block time for myself."

Leader: "When will you set that block?"

The difference between two sentences decides the effect here. The sentence "Block two hours on Monday" takes the last step away from the employee, and the leader has delivered the solution. The question "How will you make sure you manage it on Monday?" leaves that step with the employee. He develops the path himself and thereby also takes responsibility for the path holding.

From intention to commitment

A general statement such as "I will take care of it" or "I will do that next week" is not yet a robust agreement. It describes an intention. Through further questions it gradually becomes a commitment that is checkable: what will be done, when it happens, how it is implemented and how it will be recognisable that it actually took place.

These four aspects are not a model and not a new tool to work through. They describe a conversational stance. Whoever has internalised it asks at the right moments without ticking off a checklist in their head. That way it stays a dialogue between equals.

Why leadership does not have to solve every problem

Many leaders have come far professionally above all because they recognise and solve problems quickly. In dealing with employees, this strength is also a trap. Leaders who permanently deliver the solutions teach their environment something, namely that it does not have to think difficult questions through to the end itself. Responsibility then migrates upwards unnoticed, and with it the load. How I came to this insight myself is described in My path to coaching: not stealing problems.

Solution-focused questions change this dynamic. They send a multi-layered message. They take the concern seriously, they offer support in thinking, and they tell the employee that he can carry responsibility for the solution himself. This last layer is the most effective one, because confidence often produces exactly the autonomy you are hoping for.

Commitment does not arise simply because a leader demands it. It grows stronger when an employee formulates himself what he will do, when he will do it, how he will approach it and how he will notice that it has happened. The real leverage lies in that self-formulation.

Perhaps the most effective leadership question therefore lies less often in "What should I do now?" and more often in "Which question helps the person in front of me formulate the next step themselves?"