6 Simple Ways To Answer Unexpected Question From Leaders

When you get caught off guard, focus on bringing your logical thinking back on line, don't worry too much about thinking out loud, and remember to phone a friend.

Feb 27, 2025

You’re in an important decision-making meeting with senior leaders, trying to land a strategy you’ve been working on for months. You’ve worked in detail through perspectives of different functions, dependencies on other teams, and plans for the backup plan. Then, someone in the room asks you a question that completely catches you off guard.

It’s a question you haven’t thought of yet.

You can’t muster the answer.

You freeze. Or mumble through a jumbled explanation. A decision is not made and the team is asked to come back again later.

After the meeting, your inner critic comes on strong with guilt, shame, and disappointment.

We’ve all been there. For high achievers and perfectionists, these situations are particularly traumatic. What can you do to have a better reaction next time?

1. Anticipate The Questions

Before the large group meeting, get to know the playing field. Who will be there and what are their top concerns? What types of questions do they like to ask? What fears and worries do they have about the topic? Who do they trust in the room?

Use pre-meetings to get a sense of questions that are likely to come up. Ask your manager, skip level, xfn peer, coach, or teammate for questions. Give GenAI an overview of your work and the background of the people in the room, and ask it to generate questions.

2. Bring Experts and Support

Plan who you are bringing to the meeting so that you don’t have to know all the details. If you anticipate tricky legal questions, bring in legal. If you are weak on Engineering constraints, bring engineering. Don’t try to “learn it all”. Have partners who you can defer to for details.

You can also have some experts on “standby” virtually on Slack. Sometimes, defer answering the question, ask them via chat, and then get back to the group.

3. Calm Your Fear

When caught on the spot, our emotions take over. For some people, countless thoughts run through their heads and it’s impossible to make sense of it all. For others, their mind goes blank and they freeze. At this point, your logical thinking has gone out the window. Instead, fear and anxiety take over.

Learn how to calm your fear and anxiety.

Take a deep breath - 4 counts in, 4 counts out.
Look away briefly from the source of stress— the question asker. Focus instead on a friend in the room.
Remember that they don’t want you to fail. They’re not trying to “get you”.
Remember that you likely know more than anyone else in the room about the topic. You are the expert.

When your emotions are in control, your logical thinking is out the window. Before trying to even think about the answer, regain your confidence and calm first.

4. Buy Time

Once your brain is back online, give it time to think.

Pause a bit longer than you’re comfortable with
Start with summarizing relevant context leading up to the question
Repeat the question (if it’s not super obvious): Let me make sure I’m following. You are asking whether….
Use some quick filler phrases: That is a good question. I see two possibilities…(even if you only end up saying one).

You can practice this ability to use “summary time” as “thinking time” in advance. Have a peer ask you a question (about anything), and then practice summarizing while probing your brain for the answer.

Yue’s Coaching Corner

Last weekend, I began my year-long journey to become a certified integral coach with New Ventures West. It is an investment in my personal development to find my fire snail and to bring more holistic tools to my 1:1 executive coaching. I could not be more excited for this journey.
Want more tips and tactics like these? Consider The Uncommon Executive Leadership Accelerator where I teach critical soft skills for leadership: presence, influence, advocacy, and more. Apply here.
On the job hunt? check out my lightning talk on How To Communicate What’s Most Important During Leadership Interviews.

5. Work Out Loud

Often, smart people will try to “get to the answer” immediately, attempting to somehow skip thinking time.

If the answer is not “obvious” to you, the person who has thought about this area more than most other people in the room, then it’s also not obvious to anyone else. Taking the time to talk through your considerations and logic will help bring others along.

“Here is what I know about this area. There are some options I see. Based on xyz, I think that A may be the best path.”
“I spoke with person A in marketing a week ago on this question. My understanding is that x is the latest.”

Don’t skip thinking time. Instead, use it as a chance to re-demonstrate your expertise and the prep you’ve done in advance. While in the “presenting” part of a meeting, it’s important to lead with concise summaries and not get too detailed, it’s often the opposite with answering challenging questions.

6. Phone a Friend

In the game Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, when you don’t know the answer, you can phone a friend or poll the audience.

Similarly, when there’s a question you don’t know the answer to, but you do know who knows the answer, then punt it to them.

If they’re in the meeting, ask them to support
If they’re not in the meeting, it’s okay to say something like “This is not my area of expertise. My understanding is X. However, this is something I would like to run by Lisa who is the expert on this to confirm.”
If you think someone in the group may know the answer, but you’re not sure who, then you can Ask the audience. “Great question. Let me think about it real quick. In the meantime, if anyone else here has an input, please jump in.”

Remember, you have done the hard work going into the meeting. Bring confidence and calmness with you into the conversation, and trust yourself to find the words.

That’s all folks! See you next week at 3:14 pm.

Yue

The Uncommon Executive