The 4 Helpfuls: A Simple Leadership Tool That Actually Works

What’s Right. What’s Wrong. What’s Missing. What’s Confused.

This week in a leadership meeting, we tried something that turned out to be surprisingly helpful.

We’ve been moving fast lately, like most teams do. Focused on what’s next, what’s urgent, what needs fixing. But we rarely pause long enough to reflect on what we’re actually learning as we go.

So we ran a quick check-in using four simple questions:

• What’s right

• What’s wrong

• What’s missing

• What’s confused

It shifted the room.

We started with “What’s right.” That one question changed the tone. It reminded us that even with all the challenges, we’ve made progress. We had wins. We just hadn’t slowed down to notice them.

Then we asked, “What’s wrong.” Not to vent. Just to name what wasn’t working. Expectations, communication gaps, dropped training steps. Things we already felt, but hadn’t quite said out loud.

“What’s missing” turned out to be the most energizing. Someone pointed out that new agents don’t have a clear 90-day path. We left with three next steps. That clarity came fast once we asked the right question.

Finally, “What’s confused.” That surfaced the things we thought were clear but weren’t. Who owns what. Where we’re assuming things. Not dramatic, just honest. And it gave us room to clean things up.

I’m not claiming this is the silver bullet, but we’ll probably use it again. It gave us language and a structure to think through what we often skip past.

It might be useful for you too, whether you’re leading a team, running a business, or figuring out life at home.

If you try it, let me know how it goes.