The people I grew up around didn't need to be asked - we were a bunch of story tellers - joke tellers - opinion pontificators - excuse me while I go off on a rant that would put Dennis Miller to shame.
As a result I figured that if someone had something to say - they would SAY IT.
Big mistake.
I took (and am taking) her advice and now ask questions of people and it is amazing the response I got and am getting.
I asked my normally quiet friend a few questions about marriage and fatherhood to test her theory - we had a deeper and more meaningful conversation in that one hour that the previous ten hours we had spent talking together.
Other than the impression of people on my Crew team - where I was all business - nobody has EVER accused me of not talking enough. Not asking leading questions? Yes. Not having PLENTY to say on my own. NEVER!.... hardly ever! ;)
So do you think asking leading questions would improve the conversation most couples have?
I think generally that this is not the problem women have. By the tone of most of the comments on this thread it's pretty clear that most women probably already do a lot of this.
But, yes, leading questions (on the part of husbands) would show a personal interest and likely would end up deepening relationships.
Maybe some men are afraid to do this because they think their wives would talk even more! Or maybe they're just not aware as you perhaps were not until your wife pointed it out. But I have a theory that the root cause of a lot of female chatter is that women don't feel close to their husbands emotionally, spiritually, intellectually and they're desperate to fill the gap. So more "leading questions" as you put it from their mate might be one of the keys to closing that gap and lessening the volume of empty words. All IMHO.