Leaders — Stop Solving Everything!
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Leaders — Stop Solving Everything!
December 8, 2020 by Doug Thorpe
If you have responsibility for a business, a company, or a team, STOP solving everything. Please stop solving everybody’s problems.
That sounds like a crazy person talking, right?
Here’s what I mean. It is likely you climbed the business ladder by solving problems. As a sole-contributor on a team, you helped make things happen. Whether it was customer service, design engineering or framing a house, you did it well. You made things happen; you solved problems.
Small transactional events or separate work moments were completed because you knew how to do that. Then one day, you got promoted.
Either your old boss left or there was an opening somewhere else in the company for a supervisor, so you got the job. Why? Because your performance was appreciated and recognized. But it was still based on solving problems.
Then, as a new manager, you realized you could solve other people’s problems. Perhaps it started within your own team, but people came to you with their problems and you “fixed” them. It came naturally. So you did it more and more.
Now you’ve gotten several more promotions and you’re still solving everyone’s problems.
It’s time to start leading and stop solving problems.
Lead People, Don’t Solve Their Problems
Still sound crazy? Let me break it down a little further.
Real leaders do many things. One big thing they do is develop their people. They help people grow. Growth can be professional, technical, or personal, but there is growth.
Solving everyone’s problems cuts short the opportunity to help people grow by learning how to solve their own problems. It’s like the old saying:
“Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”
