Stop Solving Problems Your Team Should Own

Most leaders get to where they are because they are top performers, and as such, it can be difficult to not step in when their team is struggling. Leaders act as guides for their team, but there is a fine line between helping them and over-helping them, thus hindering the team’s ability to learn and grow from the situation. Leaders must empower their people to solve problems, think innovatively, and at times, even make mistakes. 

Just like you have to let kids try things on their own so that they can learn, leaders must allow their team to work through things before stepping in. You need to stop solving the problems that your team should own. If you do, you are demonstrating to your team that you do not trust in their ability to think independently and therefore you need to save them. You are also teaching them to rely on you, which diminishes their levels of self-confidence and productivity.

If you want your team to succeed, sometimes you have to let them fail forward. This doesn’t mean you’re a hands-off leader; it just means that you are not trying to be their hero. This is especially important when the problem they are trying to solve is one of their own creation. To try and be the hero is exhausting for the leader and damaging for the team, but to respect the team enough to allow them to experiment with solutions is beneficial to all those involved. There will be times when someone will come to you asking what they should do. It’s very important that you encourage them to make their own decision and stand behind it.

You can do this by asking them questions that can point them in the right direction without actually giving them the answer. When they work to come up with the solution themselves, they feel a greater responsibility for it, and they take ownership of the outcome. If you give them the answer and for whatever reason it does not work out, they’re likely to try and blame you. But if it was their idea and it doesn’t work out, then they can evaluate what went wrong and use that to determine what to do in the future.

Henry Ford once said, “The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” With that in mind, empower your team to make informed decisions, and stop solving the problems that they should own. You are doing your team a disservice by stepping in and fixing things for them because they will not learn from the experience. Let go of the control, allow your people to think for themselves, and encourage them along the way.

-Meghan Slaughter