Ask: What would you do in my seat?

Elizabeth Lotardo: Stop Solving Your Team’s Problems for Them

Elizabeth Lotardo is a consultant, writer, and online instructor who helps organizations drive emotional engagement. Elizabeth writes for Harvard Business Review, is a Top Voice on LinkedIn, and the author of Leading Yourself: Find More Joy, Meaning, and Opportunities in the Job You Already Have. She’s also the author of the Harvard Business Review article, Stop Solving Your Team’s Problems for Them.

Jumping in to solve problems feels like we’re doing important work. The issue is that leaders need to be enabling work – both for scale and to grow the skills of others. In this conversation, Elizabeth and I detailed how to get out of the trap of solving your team’s problems for them.

Key Points

• Jumping in to solve a problem feels good in the moment for both parties, but creates long-term obstacles.
• The other extreme, asking people to only come with solutions, often shuts down learning for both parties.
• Shifting a habit of solving your team’s problems will feel awkward at first – both for your team and you.
• Rather than solving the problem for them, help remove the obstacle.
• Support doesn’t just have to come from the manager. Often, looking at the situation together will help surface what kind of support would actually help.
• We often assume that people are coming to us for answers. Sometimes, they just need to be heard.

Five questions that will help your team step up:

1. What have you tried?
2. What–or who–is getting in the way of tackling this?
3. What support do you need?
4. What would you do if you were in my seat?
5. Is there anything else I should know?

Resources Mentioned

• Stop Solving Your Team’s Problems for Them by Elizabeth Lotardo
• Leading Yourself: Find More Joy, Meaning, and Opportunities in the Job You Already Have by Elizabeth Lotardo (Amazon, Bookshop)*

Related Episodes

• The Way to Stop Rescuing People From Their Problems, with Michael Bungay Stanier (episode 284)
• Where Senior Leaders Can Better Support Middle Managers, with Emily Field (episode 650)
• The Key Norm of a High-Performing Team, with Vanessa Druskat (episode 753)

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