John, a young enthusiastic leader came to Tom frustrated that the key stakeholders were not providing him the required support for his project. Before even his direct report stopped talking, Tom went on and on about how effectively he had solved problems in the past and then advised him what to do to get the work done. At the end of the meeting, John was even more frustrated than before. Though he had some pointers about the solution he felt dejected, incapable and incompetent.
What happened was that Tom was more interested in demonstrating how smart he was by telling his own success story and felt good that he had the solution for every problem. While doing that he did not understand Tom’s real pain point and the reason behind his frustration. In fact, he did not listen to John and by bragging about his own successes he made John feel small and incompetent. This was his default behavior. Though Tom was very successful in running the business, his peers and direct reports disliked working with him.
Providing solutions is a short term fix. While guidance and direction is important in critical situations, a long term approach is to empower employees to make good decisions and help them come out with solutions. This way you not only avoid being the bottle neck, it saves you time to do more important strategic tasks. Moreover your people feel encouraged, motivated and empowered as they know what to do when a similar situation arises next time.
Start by asking better questions before telling the answers. To ask good questions, listening is critical. In short leaders need to develop coaching skills to empower and develop their people.
Here are the 3 steps
Listen with the intent of listening to the problem and not with the intent of solving the problem and using it as an opportunity to speak about how smart you are.
Ask questions to understand the real problem – the problem hidden beneath the problem. Tom could have asked “What is the real challenge for you in managing the stakeholders?”
Be clear about how you can provide the required support to your employee.
Quoting Michael Bungay Stanier, author of The Advice Trap, “Stay curious a little longer.” In an interview with Whitney Johnson on her Disrupt yourself podcast he says,
“We spend way too much time trying to solve the wrong problem because we think the first challenge is the real challenge. And it just rarely is.”
This is not easy, It is hard to break a default pattern. But it’s like building a muscle. The more you train to shift your habits, the better you get at it. With deliberate efforts to strengthen your coaching skills, you will be a boss people love to work with.
To be a great leader, you don’t need to have all the answers.
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