This is a follow up on my last blog post regarding humbles leaders (We Need More Humble Leaders, 10.29.20). We have had so many examples of charismatic, "out front", and yes, usually narcissistic leaders, running big companies that we seem to have forgotten, from a research standpoint (i.e., cre​ating long term value), they aren’t actually very good for business. So, when I see the depiction of a humble leader in a new (fantastic) TV show, pardon me if I get a little excited.
 
I have spent my career working in organizations to help make their systems and people more effective, productive and healthy. Of course, this involves working with leaders and teams over time to help them envision and execute on the impact they want to make. So, when I started watching the newish series, Ted Lasso, on Apple TV, I was so delighted. 
 
I am not going to give you the plot, except to say that Ted is hired to coach an English football team by the ex-wife of the prior owner, to ensure that the team fails. Ted is a coach from the United States and coaches American Football but knows literally nothing about soccer.
 
Ted Lasso’s management style summarizes many of my beliefs about leading others:

• People need you to be consistently positive. This doesn’t mean you don’t get frustrated and share this. But the consistent theme is a positive, future focused outlook. We are living in a time of exceptional shame, blame and judgement. Social media is a major contributor to this, but so are when we accept it or “like” it. The problem is that it is ineffective for leaders because it’s demotivating to the human spirit. Period. 
• Working with really skillful, smart people means that you don’t need to know as much as they do, but you need to know how to inspire and motivate them. You need to understand what they care about and what matters to them. You need to care about them and know how to communicate this in word and deed. 
• Yes, you do need to be interested in learning about and becoming more knowledgeable. But this is usually secondary to being able to bring out the best contribution from others. 
• You need to be able to share and show your vulnerability. You don’t need to the smartest person in the room. You need to be the best at leveraging that from others.
• You are clear on your deepest held values, and you live them. Amongst them you are kind to others. You have good emotional intelligence: demonstrate strong self-awareness and empathy for others and you know how to self-regulate. 
• You know you can’t do everything by yourself. You depend upon and include others, you create trust.
• And finally, you know that expanding your range, learning new skills or ways of being and communicating is uncomfortable and, at least, equally rewarding. 

 
"Takin’ on a challenge is a lot like riding a horse. If you’re comfortable while you’re doin’ it, you’re probably doin’ it wrong." — Ted Lasso
 
Yes, it’s only a TV show, it’s not real life. But TV often serves as a mirror to what is happening and being celebrated in our society.  I am hoping that this will be a real trend in 2021: we revere healthy, humble, successful and caring leaders who role model goodness in corporate life. Believe!
 
Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners (almost) 21 years ago to help companies advance their leadership and people systems and create healthier workplaces. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you! 
   

Since the 1980’s we’ve seen the rise of the charismatic leader. Charismatic leaders are often charming, delightful, fun and can be very exciting to work with, usually for a short time. They can also be self-serving, exhausting to report to, and depending upon the business context, can be very destructive. 
 
Charismatic leaders have a personal magic, which can arouse a special type of loyalty or enthusiasm. They are likely to have enviable stage presence and can be very attractive to others. They are also very self-preoccupied and tend toward narcissism. 
 
From psychologytoday.com, narcissism is characterized by “a grandiose sense of self-importance, a lack of empathy for others, a need for excessive admiration, and the belief that one is unique and deserving of special treatment.” So, it is no surprise that charisma and narcissism are positively correlated.
 
Sound like anyone you know? Okay, hint, think big white house.
 
Truthfully, if we have been in the workforce in the past 30 years, most of us have reported to a charismatic (and narcissistic) leader, at one time or other, especially if we work for a publicly traded company. Whatever your experience, it turns out that over time, charismatic leaders are not the most effective. 
 
Not surprisingly, humble leaders fare much better from a performance standpoint. 
 
The Oxford Dictionary definition of humble is, “having or showing a modest or low estimate of one's own importance.”
 
Recent research on organizational performance, including financial performance of companies headed by leaders whose traits classified as “humble”, are more effective and successful. They leave companies better off than they found them and often do so pretty quietly, with little fanfare or public knowledge.
 
“Humble leaders prioritize the organization’s success ahead of their own. In a Journal of Management study of 105 computer software and hardware firms, humble CEOs were found to have reduced pay disparity between themselves and their staff. They dispersed their power. They hired more diverse management teams, and they give staff the ability to lead and innovate. Humble leaders have less employee turnover, higher employee satisfaction, and they improve the company’s overall performance.” (The Washington Post, Ashley Merryman, 12.8.2016, see link below).
 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/12/08/leaders-are-more-powerful-when-theyre-humble-new-research-shows/
 
For years I have used personality inventories along with multi-rater (360-degree) instruments as a fairly standard part of the leadership development work I do. As many leaders need to expand their self-awareness, better knowledge of their personality can be extremely helpful in understanding their own and other’s experience with their leadership.
 
More and more I am using the Hogan Personality Inventory because of the rigorous research used in developing it. Recently I attended a session they offered on The Rise of the Humble Leader. It was a great session, very illuminating. It led to this post and it made me start to think about the best way to manage charismatic leaders (especially C-level).
 
The fastest way to change it would be to create more equitable pay structures (executives didn’t always get paid the way they do now). But this won’t happen soon. From my practical experience, if charismatic leaders want to improve their organizational performance, they should surround themselves with humble leaders, who are not afraid to challenge them. Then they need to listen to them. It will feel exhausting, but I am pretty confident it will have a worthwhile ROI.
 
In the meantime, let’s start looking for and promoting more humble leaders!
 
Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 20 years ago to help companies advance their leadership and people systems. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you! 
   

March 15, 1933-September 18, 2020

I don’t do this often (ever), but I don’t have anywhere else to put this sadness so I am going to do a short post. One of my few heroes, and one our nation's truest leaders, passed away today and I am devastated. I wanted to send the notification I received on my watch back. I don’t want it to be true. I am not ready for RBG to leave this earth. Especially right now as we needed her more than ever.
 
Ruth Bader Ginsburg lived a life of integrity and fought her whole life to make sure that women had equal rights. Every time I saw her speak, or I read an article about her, I always felt that she is so full of goodness and we are so lucky that she is here with us, for a while, on this earth. She paved the way for so many women who came after and was still paving the way in myriad ways for all of us, whether we knew it or not.
 
In a time when so many in government (of both parties) are disconnected from their goodness, corrupt, staying long past their efficacy, or narcissists, RBG had her eye constantly on the prize – how to create a more just and equitable place for us all. She was one of our nation’s best moral compasses. She fought so hard for women and in doing so, she fought hard for all of us. She knew in her core that when we create equality for women, we improve the outcomes for the whole family, and the whole world. She never seemed to forget the importance of the work she was doing and fought hard, through multiple difficult cancer diagnosis, to continue doing it.
 
Today we lost a bright light. And from her generation of citizens who understood the true meaning of service, I worry that we are losing a lot of light these days. I think this means we all need to try harder and work longer and believe we can keep making things better. 
 
May her memory be a blessing. 

All human beings are vulnerable. From our magnificent brains that serve as operating systems housed in a relatively fragile container, to the all too porous layers of fat and skin that protect our insides, we are a pretty “open system”. We don’t have scales, poisonous venom or huge fangs or claws. In this time of COVID, we are all more aware that to be human is to be vulnerable.
 
We can practically engage in mitigating risk by physically distancing, wearing a mask and washing our hands frequently. Our physical vulnerability is something we can protect with some certainty. In this post, it is the vulnerability of the state of awareness of not being certain, or sure, in which I am more interested.
 
I am talking about the expanding “not knowing” of our current time. The fact that as our work becomes more knowledge based, and artificial intelligence, access to data and information explodes, even those of us who are gifted with strong intelligence, excellent education, experience and good judgement, are starting to realize there is more and more we simply don’t know. And that is a big problem for most highly competent, accomplished people. 
 
The thing is, we really like knowing. More importantly, the feeling of knowing[1], lights up our brain’s reward system. The feeling of knowing, in and of itself, can be highly attractive and for many of us, highly addictive.
 
And the feeling of not knowing can be uncomfortable. Not knowing can make us doubt ourselves and our work. For leaders this can paralyze our ability to make decisions. Yet, more and more, the best most of us can do is make the wisest decision, given what our teams and we know at a moment in time, and prepare to rapidly course-correct. Here we run into another roadblock of our attachment to “feeling certain”.
 
Our strong attraction to “being right” often makes it much more difficult to quickly adapt or change course. It also makes it hard for us to apologize, to admit we got it wrong and quickly move to solutions. If feeling right is highly addictive, feeling wrong is something to avoid at all costs. Therein lies the difficulty and the opportunity.
 
With more complex, adaptive challenges before us and less clear “right” answers at every turn, we must learn to become more comfortable with not knowing, to admitting we aren’t sure, and making the best (multidisciplinary and highly collaborative) decisions we can. And in order to make this an organizational habit, we need to get more skillful at managing the discomfort and inherent vulnerability with the feeling of not knowing. 
 
This means that organizations must make it okay to experiment more often and reward and promote people who demonstrate comfort with ambiguity and adaptive learning. Leaders need to reward those who demonstrate they can persevere through uncertainty and make solid decisions anyway. This includes rewarding those who demonstrate they can put their ego on hold, and take quick action when the data shows that a correction or different approach is needed.
 
For leaders of all types, feeling more comfortable with not being certain is a valuable skill to improve. For executives, it is a requirement for the longevity and success of their business.
 
Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 20 years ago to help companies advance their leadership and people systems. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you! 


[1] For an excellent explanation of this I highly recommend On Being Certain, Believing You are Right Even When You’re Not, by Robert Burton, M.D.

A number of clients have reached out and asked me if I do diversity and inclusion or unconscious bias work. This is not where I focus my current work. However, all my work is about enabling planned, structured change within organizations, teams and their leadership. And change is certainly needed right now.. 
 
I hear a lot of people using the terms, “systematic”, “structural” and “institutional” applied to racism. Though all these terms are accurate, I don’t think that most people, outside of academics or organization development folks really understand what they mean for workplaces. I won’t go into a definition of each of these for this post, but I will say that what is important about all of them is that, regardless of “intent”, they mean that systematic or institutional racism is:

• Hardwired into the practices, processes, culture and the way of being for organizations
• So longstanding and familiar that people no longer question the way it is (we are in a collective trance about it)
• More beneficial for some than others and therefore contributes to inequality of employment, opportunity, development and promotion. And ultimately limit, over the long term, organizations' ability to innovate, grow and perform.
• Difficult (understatement) to change. You really have to commit. 

Like many people I am updating my learning and reading the books that I should have read when they came out. I am in the middle of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s book, How to Be an Antiracist and, The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander, is up next. Still, this work is not new to me. In the past, I have created and co-facilitated several diversity and inclusion programs for my employers. I have been privileged to work with experts in the field who have dedicated their lives to creating more equitable workplaces. I have helped clients structure more equitable benefits, performance management and development systems. And still, it feels like a drop of water in an ocean of need. 
 
Welcome to the work of transforming deeply embedded organizational systems. These are highly complex, adaptive challenges and we are still treating them like technical, closed system, challenges (see the work of Drs. Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky).
 
So, where to start?

• Please don’t start with training! Start with setting an objective and key result you want, communicate it to your employees, and then act to achieve it. Make a commitment to changing one of your corporate practices that will help you achieve one of your diversity and equity goals (which you should be measuring as rigorously as your financials). For example, if you want more diversity in your leadership ranks, post promotional opportunities. One of the challenges organizations have is that they don’t have a good pipeline of diverse candidates coming up through their organization. The way to start to fix this is to promote people who may need some development, and create a plan to help them get the development they need. You can move next to upgrading your recruiting goals and practices and how you choose your high potentials to develop.
• Create an organization and spaces that are truly welcoming. This involves scrutinizing your talent management practices, benefits, compensation practices, signage, stated values, pictures and art that surround your spaces (or your digital meeting rooms). You have to be really intentional about this and infuse a new level of inquiry and awareness into all that you do. You have to rethink and update organizational habits and practices. It doesn’t need to be perfect, just start.
• Offer opportunities for real education. Notice I am not saying “training”.  I do not think most of us (me and other white people, POC, Americans) remotely understand the historical (and present day) denial of economic opportunity to POC. I was listening to a program on NPR’s Planet Money on innovation and patents. Lisa D. Cook, PhD, started researching the history of patents and race and she discusses it with the host Karen Duffin. Here’s the link:

 
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/876097416
 
Aside from the fact that Dr. Lisa Cook is an economic rock star, the findings of her research are so important. And it is just one more example of how economic opportunities have been denied to American citizens of color.  An outcome of which has surely been the profound loss for the person seeking the patent but also of innovation and wealth for our nation. When any citizen is denied the opportunity to build something great, creative or innovative in our country, we all lose. 
 
I do not think we know how badly our institutionalized racists policies have repeatedly shot us in our own foot! 
 
Dr. Kendi writes that he used to think that racism was about fear and ignorance but now he realizes, "The history of racist ideas is the history of powerful policymakers erecting racist policies out of self-interest." If we want to fix this, we have to change the infrastructure of racism - our policies and practices. Which makes me uncomfortable with bias or D & I training. It just seems so beside the point when what we need to do is dismantle economic structures that have denied opportunity to a large section of our fellow citizens. 
 
So much work to do and so much opportunity to do it right this time. 
 
Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 20 years ago to help companies advance their leadership and people systems. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you!    

Today I was thinking about the many things I miss about my work. Though this blog post will not solve any of the significant issues of this challenging time, I do believe it has a purpose. Because as I reflect on how much my work has changed in the past 5 months, it also fills me with such gratitude and appreciation for the people I get to work with, the very interesting and challenging work I have been able to do and the many moments of sheer joy I have often experienced in the midst of all the work.
 
And more than anything right now, experiencing feelings of gratitude and appreciation seem like much needed and very effective medicine, with only positive side effects.
 
I don’t think I am much different than my clients who work full time in organizations. When I am too busy, have too much work and too many deadlines, I get tired and I start missing or dismissing some of the good things happening in my life. I take things for granted. In many conversations with leaders and their teams over the years, it’s clear when they are feeling overwhelmed or overworked, it’s harder to access or notice what is really good in the present moment. This seems like a normal human response. We humans need time to pause and reflect, it’s part of our wiring. Yet more and more this chance to stand back and look at our lives “from the balcony” seems more difficult. 

One thing about this time of COVID - I am taking nothing for granted.
 
Capturing what I miss and writing it down – deepens the feelings of gratitude. So here goes. I miss:
 

• Seeing my clients in person. I miss meeting with them in the busy, vibrant, places where they work. When I go to a client’s workplace, I learn so much about their organization: the pace, the culture, the people on their team. It’s so vibrant and full of life and every organization has a “living narrative” that you can only access when you visit in person. 
• Facilitating team sessions, with all the talking, and noise and laughter that always happens when people are working on something strategic, setting annual goals, solving a big challenge or learning and growing.
• Being present with the whole person – being able to see what is happening somatically. Our bodies are rich sources of real time data about what is happening inside. Being able to observe and discuss what might be going on is so important and helpful. Video is okay, but not as good as in-person.
• Seeing clients who have become my trusted colleagues and collaborators. I live “being a part” of an organization vicariously by getting to know my client’s organizations and their people well. The trust we have built through many projects, makes the work easier, faster and better.
• Hugs. I don’t miss handshakes. I have always preferred hugs when I know clients well. I know this is verboten in a number of organizations these days – but clients are often able to treat me a little differently and I covet that. I think this is because I was raised in a big, affectionate family. We had our own kind of crazy, but there were a lot of hugs! 

 
What do you miss? Have you reflected on it, captured it or shared it with your colleagues? It’s worth exploring because I think it will cultivate some positive feelings and raise your spirits a bit. And most of us need more of that right now.
 
Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 20 years ago to help companies advance their leadership and people systems. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you! 
   
 
 
 

Some years ago, I was reviewing a leadership styles 360-degree assessment with a client. What he thought he demonstrated was vastly different than how his team experienced his leadership behaviors. He seemed shocked by the large gap in how he rated himself in comparison to how others did. He asked me, “What would cause this?” At the time I told him that it probably pointed to a need to grow greater self-awareness. It was a difficult conversation because this very bright, capable and accomplished executive had never had any leadership development and rarely, if ever, received feedback. It was a new, and painful experience for him. I tried to make it easier to hear, without undermining the feedback.
 
As I have continued to learn and develop, I think back on that conversation and realize that it would be somewhat different if we had it today. It’s true that if he wanted to accomplish amazing work with his team, he needed to work on becoming more self-aware. He was driving results too much and needed to hand over more work to his team and let them take on more so they could have a chance to become as accomplished as this executive. We humans mostly learn from doing and all the trials and tribulation that come with hands-on practice. We discussed this and I still stand by it.
 
But growing self-awareness alone does not help us understand the needs of others. Nurturing and learning greater curiosity, empathy and compassion are required. More ongoing conversation and feedback from others helps us grow our understanding with a greater range of people with whom we can be more skillful. Developing greater empathy allows us to better understand how we motivate, inspire, recognize and coach people who have different needs, that have a range of personality traits, different life experiences and see the world differently than we do. If this sounds soft and fuzzy, I can live with that. But make no mistake, this is about leadership effectiveness. 
 
To understand that leaders rarely accomplish anything alone, that they need others, requires learning to be less identified with the work and outcomes and more identified with truly engaging other’s best contribution. In other words, you have to want to nurture and develop human beings – to learn to coach them without doing for them. To trust them enough to allow them to struggle and make mistakes. And you need to be more curious about what makes them tick – which is often quite different than what makes you tick.

​And you have to care about other people.
 
The conversation I often have now is, does this (very difficult, frustrating at times, keep you up at night) work of leading others, make your heart sing? Do you love developing others? Do you enjoy it and feel connected to it? Or, do you love doing the work, getting stuff done and owning the accomplishment? This is truly where self-awareness comes in. Leading others is far too difficult if you don’t love it! 
 
What I know for sure is that every time a leader gets a new team member, takes on a new project, role, or organization, they will need to shift their behavior. Leadership will always be about meeting the needs of others, while still finding a way to take care of yourself. This part will never change.
 
Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 20 years ago to help companies advance their leadership and people systems. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you! 
   
 

During this pandemic, everything is shifting. At this point I don’t know the long-term impacts for my clients' businesses or my own. It has already been very difficult for some clients and others are flourishing. Instead of giving yet more advice for weathering this time, I thought I would share the commitments I made to myself when I realized that this was not going to be over quickly. 
 
Like many, I miss contact. I miss seeing my friends and clients in person. I am not sure I appreciated just how important these connections are to my happiness. I am worried about a few family members and my business. After having a small consulting practice for almost 20 years, I have learned to prepare for many eventualities. But this current situation seems like no other.
 
And I am also abundantly aware, every day, of how lucky and grateful I am for the life I have. Compared to so many, my worries are few. 
 
So here is what I am committed to during this time:

• Being as kind as I can be to everyone. This has been hard at times, especially watching some of the panic buying. I do not understand it and it was frustrating to see empty shelves week after week. But then I realized that this was probably an outcome of fear and that softened my heart.
• Taking good care of myself and my family. This involves some kind of exercise, every day. It is usually just 20-30 minutes. It also involves preparing healthy meals when what I really want is more comfort food (comfort food for me is stuff that almost always involves pasta, bread, cheese and butter – all at the same time - so not the healthiest choices in excess). Time outside is a big boost and nothing is better for my mood than 20 minutes spent walking along our beautiful lakeshore.
• Practicing Mindfulness every day. I am in a two-year Mindfulness Teacher Training program that started over a year ago. It’s been one of the best learning programs I have ever done (and I have completed some outstanding ones). It’s also been very difficult at times. It feels like an “inner MBA”. But I am starting to see the benefits of daily practice to my life, my work and my relationships. I am going to keep it up.
• Being more appreciative for everything. This is something I kind of pride myself on in general. But I put it in overdrive to balance what I see going on in the world and to remind myself that there are times that this feels like a slog for everyone. 
• Being more patient and flexible with project changes. Some of my clients and their organizations are managing extra change and chaos. They have had to move or cancel some of our planned work. I am disappointed. And I know they have much bigger issues to contend with right now, so this extra flexibility is the only choice.  
• Reaching out to a few clients each week to see how they are doing, with no other agenda, and not expecting them to respond. It seems enough to let them know that I am thinking of them. 

There is nothing about any of this that is going to set the world on fire or solve the COVID-19 pandemic. But it is all stuff I can do, no matter what. And that feels pretty good. 
 
Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 20 years ago to help companies advance their leadership and people systems. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you! 
   
 

Amid COVID-19 caution, if your company has decided it’s safer for those who can, to work from home (WFH), or offsite, I hope you can temporarily celebrate losing the commute. As a consultant with my own practice, I have been WFH for almost 20 years. I mostly love it but I had to learn some new habits to make it work.
 
Last year I went back on a client site for about nine months. I was curious when I started what that would be like. The commute added to the length of my day and I had to adjust to the fact that there were back-to-back meetings all day long. I mostly didn’t mind this that much. The biggest adjustment was becoming reacquainted with how unbelievably social workplaces are and how much less productive I felt. I got to experience firsthand what most of my client’s deal with every day. 
 
Corporations are, by very nature, very social entities. The social part matters a lot! You need it to work with teams, build relationships, influence and accomplish large initiatives. The interactions, formal and informal, are also often the spark for greater creativity and innovation. When you WFH, you miss all that and it has an impact. I also believe some folks struggle being productive from home because for them it is a place for their life outside of work. Even if they often work evenings and weekends, it’s not all day. 
 
Of course, there are many teams already working mostly virtually. For them the current situation will have little impact. But if your team is temporarily WFH full-time, I thought some pointers might be helpful for those leaders with a newly minted WFH team:
 

• Let your team know what you expect of them. If you expect them be available during certain hours, let them know that ahead of time. If you company has some good “WFH” ground rules, remind them of those. If you don’t, set some reasonable ground rules so there are no surprises and you don’t feel disappointed in anyone. 
• Start your day as much as possible like you start it at work. If you check in with your team on Slack or text, or set your goals for the day first thing, do that. Keeping your normal routines as much as possible, is a good idea.
• Try to make all communications that you might have in person or in a meeting, as alive and engaging as possible. Treat all meetings as if you are showing up in person and have them on Zoom, WebEx, or whatever platform your company uses. Phone meetings, especially with your team, are not as engaging for you or for them. The connection that happens during meetings where we can physically see people provides so many more cues that help us navigate messages and meaning. Don’t skimp on this.
• Add “social time” to all meetings. This happens naturally at work because some folks show up early or walk to a meeting together and catch up a bit. Try to replicate that as much as possible via your web-enabled meetings. If the WFH extends beyond a week or two, make sure you keep doing all the “affiliative” team stuff you do: celebrate birthdays, other milestones and important goals met. Though remote, at least half your team still need this.
• Work harder than usual to not use e-mail for something that you should be talking about in person. Schedule a web-enabled meeting where you can see each other. 

 
Finally, be more careful than ever about e-mail and text etiquette. Adding an extra dose of “please” and ‘thank you” goes a long way. It’s tempting to go into our shell, especially for those more introverted folks among us. Resist this urge. Your team needs your presence more than ever.
 
Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 20 years ago to help companies advance their leadership and people systems. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you! 
 

I was listening to talk by Jonathan Foust (Body Centered Inquiry), for a course I am taking. In it he speaks of “non-fixing” listening. This really captured my interest as much for me as for my clients (and probably lots of other human beings). 
 
As the focus of my work is organizations and leadership teams, I have been exploring how this applies to my work. For me and so many of my clients, we were promoted because we knew how to fix or improve things. In fact, many of us have made a career of fixing things, as in business turnarounds and transformations. This is important work and I don’t want to dismiss this set of extremely valuable skills. Fixing and improving is always going to be an important role for leaders and teams. 
 
But when we are working with our teams it is important to really understand what they need and what our intention is. So often what people need from leaders is their presence, their listening and their coaching so they can solve it themselves or with their team. They may not want or need us to “fix” it for them. They may really want to figure it out themselves. If what they need from us is our listening, and through that demonstrating our care, and we try to solve it, we should pause to ask who we are really helping (or hurting).
 
If your strong intention as a leader is to help others grow and develop (and I hope it is), the less you do their job for them, the better. What they may most need from you is to listen without trying to fix. They may need you to remain open and curious. They may need help to envision what is possible, and what they might do to bring greater clarity to or fix the situation. They may need to know, through your listening and not trying to fix (whatever), that you believe and have confidence in them.
 
If someone is newly promoted, new to their role, still developing crucial skills, or lacking the requisite confidence, they may need different, more involved coaching from you. And sometimes people do need clear direction from leaders, for all sorts of reasons. 
 
What I am really trying to say is that, as a leader, you bring immense value in being fully present with others and through that, demonstrating your care and confidence. I know it can be hard! But if you want your team to truly flourish, you need to apply the right tool to the situation. It’s really true, if we see every problem as a nail, we pull out the hammer. But sometimes what is most skillful is an open, curious presence, a smile, a few thoughtful questions and a message of support.
 
If it sounds too easy, and you feel uncomfortable, pay attention. Consider if the way you want to respond is because it’s “what you like/know how to do”, or if it is motivated by what the other person really needs. For many of us, “non-fixing” listening is challenging. We like to fix everything! As I tell clients (and myself), “sit down, strap yourself in, attend to your breath and listen.” You may be surprised at what happens when you really listen without trying to fix. 

Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 20 years ago to help companies advance their leadership and people systems. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you!