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Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of performance through strong
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human relations, team building, and goal achieving.
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This is the Seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host, Paul Felle Valido.
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Hello everyone and welcome to the Seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
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This episode's 653 Leadership has a strange trap hidden inside it.
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The better you are at solving problems, the more problems people bring to you.
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At first it feels like a compliment, your team trusts you, they rely on your experience,
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they believe you have the answers and then one day you realize something uncomfortable,
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you're not leading a team anymore, you're running a help desk, every issue, every decision,
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every small obstacle flows upward to your desk, someone's computer problem, someone's
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schedule and conflict, a disagreement between two employees, a question about a policy that
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already exists, in the handbook you spend your day putting out fires that should never
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If that sounds familiar, there is an important leadership shift waiting for you.
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Your job is not to solve, every problem your job is to build a team that solves its own
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Let's talk about how that actually works.
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First, you have to stop being the fastest problem solver in the room.
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This is hard for experienced leaders when someone brings you a problem.
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Your instinct is to fix it immediately, you know the answer and you can resolve it in
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30 seconds, but every time you do that you accidentally train your team to bring you
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the next problem too.
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Speed feels productive in reality.
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It creates dependence when someone walks into your office with a problem, try this simple
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response instead, ask them one question, what do you think we should do?
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Now the conversation changes instead of handing the problem upward, they start thinking
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about it themselves, they might pause, they might struggle for a moment, that silence
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is actually leadership development happening in real time.
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Second, normalize problem ownership.
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Too many organizations teach employees to escalate issues immediately, the culture becomes
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take it to the boss, that culture kills initiative instead, build a rule that problems should
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be worked at the lowest possible level before they move upward, encourage your team to
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talk to each other first, encourage them to try solutions, encourage them to collaborate
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before escalation becomes necessary.
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When employees know they are expected to think first and escalate second, something powerful
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happens, the team becomes smarter.
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Third, give people permission to make small mistakes.
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A team cannot solve its own problems if they are terrified of getting it wrong.
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If every decision carries the risk of punishment, people will avoid decisions entirely, they
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will push everything upward to leadership because it feels safer.
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You have to send a different message, it's okay to make a decision, it's okay to experiment,
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it's okay to try something that does not work the first time.
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A healthy team learns through action, not hesitation.
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Fourth, teach the difference between problems and decisions.
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This sounds simple, but it changes everything.
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Many issues brought to leaders are not actually problems, they are decisions waiting to be
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For example, someone might say, we have a scheduling issue that sounds like a problem, often
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it simply means two options exist and someone needs to choose one.
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Leaders who teach their teams how to recognize decisions create momentum instead of waiting
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for instructions, employees start choosing the best available path.
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Fifth, reward initiative loudly.
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When someone solves a problem without your involvement, celebrate it, mention it in a meeting, send
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a quick message thanking them for stepping up.
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Recognition reinforces behavior, if employees see initiative being praised, they start
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looking for opportunities to demonstrate it.
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You want a team that does not freeze when something goes wrong, you want a team that looks at
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a challenge and says, let's figure this out because here's the truth about leadership
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that many people learn the hard way.
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If your organization depends on you for every solution, your leadership ceiling is extremely
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You become the bottleneck.
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Decisions take longer and stress rises.
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On the other hand, when you build a team that thinks, collaborates and solves problems
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together, everything starts to accelerate your organization become stronger than any single
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So, let me leave you with one practical challenge today.
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The next time someone brings you a problem, resist the urge to immediately solve it, instead
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ask three questions.
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What do you think the real problem is?
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What options have you considered?
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What solution would you try first?
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Those three questions turn a complaint into a leadership conversation.
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They also turn employees into problem solvers over time.
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Something remarkable starts to happen.
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People stop coming to you with every little issue.
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They start coming to you with solutions.
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And that is the moment you know your leadership is working because the strongest teams are
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not the ones with the smartest leader, the strongest teams are the ones where everyone
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So if you want to become a stronger leader, start by asking better questions.
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Start by giving your team space to think, decide and solve.
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The organizations that move fastest are not the ones with leaders who have all the answers.
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They are the ones where everyone is thinking and everyone is stepping forward.
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This has been The Seven Minute Leadership Podcast and I thank you for listening.