Beyond Fixing: Fostering Innovation Through Empowered Leadership
You’re a leader. People are looking to you for answers. And you feel that pressure! We’ve all been at the receiving end of expectant staring, as a team member wants you to just tell them what to do in a challenging situation.
What’s wrong with giving them what they want? The urge to fix everything for your team is well-intentioned – but it can inadvertently stifle innovation and hinder the growth of your team members.
You don’t need to have all the answers. We all want to have solutions – but there may be a better way of approaching challenges that’s more empowering to employees. How can we avoid the ‘fix-it’ mentality and ask the right questions to spark creativity and resilience?
The Pitfalls of the 'Fix-It' Mentality:
By shifting the focus from solutions to questions, leaders can cultivate a culture of autonomy and creativity. We are naturally solution-focused individuals. Issues that arise in management or entrepreneurship tend to be problems that require a little lateral thinking – just the kind of thing we love to do as leaders. But hold off on that ‘fix-it’ mentality and put the brakes on the problem-solving for now – because if we want our teams to be stronger, we have a duty to support them in getting to the solution.
Empowering Through Inquiry
The next time a team member approaches you seeking answers, resist the urge to immediately throw out suggestions. Instead, initiate a conversation with questions that invite them to explore their own solutions by asking these questions
What Would You Like to Accomplish?
What is the end goal? Sometimes, an employee will come to you with the end goal first. But often, people tend to focus on the problems or issues standing in front of them. Encourage your team members to rephrase the challenge by focusing on the objective.
What Obstacles Are in Your Way?
Once you have the goal, now it is time to uncover what barriers your team member is facing. By identifying obstacles, you not only gain deeper insight into the issues but also empower your team to think critically about what is stopping them from succeeding.
What Solutions Have You Considered?
Instead of providing immediate answers, encourage your team member to brainstorm potential solutions. Often, the best solution is right underneath the surface, and an employee only needs to be prompted to think a little deeper to find a great solution.
Breaking the Dependency Cycle
The 'fix-it' mentality can inadvertently create a dependency on leaders for solutions. If you train people to come to you for solutions any time they encounter an issue, why would they try to fix it themselves? It’s easier and quicker just to get the answer from you.
By reframing the conversation through thoughtful questions, leaders help break this cycle. Team members become more resourceful, learning to navigate challenges independently and tackle problems before they hit your desk, and the team becomes stronger overall. It’s a win-win.
Trusting Your Team
Another facet of this is trust. Often, an employee will come to you for answers if they don’t feel like they can be wrong about something. If they ask you, then they know that whatever you say will be “right.”
An emphasis on psychological safety in the workplace can help with this immensely. By ensuring employees that they can speak out and offer solutions without fear of repercussions, you are doubling down on creating an environment where employees can innovate and come up with solutions without only looking to you for answers.
Shifting Interactions, Empowering Decisions
Having trust in your team to solve problems is akin to being able to delegate. Leadership is not about having all the answers; it's about cultivating an environment where answers can be found collaboratively.
Try incorporating this concept into your leadership toolkit, and be aware of when you are slipping into the fix-it mindset. By embracing empowering questions, leaders can foster innovation and a culture of continuous improvement. The next time your team seeks guidance, remember: the right questions can be more powerful than the quickest solutions.
Meridith Marshall is the CEO and Founder of Uncharted Way and has seen firsthand how people and organizations can navigate the most difficult of circumstances with clarity and openness to improve employee experience and culture in their workplace. She is an industry-recognized expert in using a data-driven approach and is a therapist and certified Co-Active coach.