Photos by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash

The title seems counter intuitive, right? After all, asking for solutions from your team is the role of the leader.

In fact In my Limitless Leader Journey, as a follower I was asked this:

“Don’t bring problems, bring solutions”

Have you ever been asked/told the same?

Bring me solutions. It was something I also followed with when I was blessed to lead teams. The idea behind it was that you challenged your teams to not just “whine” about problems but to solve them too. It was the right thing to do. It was effective but was it efficient?

On my leadership journey, I have come to realize a few blind spots with the ‘bring me solutions, not problems’ approach. When a leader sets up this culture, he runs the risk that if the teammates do not have a solution, they will not bring to him the problems until it is too late. Have you ever faced a situation when you said:

Why did you bring me this issue earlier?

You may have heard the adage ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’, it is essential for the Limitless Leader to asses their teammates knowledge or experience on different subjects or situaitons. Especially during these times when what we are facing as a society, as businesses, we have never faced before. The solutions you may get may not be the right one. So how does the Limitless Leader ensure teammates confronts problems?

As I see it, what is the most important is not the solution but rather the reflection.

“Not the solution but rather the reflection.“

Tito Kang

The Limitless Leader most important approach in confronting the problems is to ensure the quality of the reflection their teammates have had towards the problems. So the culture is set as: ‘Bring the refelction you have had on the problems’

Once this is set, the Limitless Leader engages the ‘Coaching Mode’ by asking meaningful questions, here are some examples:

• What’s another way we can see this problem?
• What options do we have?
• What are the disadavantages/advantages of XYZ approach?
• What are the elements that we are not seeing or that we don’t know about?

Often the Leader rushes to don their super hero cape and swooshes in to save the day by providing the ultimate solution. The Super Hero Leader seldom exists in my experience and in my readings. The Lone Leader Savior has never been alone. The Big Mac came from Mc Donald’s franchisee so did their breakfast sandwiches. The Frappucino was brought to Starbucks Leadership from team members working in one store. Orin Smith ( CEO Starbucks – 2000 -2005 ) said it best in a keynote during one of our Leadership Conferences back in 2002:

The Magic of Starbucks does not come from One Big Brain in Seattle, it comes from Thousand of Big Brains across the world.

Orin Smith – CEO Starbucks Coffee ( 2000 -2005)

Limitless Leaders set up a culture where the team is excited to bring how they reflected on a problem sometimes with solutions, sometimes not.

If interesting, please like. If valuable, please share.

Mahalo for being part of the Journey!!!

Tito Kang

The Journey Is Limitless. The Growth Is Possible. The Journey is BAMDIGIOUS!!!