What if YOU are the Problem?
“They do the bare minimum.”
“They come to me for every decision and show no initiative.”
“They can’t seem to work together without drama.”
When things don’t go well on our team, it’s normal to feel frustrated as a leader. I get it. I’ve been there too. Frustration kicks in fast, and when it does, it’s easy to start labeling what we see in others.
But have you ever stopped to think about how you potentially contribute to the chaos?
Sometimes the source of the problem isn’t them, it’s us.
What if YOU are the problem?
That’s not easy to admit. We all want to believe we’re doing a great job as a leader, but sometimes what we do or don’t do end up being the source of team problems.
Think about it.
· Are people avoiding decisions because every time they make one, you jump in with a “better” idea?
· Are the conflicts really about personality differences or more about your inability to communicate clear roles and responsibilities?
· Do people do the bare minimum because you haven’t explained clear expectations or what success looks like in a way that makes sense?
One of the most overlooked steps in solving team problems is asking ourselves how we contribute to this. It’s easy to analyze the situation from the outside but we, leaders, need to remember to put ourselves in that picture.
Here’s a suggestion on how you can move past this:
Start by being upfront about what you’re trying to solve. Tell your team, “I want to create more opportunities for you to make decisions in your roles, and I want to figure out what would be helpful.”
Then ask two questions:
“What’s one thing I’m doing (or not doing) that contributes to this problem?”
“What’s one thing you’d like me to do more often to help with this?”
And here’s the hard part: listen without defending, without explaining, without justifying.
Take the input seriously and implement what you can.
That’s how trust builds and problems actually get solved.