#43: If They Keep Coming to You for Everything, This Is Why—and How to Fix It

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Eric:  Welcome to the Empower Podcast. I'm your host, Eric Pfeiffer, CEO of Empower. Coaching leadership isn't about titles or positions. It's actually about the influence and impact we have on our environments. This is where we get to learn how to operate well under pressure, lead with confidence, and drive meaningful results.

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There's a moment that happens for a lot of us as leaders, and it's easy to miss how important it is. Someone from your team comes to you with a question. It's not necessarily a crisis. It may not even be that complicated. Before you even had a chance to think about it, you give the answer. And again, you  keep moving, the day keeps moving, but something starts to stick in your mind.

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Dawn: That's right. And yes, I weekly, multiple times a week and dealing with  this same problem with our clients. And what makes this issue so sneaky is on the surface it can feel like you're being a good leader. We're being helpful. We're being available to our team. We're keeping things moving. The good news is when we do this, nothing breaks, nothing blows up, but over time we start to feel it.

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But that sense of. There's a team lined up outside my door waiting for me to solve everything, and they can't move without me. Uh, starts to weigh us down, and the question that this begs is, how did I get  here? How did I end up with this reality that I've now have to exist inside of? So Eric, what's your answer to that?

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There is a good reason for us to step in, answer a quick question, solve a problem, help somebody move forward, get unstuck. Um, but if we're not careful, if that becomes our default. Mode of engaging the questions,  challenges that our team members are, are facing. Um, we can get ourselves into a long-term, difficult situation that we're gonna come back to.

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Yep. So, and over time, like I said, a pattern begins to form. And it's not because our team is lazy, but because we as leaders have quietly become the place where there's  certainty.

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Dawn: So we had actually trained them to depend on us by how we respond. How  do we shift this dynamic once we are becoming aware of this reality?

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Or the people that we're leading, um, from an even greater opportunity, which is their own growth and  development. And just like in parenting, there's nothing wrong with helping our kids until we realize, yes, that they're not learning the necessary skills and abilities to solve their own problems, to overcome their own challenges, to figure out life for themselves.

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And so the shift here isn't about not giving answers. It's about recognizing that development requires a different kind of leadership posture. One that stays engaged but doesn't try to resolve the tension too quickly because  growth happens. Lemme say that one more time for our listeners. Growth happens in the tension when leaders, when we as leaders, remove all uncertainty, right?

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Dawn: Oh, yes. And this is where, you know, we can all easily point out the,  the air in the parenting ways when an 18-year-old is still having their laundry done for them.

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And it's the same for our teams.  It's uncomfortable for us as leaders to make that shift when we are accustomed to making all the decisions because. Watching somebody think in real time feels so slow. Watching somebody wrestle with having to make a decision when we can see it clearly feels really messy and it certainly doesn't feel efficient.

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I know how to solve that problem. I know what to do. Um, yeah, there, there is a real tension, not just for the individual who might be invited  into a space where they have to. Exercise these muscles, but also for the leader to slow down and to be patient with these moments, which I know for most of us as high achieving, high powered leaders, um, that can be really difficult.

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So if we're choosing efficiency over and over again with our teams. By solving problems and giving answers, we're robbing them of the opportunity to increase their capacity. Um, that a, which I, we've talked about this before in other episodes, which actually not  only increases their capacity, it increases the capacity of our entire team and even potentially our organization.

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Eric: Yeah, definitely a, a mindset shift, right? Most of what we talk about in, on these episodes, you know, we, we kind of identify a challenge that we probably most of us resonate with at some level in some area of our life,  okay?

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Eric: we're not advocating for that. That is not fun for anybody. Um, especially the person who's drowning. But, so it's not about refusing to help, it's about practicing, like we said before, a different  leadership posture. So the next time someone comes to us with a question to recognize the opportunity not to be efficient, but to be more effective, and to choose to pause, not dramatically, not awkwardly, not to give them a hint that like, oh my gosh, how do you not know this?

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There's uncertainty. That's okay. There's a problem to be solved. That's okay. There's a challenge we're facing. Yeah, that's  okay. It's okay to be in this space and that we don't have to find the fastest, easiest, most immediate solution, but instead to consider practicing curiosity, asking some simple questions like, Hey, help me understand what do you think the problem is and how do you understand or interpret?

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What are the options that you are seeing? Right now. And I think what we're doing in that moment is subtle, but so incredibly powerful. Because what? By doing that, we're communicating number one, Hey, I see you. Mm-hmm. I hear you. I value you. I see you in  this sticky situation. Yeah. I care that you're in this situation and I trust that you can participate in the solving of this problem, which is really, really valuable.

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And unless we are first able to capture ourselves to pause, we are not ever going to be able to. Travel a new path. Mm-hmm. We are not ever going to be able to make new decisions. And so that, I just wanna  encourage our listeners, if you're like, God, they're talking about pausing again, that pause is actually the key to making any sort of significant change in your life.

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Now they immediately have the right answer. Yeah. Right. The goal is for them to get comfortable in the uncomfortable. With the tension of wrestling with the problems, I, I remember years ago, one of my favorite teachers in all of my schooling was my eighth grade pre-algebra teacher.  Aw. And I can tell you math was not my strong suit.

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You can learn this stuff, but  it's gonna require that you engage. And I'm not gonna give you the answers, but here's what I will do. If you'll come for just a few of your lunchtimes and just sit with me and let's talk through these problems and let me help you ask the right questions, and then I'm just gonna give you some guidance and I'm gonna, but she invited me into this 10.

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But here's what the amazing thing was, is that that her willingness to spend that time with me radically boosted my confidence. It gave me fresh courage to begin to believe I can solve these problems, and I actually went on to do really well in that class. And then  it was what? Here's what was ironic is that as I transitioned into my high school years, my mindset totally, I'm like, I went from like I suck at math.

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But our willingness to invite people into that tension and to learn to live in it ourselves as leaders, I think is the mindset shift that if we'll embrace it, yes, it's a little bit slower and a little messier in the beginning, but  actually we'll yield the things we're actually looking at, which is to be able to pass on more responsibility, to delegate more responsibility to the people on our team and, and actually to build an environment, a culture.

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Um, and it reminds me, Dawn, of one of my favorite books that I've ever read. Um, which is by a gentleman named Joseph Campbell, a hero with a thousand faces, and which, which, by the way, Donald Miller did a reiteration of that through a marketing lens, which is genius. So if anybody wants to look that up. But the hero with a thousand faces basically just helps us understand this kind of arc type of the narratives of our, of our human history, which is basically to say that.

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But leadership is about recognizing that part of our hero's journey is then turning around. To the people that are behind us to say, how can I leverage what I've learned to empower you so that you can be on your hero's journey? So that you can grow, that you can experience greater success, right? And so I think as leaders, sometimes we step  into the office, into meetings, into the projects and the things we're working on.

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But again, that's gonna require that mindset shift. That's gonna require the, the slowing down, the messier experience, and a willingness to impart to others the skills, the abilities, even  the character that was required of us to get to where we are so that they have a chance to do the same.

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Am I just gonna run fast or am I going to make that mindset shift, look around and invite people  on that journey so that we can go farther together? That's gonna require me. To become a guide, it's gonna require me to value effectiveness over efficiency. It's gonna require new things of me, and sometimes that alone is difficult for us to engage because it's gonna require us to become learners again.

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The first one is, as most of our listeners have probably heard me say over and over again, I love to golf. I'm an avid golfer. I love it. I love the experience, the internal challenge, the the internal competitiveness, the opportunity for me to constantly practice to try and get better. And I'm always competing against myself primarily, but as my son's gotten older, he  eventually realized, Hey dad, you know, it'd probably be good if I picked up golf.

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Yes. And I have to actually take time to spend with him and to help him assess his golf swing and help him work through his frustrations and. And help him. And help him and help him. And I'm like, I'm not having time for myself and how am I gonna get what I wanna get done? Done? And then we, we, you know, we started going to the golf course and actually, you know, trying to get out there and get a few holes in  and I realized I'm used to getting out there and playing.

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Um, but the, here's the cool thing. Here's what I, I have to remind, I tell  him this, but I'm really reminding myself more and more, son. But as you get better and as you get more comfortable, then you and I can travel together and go on golf trips and spend more time together doing this. It could be our little hobby together.

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But my vision, my mission for this coaching business is so much bigger than anything I could do by myself. And so part of one of my responsibilities, and  that you've started to share in as well, is we've gotta train other coaches. And so what I often find myself doing is the, or the temptation is, you know, when you or any of our other coaches comes with a particular problem or a question, or a, a challenge they're facing as they're working through our toolkit or they're working with their own clients, is, you know, I have so, so much experience, so much learning that I have, uh, accumulated over the years and yet.

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This is a challenge. This is a no big deal. This is good. This is an opportunity for you to stretch some of your muscles and for me to play the guide and not the hero. And so  to ask those questions, Hey Don, help me understand, like, so explain this, the challenges you see. It help me understand it, break it down.

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This is actually no different than what we do with our  clients. Right. We don't want to solve their problems.

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Mm-hmm. You're gonna have to make a plan, you're gonna have to act on it. You're gonna have to learn from the outcomes and. You'll learn from that as well and move forward. But  that's where the transference of responsibility that this is why you said earlier, our kids are still, you know, we're still doing their laundry when they're 18.

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two things came up for me in that when you were telling that story, it requires a vision because it's. Harder than doing it ourselves. Mm-hmm. So I have to have an external vision that is motivating me to do something harder than  just figuring it out myself. Yep. I need a vision for why I'm teaching my son to play golf.

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Hey, that's a great question. What  do you think? I didn't come here to help hear myself speak out loud. I already know what I before, but here's the genius in what he was doing was that he was training me. Hey. This is something you need to learn how to do. Now, he would help, he would offer insights. He would, if I, it looked like I was gonna run off the edge of a cliff, he'd say, Hey, you know what?

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Dawn: Yep. And, uh, we had a real, I had a real clear vision of him getting this driver's license because as I've mentioned before on here,  he is an avid fisherman.

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Eric: Oh Lord, that sounds so much like  Jesus. Take the wheel.

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Lord, help us. And then we're  gonna try to drive in the fast lane. You know what I mean? There, there is a very clear intentionality, developmental process that we're engaging in so that we build the capacity for him to be able to drive himself, which is ultimately the goal. And initially it is a heavy lift.

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There's also a vision for them, right? A, a a vision of independence for your son, A sense that he's accomplished something. It's a coming of age of sorts. In our culture, there's this sense that he's a, he's achieved some level of responsibility, as  scary as all that might be. Mm-hmm. There's a really clear vision, both for you as the leader.

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We're gonna give you 15 to 20 seconds just to reflect on that because what I know as human beings is that you as the listener, don't start thinking until we stop talking or. Unless you tune us out halfway through the podcast and your brain goes somewhere else. So we want to  give you an intentional bit of time to think what's the one takeaway?

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Dawn: All right. If you are listening to this and realizing that you are the bottleneck in your organization because you don't give your team the opportunity they need to grow in the tension, then we'd like to invite you to join us for our monthly masterclass where we unpack these ideas even more deeply. We give you the opportunity for q and a, and we would love to see you  there.

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We'll look forward to seeing you next time. Hey, thanks for tuning into this powerful episode. Today's conversation is a great reminder that leadership isn't just about what you do, it's about who you are becoming. If this episode gave you something to think about or inspired you in any way, share it with a friend or  colleague, leave a quick review and make sure you've subscribed so that you never miss an episode.