When you are in a leadership position, people expect you to have all the answers, regarding any lessons in leadership.
All leaders must have been through a common recurrence whenever a problem shows up; people will come looking at them to have their answers. And most of the time, they will present them with a solution. But ask yourself this, is your solution the best always? It isn't, right?
How do Great Leaders Solve Problems
"Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence," says Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook. Thus, it becomes equally important that leaders groom themselves to be eager to give a solution and consider hearing others' opinions with patience. You will sometimes have an intelligent person in your team who may have a more thoughtful answer than you. Besides, intelligent people naturally excel at constructive convincing arguments that most likely will fall under your beliefs. With this been said, there's a famous Rubin's approach that you can follow to solve any problem below effectively:
Ask a question (despite you have an answer) like, "We are struggling to meet the deadline. What do you think we should do?" Now, this will help you to accomplish two critical things.
One: Employees Gets an Opportunity
You allowed your employees to showcase themselves. Even after considering all the inputs, you end up following none, and it will not matter much. As your employees most likely have returned to their chairs feeling somewhat accomplished and valued, meaning they will put more effort the next time to breakthrough.
Second: More Win-win Situations
Despite your reservations, you now have a better solution in front of you than what you had in your mind, which means a win-win situation, as you will be happy and so will be your employee whose opinion it was. You can even achieve this with the step-by-step guide to solid decision making.
So, the bottom line: This is how do leaders solve problems. Thus, when a problem shows up, be patient, ask for inputs, and then follow it up as described in this article.
To Read More: The Most Effective Ways Leaders Solve Problems
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