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clear about that. When you can see the answer and someone is struggling toward it slowly, every instinct tells you to jump in. It feels selfish not to. It feels like you're withholding something valuable.
But you're not withholding. You're investing. The person who struggles through a problem and comes out the other side with their own solution owns that solution in a way they never would if you'd handed it to them. That ownership changes how they approach the next problem, and the one after that. It compounds.
What I'm learning
I'm still working on this. My default is to help. I like solving things, I like being useful, and I like the feeling of someone walking away from a conversation with me with something they didn't have before. That's the part I have to watch, because the feeling of being useful and the reality of being useful aren't always the same thing.
These days, when someone on my team brings me a problem, I try to pause before I respond. The pause doesn't do anything magical on its own. It just gives me enough time to ask myself a question: does this person need my answer, or do they need the experience of finding their own?
Most of the time, it's the second one. And the hardest part of leadership, the part nobody prepares you for, is learning to hold your answer while someone else discovers theirs.
The leaders who've built the strongest teams around them all seem to share this quality. They're comfortable watching people struggle. They don't need to be the smartest person in the room. And they understand something that took me a long time to learn, which is that the most generous thing you can do for someone is trust them enough to let them find the answer on their own.
What would your team look like if you stopped being the one with all the answers?
Thank you for reading,
— Scott
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Scott Clary is a dynamic entrepreneur, investor, and author. He hosts the Success Story podcast, where he has candid conversations with some of the most prolific business & thought leaders in the world. The podcast ranks as a Top 10 business podcast, Top 3 Education / Self Development Podcast, has over 60m downloads and is part of the Hubspot Podcast Network & Cheddar.
Contact - @scottdclary / scottdclary.com