How to Coach Teams in Problem Solving

Your team isn't arguing about solutions. They're solving different problems. A senior leader I coached expressed frustration. The same issues kept resurfacing, no matter how often they met. Marketing wanted faster product launches. Product wanted more customer data upfront. Operations wanted clearer handoffs. Each team saw a different problem. They all proposed solutions.None of them stuck. What I saw: ❌ They were solving different problems ❌ No one named what they were actually solving for ❌ Solutions were developed in silos, then defended in meetings ❌ They skipped alignment because speed felt like progress The conflict wasn’t about disagreement. It was about unspoken assumptions. What we did instead: ✅ Slowed down before solving ✅ Asked: What problem are we solving, and for whom? ✅ Named what success looked like from each function's view ✅ Made space for different contexts before debating solutions ✅ Built agreement on the problem before proposing fixes What changed: → Meetings became fewer, shorter, and more focused → Solutions lasted instead of unraveling ��� Cross-functional tension dropped → Teams stopped firefighting the same issues → Decisions stuck because everyone was solving the same problem Over time, the shift became part of how they operated. As the leader put it: “The context step is non-negotiable. It saves us from solving the wrong thing fast.” When you rush to solutions, you create the firefighting that keeps you stuck. When you slow down, you start to realize: Shared understanding is the fastest way to solve something once (and well). 💬 What's one question you could ask before offering your next solution? 💾 Save this for your next cross-functional meeting 🔔 Follow Michelle Awuku-Tatum for more human-centered leadership insights that shift how teams work together.

Most leaders don’t burn out because they care too much. They burn out because they solve too much. Early in my leadership career, I thought being helpful meant having answers ready. If someone brought me a problem, I fixed it. Fast. That worked for a while. Then something broke. My calendar filled up, decisions bottlenecked with me, and the team stopped thinking ahead. That was the conflict I had to face: solving problems for people feels productive, but it quietly weakens them. Here’s what changed everything. The 3-Step Leadership Shift That Builds Problem Solvers in 10 Minutes or Less 1. Pause before solving When someone comes to me with an issue, I don’t respond with advice. I respond with one question: “What have you already tried?” This signals trust and immediately raises the level of thinking. 2. Ask thinking questions, not leading ones Instead of “Have you thought about doing X?” I ask: “What options do you see?” “What’s the risk if nothing changes?” This keeps ownership where it belongs. 3. Set a clear expectation I end the conversation with: “Bring me two possible solutions next time, and we’ll choose together.” Within 30 days, the quality of decisions improves. Within 90 days, dependency drops. Why this works Research on adult learning consistently shows people retain more and perform better when they generate solutions themselves. Leaders who coach instead of rescue create stronger judgment, higher engagement, and future leaders, not followers. Who this is for If you lead a team of 5 to 500, feel stretched thin, and want people who think instead of wait, this approach is for you. If you want quick fixes without developing others, it won’t work. The desire You don’t need to be the smartest person in the room. You need to be the one who helps others think clearly. Strategic application this week Try this for the next five conversations: • No solutions in the first 5 minutes • Ask at least 3 open questions • End with one clear next step owned by them Call to action If this resonated, share it with a leader who feels stuck carrying too much. And if you want more on building leaders who don’t depend on you, follow along. This is the work that scales leadership without burning you out. #LeadershipGrowth #HighPerformanceTeams #CriticalThinkingSkills

Most leaders think they're helping when they solve every problem. They are not! They're actually creating dependency. I've watched this pattern for 20 years. Leaders jump in with answers. Fast. Efficient. Done. But their teams stop growing. They wait for the leader to decide everything. Three coaching questions that shift everything: Question 1: "What's the real challenge here?" This forces clarity. Most problems people bring you aren't the actual problem. They're symptoms. This question helps them dig deeper before you waste time solving the wrong thing. Question 2: "What options do you see?" This shifts ownership. When people generate their own solutions, they're more committed to making them work. Plus, they see angles I miss. Question 3: "What will you do next?" This creates accountability. No vague "I'll think about it." They leave with a clear action and ownership of the outcome. I watched a manager use this approach last month with her team member who was struggling with a client issue. "What's the real challenge here?" The team member started talking about delays. Then paused. Realized the client wasn't upset about timing. They felt ignored. "What options do you see?" She came up with a few options. Picked one that made sense. "What will you do next?" She committed to a 15-minute check-in call. Problem solved in under 20 minutes. When leaders start using these: • Team members stop asking for permission • They bring solutions, not just problems • Decision-making gets faster • Confidence across the team grows The shift feels uncomfortable at first. Coaching takes more patience than commanding. But commanding builds order-takers. Coaching builds autonomy. Stop solving everything. Start asking better questions.

How do you help your team members handle challenges—without taking on their challenges for them? 

In working through a challenge and learning from it, your team is able to grow. Think about the last time a team member told you about a challenge they had…and then somehow it was turned over to you to manage, or you picked it up and solved it.

You might be so good at putting out fires you didn’t even realize it. 

I get it. I’m an action-oriented person. I love to solve problems. I love to support my team.

A leader’s job is to coach team members to solve their problems and handle difficult situations, not necessarily do it for them. 

I definitely learned this the hard way as a new leader.

First, I drowned in directly managing the team’s challenges plus my own. Then, I learned my efforts to help my team unintentionally showed them that only I can handle something, or to expect that I will.

I still take seriously my role as a leader to remove barriers and intervene, as appropriate—but I also remind my team members that I believe in their abilities.

Here are three steps to help your team members navigate their own challenges (with your support and guidance, of course). ASK QUESTIONS Ask your team member open-ended questions to help them think through the challenge. You might say, “What do you think the next step should be?” or ��How should we handle this challenge?” You want to draw out their perspective and demonstrate that this is something you expect them to manage. DETERMINE YOUR ROLE When your team member starts talking about their challenge, try to determine if they need to vent or need you to do something. Because I have a tendency to jump into things, I have to catch myself to ask if the team member wants feedback, support, or action. If they want feedback or support,they’re showing they intend to manage through the challenge and would benefit from your guidance. If they request action, dig a little deeper before you take this on. Try to understand if they aren't confident in their choices and need reassurance, or if they're delegating the tough stuff to avoid managing it themselves. REINFORCE YOUR TEAM MEMBER’S STRENGTHS Acknowledge your team member’s challenge—and their ability to get through it. Reassure them that you believe they can handle it. You may remind them of how they successfully handled a difficult situation in the past. Most importantly, remember that the leader’s role is not to solve their team's problems—but to help their team become better problem solvers.

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐦𝐲 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐟 𝐈 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬? That’s a great question, and one that comes up in almost every leadership coaching skills session I run. On the surface, it feels like a paradox: your people are looking to you for answers, and I’m telling you not to give them. Isn’t that contradictory? Here’s the shift: 1. 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐢𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐬, 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝒈𝒓𝒐𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦-𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬. If you answer every time, you create dependency. You become the bottleneck. The team never develops their own muscles for thinking, deciding, and owning outcomes (Parents, you know what I mean!). Your real value as a manager is not how many problems you personally solve, but how many people you grow who can solve problems without you. That’s how you scale. 2. 𝐂𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬. It’s about choice. There will be times when giving direction is necessary, such as in a crisis, for compliance, or for safety. However, most of the time, the faster win is not the more lasting win. Coaching slows things down in the moment so your team members can speed up later because they’ve learned to think, decide, and act with more independence (Yes, you 𝘤𝘢𝘯 take that holiday!). 3. 𝐀𝐬𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟: “𝐀𝐦 𝐈 𝐭𝐫𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞, 𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐦 𝐈 𝐭𝐫𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐟𝐮𝐥?” If you’re indispensable because only you know the answers, you’ve trapped yourself in a job you can never leave (I don't wish that for you!). If you help your people succeed by enabling them to discover their own solutions, you create a resilient and capable team. And that’s leadership. So is it an oxymoron to coach? Not at all. Coaching is the opposite of contradiction: it’s the bridge between helping in the short term and building capacity in the long term. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒐𝒅𝒂𝒚’𝒔 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒃𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒔. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒃𝒖𝒊𝒍𝒅 𝒕𝒐𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒘’𝒔 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒃𝒍𝒆𝒎-𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔. Kudos to the #KPMGSingapore managers for embracing this coaching mindset in our September sessions! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 If you’d like your managers to experience this shift as well, please drop me a note. Let’s build more leaders who multiply leaders! #thecoachingmanager #leadershipcoach #KPMGSingapore

The difference between mediocre feedback and transformational coaching? Four simple questions that most leaders never think to ask. Albert Einstein said it best: "If I had an hour to solve a problem, I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the right questions." As a former corporate trainer developing hundreds of sales representatives, I learned a humbling truth: my expertise meant nothing if I couldn't unlock theirs. The breakthrough came when I stopped giving answers and started asking better questions. The GROW model became my secret weapon. The GROW Model: A Framework for High-Impact Leadership G - GOALS: Establish the Destination "What would you like to achieve?" When people define their own objectives, they take ownership. Goals with personal investment become missions, not obligations. R - REALITY: Ground in Truth "Where are you now in relation to your goal?" Create psychological safety for honest self-assessment. You can't bridge a gap you haven't accurately measured. O - OPTIONS: Unlock Problem-Solving "What could you do to achieve your goals?" Let your people generate possibilities. When they create solutions, they commit to execution. When you create solutions for them, you create dependency. W - WILL: Convert Insight Into Action "What will you do?" This isn't just a question—it's a commitment mechanism. Always follow with "What support do you need?" Three Questions for Your Leadership Practice: 1. When was the last time you gave feedback that created true behavioral change?What made it different? 2. How often do you solve problems FOR your team versus WITH them? What would shift if you inverted that ratio? 3. If your legacy was defined by how many leaders you developed, how would you show up differently tomorrow? The most dangerous myth in leadership is that your job is to have all the answers. Your job is to ask the questions that help your people find theirs. People don't resist change. They resist being changed. The right questions don't push people toward performance. They pull out the performance that was already inside them. What's one question you could ask your team this week that would shift from directing to developing? P.S. - The employee or sales representative who was struggling? One coaching conversation using this framework completely turned things around. Same person. Different questions. The future of leadership is wiser! Need a speaker, moderator, or trainer for your next event? www.sidneyevansglobal.com #Leadership #EmotionalIntelligence #ExecutiveCoaching #GROWModel #PerformanceManagement #LeadershipDevelopment #CSuite #SalesLeadership #CoachingSkills

This year I've been working with a couple different teams of leaders who are learning to (in the words of Michael Bungay Stanier), "slow down the advice monster" and instead coach/empower their teams to solve problems themselves. The key to doing this is to move from TELLING to ASKING. Seems simple, but as busy leaders, it often seems easier and faster to simply give people the answer. If this is something you're trying to work on, the next time someone brings a problem to you, consider using the questions shared in this HBR article: 👉 What have you tried? 👉 What or who is getting in the way of tackling this? 👉 What support do you need? 👉 What would you do if you were in my seat? 👉 Is there anything else I should know? 👏 What else has helped YOU make the shift from DOING to EMPOWERING? #leadershipdevelopment #leadwithintention #development Article link: https://lnkd.in/eFMmwHNd

The leadership lesson that took me years to learn: Your team doesn't need you to have all the answers… They need you to ask the right questions. When problems arose, I used to think my job was to solve everything immediately. That approach created two problems: 1. My team became dependent instead of capable 2. I became overwhelmed instead of strategic The shift: From problem-solver to question-asker. Instead of "Here's what we should do," I started asking: • What do you think the core issue is? • What would success look like here? • What options do we have? • What would you recommend and why? Great leaders don't create followers. They create other leaders. When you ask the right questions, you: • Develop your team's problem-solving skills • Get better solutions (they're closer to the problem) • Build ownership and buy-in • Free yourself to focus on bigger picture Remember: Your job isn't to be the smartest person in the room. It's to make the room smarter.

🚨 I Thought My Team Had an Accountability Problem. Turns out—it was a leadership habit problem. For a while, I was frustrated. Decisions kept coming back to me. Ownership felt inconsistent. Which didn’t make sense…because I had hired smart, capable, talented people. 💡 The realization that changed everything: I wasn’t facing an accountability issue. I was stuck in telling mode instead of coaching mode. The unintentional shift I had made 👇 → Asking → Telling → Coaching → Solving → Ownership → Dependency Every time an issue came up, I jumped in with: “Here’s how to do it…”“Here’s the solution…” It felt efficient ✅ It felt helpful ✅ It also trained my team not to think ❌ So I changed one thing: Solving → Coaching Instead of answers, I consistently asked: 💡What would you recommend? 💡What options have you considered? 💡How can I support you? At first, it felt slower. Longer pauses. More silence. Some discomfort. Then I noticed the shift. Before: “Here’s the problem—what should I do?” Now: “Here are two options. This is the one I recommend and why.” That’s when accountability showed up. 💥 The leadership paradox This change slowed me down in the moment but it sped the team up over time. Less dependency. Stronger judgment. Real ownership. 🔁 For fellow leaders: If accountability feels off, ask yourself: Am I solving too quickly to let my team think deeply enough? 👇 Your turn: What questions have helped your team step into ownership?

Your team doesn’t need your answers. Here’s something else you can do. I saw a meeting pop up on my calendar and panicked for a minute. No context was given and I jumped to the conclusion that I agreed to a project and completely forgot about it. I went back through my emails, trying to figure out what I had committed to—but found nothing. When the meeting started, I realized something. My team didn’t need my instructions or solutions. They just needed me to bring a different perspective. They walked me through a project they were stuck on and asked, “What do you think?” At first, I felt like I had to give them an answer. But instead, I took a step back, listened, and asked a few questions: ▪ “What’s the biggest risk you’re worried about?” ▪ “How does this help the organization in a different way?” ▪ “Have you considered how to frame your recommendation?” I didn’t tell them what to do. I just helped them see the problem from another angle. By the end of the meeting, they started riffing on a different approach—and I didn’t have to give out any solutions. Leadership isn’t about giving answers. It’s about stimulating thinking and problem-solving. When you bring a different perspective, you’re not just solving a problem—you’re building your team’s critical thinking skills and their confidence. Adding value doesn’t mean you have to carry the weight of every decision. Sometimes, it’s as simple as listening, asking thoughtful questions, and waiting for your team to have that lightbulb moment. Let your team take it from there. Trust them. Guide them. Give them the space to shine. Because the best leaders don’t just provide answers—they help their teams find their own. 🔔 Found this post helpful? Follow along for daily insights to help you succeed as a leader.